John Robert Brown lives in Leeds in West Yorkshire. He is Past Chairman of the Clarinet and Saxophone Society of Great Britain.

John contributes regularly to Classical Music magazine, Jazz Review and Music Teacher. He wrote the chapter on Jazz Clarinet in the Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet, and contributed the pencil drawings to the Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone.

John's 'How to Play Saxophone' (St. Martin's Press, New York) was first published in 1983 and still sells worldwide. His 'Concise Guide to Musical Terms', published in 2002 by Mel Bay, was named 'Editor's Choice' in Clarinet and Saxophone Magazine. John's book, 'A Concise History of Jazz', was published by Mel Bay in 2004. His arrangement of The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba was performed by the Fairer Sax in the John Schlesinger film 'Madame Sousatzka' (1988). Publications include Quintet for Brass (1994, premiered by Fine Arts Brass), La Habana, for euphonium and piano (Warwick Music), Quartet for Saxophones (Warwick Music), and many folios of jazz transcriptions for IMP and Warners.

His saxophone pieces 'Altango' and 'Tangram' (both published by Warwick Music) appear in the 2007 ABRSM Grade VI saxophone examination lists, and his recorder studies 'Calidarium' and 'Breakfast at Betty's' (both Warwick Music) are in the ABRSM Treble Recorder examination syllabus for 2008/2009.

Formerly, after a decade as a performing musician, John was a schoolmaster, eventually teaching full-time in the UK conservatoire sector. For the final decade of his work in tertiary level music education John acted as a student recruitment consultant, first for Leeds College of Music and later for the prestigious Birmingham Conservatoire. In this capacity he travelled to China, Finland, Korea, Japan, Israel, Malaysia and Singapore, Norway, South Africa, the USA and elsewhere.