Jamms Mouthpieces
were created by Andrew Bronen, the owner of Bronen’s Music in the
Bronx, New York. Like his father Sidney before him, Andrew quite
literally grew up in the music business, having begun working at his
family’s full-line music dealership at the tender age of ten.
Andrew’s
grandfather, Benjamin started Bronen’s Music in 1915, back when Warren
G. Harding was president, the Model T ruled the road, and movies
were still silent. Although much has changed since Bronen’s first
opened its doors, the store is still in the Bronx and still helping
musicians from students to professionals with a level of informed,
personalized service that has made it a local legend.
The Bronen family
has helped countless student musicians get their start. It was
through his work with students that Andrew Bronen came up with the
idea for his patented Jamms mouthpiece. After seeing students spend
time looking for lost ligatures, or become frustrated with chipped
reeds, Andrew was motivated to find a better way.
Careful research, patience, trial and error, led him to design a prototype that
incorporated all the performance features of a fine mouthpiece, but
was able to hold the reed in place without a ligature. He ran his
invention past educators he knew, and they were uniformly blown
away.
This is how Jamms
was born. Andrew is confident that his new mouthpiece will encourage
many students to develop a deeper, long-term interest in music. His
experience has taught him that students can become discouraged and
dropout of music, because of small impediments (like a slipped reed
or uncooperative ligature) that slowed their progress and took the
fun out of learning.
“We want Jamms to
succeed, not only from a business standpoint, but also because we
believe that it will make it that much easier for students to
progress in music,” said Andrew. “And music education is something
my family values – it’s been that way with us for many years.”
