 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2008-11-14 14:22
I thought many of you might be interested to read about Jimmy Yan's life as written by his son Jun. Jimmy's obituary will appear in a December or January issue of Local 802's Union Newsletter.
Jimmy Yan (whose Chinese name is TianYi, meaning "divine intent") was born on August 4th, 1936, in the Hubei province of China. Jimmy's father was a protestant priest who studied theology in the US. While in middle school and high school, Jimmy joined the school bands and learned to play a number of instruments, including clarinet, trumpet, and several other brass instruments. This marked the beginning of his career of a professional clarinet player. In 1955, at the age of 19, Jimmy was admitted into the Shanghai Music Conservatory (the "Music Conservatory" or the "Conservatory") as a major in clarinet, where he received advanced education and training to become a professional musician. In the same year, Jimmy met a fellow piano student Ada Chen, who later became his wife for 47 years. Together, they had 2 sons.
In August 1960, Jimmy graduated from the Music Conservatory and began working as a clarinet teacher for the Middle School Affiliated with the Shanghai Music Conservatory, where kids at young age were professionally trained to become musicians either directly after the Middle School or after receiving further advanced trainings in the Music Conservatory. Jimmy worked there as an educator for young musicians until he left China in 1982.
Jimmy had always been a very "handy" person since when he was a child. He had a talent for anything and everything that was mechanical and learned to make or repair a variety of items through out his life, even though he never received any formal training. He taught himself to dissemble, clean, and then assemble watches that had mechanical movements. His most prized project was to put a completely run-down, almost destroyed piano (an upright standing "baby grand") together back to its original condition, which took him over one year. And as a professional clarinet player, he learned to repair, modify his own instrument ever since his student days at the Conservatory, and he made reeds both for himself and his fellow players during the years when he was in China.
Between 1980 and 1981, Jimmy met 2 western musicians who would play a key role in changing his life completely. Donald Westlake from Australia, and David Glazer from New York, were two accomplished western clarinet players who were invited to China as visiting scholars to teach at the Conservatory for brief periods of time (2 – 3 months). During their visit, Jimmy was assigned as the local liaison and translator from the Conservatory's teaching staff who assisted and worked with Don and David very closely during those months. Gradually, their professional relationships developed into close friendships, and after many months of hard work, Jimmy was able to obtain a student visa under the sponsorship of Don to Australia in June 1982. Jimmy left China for Australia in the summer of1982, and one year later, he came to New York with the help of David.
Jimmy began to work professionally as a clarinet and wood wind instrument technician shortly after he came to NY and because of his ability to transform from a musician to a skilled technician, he was able to obtain a permanent residence in US, sponsored by a music instrument manufacturer in Queens. As his expertise grew in repairing and modifying clarinet and other instruments, he moved into a mid town Manhattan office in 1993 to work as a partner with the shop owner, a fellow technician who also specialized in woodwind instruments. In 1998, Jimmy established his own shop, the JY Woodwind, in an office building on west 54th street and he continued to develop and improve his skills and techniques as a specialist in clarinet repairs and modifications. Since his becoming an independent owner of JY Woodwind, his reputation grew over the years as he provided top notch services to some of the best players in the business. His own experience as a professional player, his creativity and talent as a mechanic, and his two extremely dexterous hands allowed him to gain intimate understanding of his clients' needs, develop unique solutions to the issues, and solve problems to the satisfaction of his clients. During the last 6 to 7 years of his life, Jimmy also learned to manufacture, in his little workshop, both mouth pieces and barrels from scratch (i.e., chunks of wood). His usage of alternative material in barrel making – i.e., using nylon / plastic strings to bind the barrel ends instead of metal rings, made his barrels unique in their construction, which lead to significant improvement in sounds. It was a rather big success and these clarinet parts became some of the most favored purchases by his clients.
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: michal
Date: 2008-11-14 15:57
Amazing!!! So touching and you can feel how much admiration his son had for his dad's life work. It is an incredible story and makes me miss him even more...
michal
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Author: dmfett
Date: 2008-11-14 19:10
Very nice bio and thanks for doing it and posting it on line for us all to read...
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Author: martin
Date: 2008-11-15 21:35
I'm greatly saddend to hear of Jimmy Yan's passing. He was such a nice fellow. I always left his studio in a better frame of mind than when I arrived. My thoughts are with his family.
Martin Shapiro
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