Paul Brodie

For the founder of Brodie Bicycles, see Paul Brodie (businessman).
Not to be confused with Paul Broadie.
Paul Brodie
Brodie c. 1982
Background information
Born(1934-04-10)April 10, 1934
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
DiedNovember 19, 2007(2007-11-19) (aged 73)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
InstrumentSaxophone

Paul Brodie, OC (April 10, 1934 – November 19, 2007) was a Canadian saxophonist, pupil of Larry Teal and then Marcel Mule.[1] In 1994, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour, for having "shown true mastery of his art through his ability to reach all ages with his music".[2]

Since 1960, he performed over 3000[3] concerts in Canada, United States, Mexico, France, England, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Israel, Australia, China, Italy, Scotland, Russia and Argentina (1998). He is a very heavily recorded concert saxophonist - with 50 albums recorded for Golden Crest Records, CBC International Service, CBC Enterprise, Truly Fine Records, Classic Edition, Music Minus One, China Records, Dinant Records, and ROI Records (Hong Kong).

Warren Beatty featured his saxophone playing on the soundtrack of his Academy Award-winning film Heaven Can Wait. He was also included on Clyde Gilmour's Favourites, an album celebrating Clyde Gilmour's 25 years on one of the most famous programs ever heard on CBC Radio. Brodie has appeared as a soloist with most of the leading orchestras in Canada and has often been featured on CBC Radio, CBC Stereo, CBC Television, CTV and Global. In 1980, he commissioned Ben Steinberg to write Suite Sephardi for him.[4]

Asked in 1984 about his 1950s undergraduate study with Larry Teal at The University of Michigan, Brodie replied: "The most important thing I learned from Larry was a sense of self-discipline. The first 500 times a student plays an exercise is the introduction; the second 500 times is the repetition. To a student who likes to flip from one thing to the next without perfecting anything this is a shock. A musician must learn to take a piece of music apart. This takes great patience and much time. Larry was a terrific technical teacher who demanded perfection. He had a plan for each student, a well-organized progression from one skill to another. He was a real pedagogue and certainly my experience with him was one of the greatest experiences I had in my entire education."[5]

Concerning his tutelage with Marcel Mule, Brodie said: "I certainly think the most important teacher I had was Larry Teal because he taught me how to play, how to read, how to count, and how to develop myself as a musician. But when I went to study with Marcel Mule, I met an artist, probably the greatest artist that the saxophone has had in this century. Hearing him play was a lesson in itself in sound and interpretation. Therefore, the skills we worked on were primarily interpretive and artistic."[6]

He is the author of A Student's Guide to the Saxophone, as well as three books of saxophone solos published by Frederick Harris Music. In 1969, Brodie co-founded with Eugene Rousseau,[7] another pupil of Marcel Mule, the World Saxophone Congress and he has been an artist/clinician for The Selmer Company of the US for over 30 years.

  1. ^ Sax, Mule & Co, Jean-Pierre Thiollet, H & D, 2004, p. 139.
  2. ^ Order of Canada citation
  3. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-18. Retrieved 2011-12-16.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ^ Durrell Bowman; Clifford Ford (15 December 2013). "Ben Steinberg". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  5. ^ Roe, David W. “Classical Sax: Conversation with Paul Brodie.” Music Educators Journal 70:7 (March 1984) 41-42.
  6. ^ Roe, David W. “Classical Sax: Conversation with Paul Brodie.” Music Educators Journal 70:7 (March 1984), 42.
  7. ^ Sax, Mule, & Co, Jean-Pierre Thiollet, H & D, 2004, p. 139.