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Re: I think I found a rare mouthpiece? H. O'Brien, Indpls, Ind

Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-11-04 02:22

There's a little bio on Harry O'Brien, the founder of the company.

To read it, Google to Frequent Traveler Ancestry Music and Family History: Harry O'Brien. No mention, though, of any rubber or rubber with metal inlay mouthpieces, just the crystal ones. Members of the O'Brien family continued to make the crystals for several years after Harry's death. It would be hard to know the date on your rubber/metal inlay piece without a lot more information. Also hard to know if Harry made it or he or someone else in the family stamped the O'Brien logo on another brand of mouthpiece. The absence of rubber O'Briens in the used market as compared with the fairly frequent appearance of the crystals suggests either that the rubber ones are very rare, very very old, or both. The article also mentions the O'Brien clarinet. The crystal mouthpiece that Irving Fazola sometimes played and passed on to Pete Fountain was most probably an O'Brien.

Klose said that he preferred the sound and stability of a crystal mouthpiece, but that was many years before the time of O'Brien. Did Klose play a crystal made by "Charly" or "Charlay?" I seem to have seen that info somewhere but cannot locate it now.

Post Edited (2017-11-04 09:54)

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