One Day in Petticoat Square : Phil Parker - Trumpet Shop
Dave Woodhear, Tristan Gaudion & Will Hodgson
OPENING HOURS
Monday - Friday
10am - 5.30pm
Saturdays
10am - 5pm
First things first. A secret about brass instruments?
All brass instruments have evolved from the animal horn, the prototypical musical instrument.
People will travel from New York and Iceland for a visit to the best trumpet shop in the world, Phil Parker.
I traveled from three doors down, but still with the excitement of a New Yorker fresh of the boat coming for their first visit.
Phil Parker Ltd. was founded by trumpet player Phil Parker 1945, after being demobbed.
The business began in the middle of Soho and was originally a teaching studio. Over the years it has developed into a specialist brass musical instrument business with a global customer base.
On an average day down at Phil Parker you will hear the sounds of beginners making their first notes mixed in with the sounds of experienced professionals making sure they have the right kit for the next big project.
Today Im feeling fortunate getting a glimpse of the life we used to live before virus hit. A life with live music pretty much every week.
Tristan, the mouthpiece diversity officer (..a title I didn’t even know existed!) is giving me a taster of what this trumpet has to offer and if I dare say; I wasn’t much of a trumpet fan until this very day and moment.
Moving up two floors in the building I get introduced to Dave Woodhear, the senior technician. He has made a whole lot of repairs, customisations and alterations over the years with clients being anyone from the famous American Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie to Buckingham Palace.
While he is squirting some sort of liquid to the brass I get increasingly curious about the many diplomas from The Guardian hung above his head, addressed to people like Freddie Green and Snooky Young congratulating them on winning the Cross Words Award. If you want more of that story you will have pay Dave a visit in his workshop.. it involves him bonding with his mother over crosswords and the whole thing escelating in to a slight addiction. How they ended up with Freddie and Snooky on the wall is a whole other story!
On Phil Parkers website it states “we will do all we can to ensure your next purchase is an enjoyable, rewarding and above all, a fun experience”..This I can confirm! Not that I got looped in to buying a trumpet on my visit, but I sure did get thrown in to deep discussions about The Godfather, Superman and The Terminator.
Will, Dave and Tristan all fell into working at Phil Parker through playing brass instruments themselves, and Ive got a suspicion that if I hadn’t had such a great passion for Benk + Bo they could have very easily won me over to become a part of their team instead.
Oh, and if you are reading this and you are keen for a trumpet but can find the men you are looking for, pop your head in to The Bell, our local pub, and you will be likely to bump into at least one of them! Their words, not mine.