But now, more than 20 years later, he has decided to return to his real passion.
Luke (39) has two talented brothers who are already successful in their music careers.
‘Adam, my younger brother, is a professional drummer in London and is playing in Jersey Boys in the West End,’ Luke explained. ‘He has eight shows a week, plus two and a half days teaching. He pursued a performance career and now feels that he has achieved his goal
‘My older brother Lee was a musician in the RAF band for 20 years and he’s now a successful freelance musician and teacher.’
Luke, who won the Jersey Young Musician of the Year in 1995 playing tenor horn, was planning to go to music college when he had a change of heart.
‘I auditioned, but didn’t go,’ he said. ‘To be brutally honest, I had a loss of confidence in my own playing. I was a big fish in a small pond here, and I went over there I got a bit of a shock. So I stayed and decided I wanted to have a year off.
‘I’d lost that confidence, so I thought I’d work and do music for fun. It was also partly laziness. But I was able to get something from music locally that was satisfying.’
In the ensuing years he got married to Caroline, got a part-time teaching job and worked at de Gruchy department store, Le Gallais estate agents and then the Style Group.
‘I realised that as good as I was as a salesman, I wasn’t being true to myself, to what I really wanted to do in my heart,’ said Luke, who decided to give up the day job last year to concentrate his efforts on a new enterprise called Music Managed by Luke Brown.
By this time, he was married to Caroline. He has always continued with his music, and played in bands including Acappella Brass. He was also a founding member of Premier Brass and set up a successful corporate band called Little Black Dress (an eight-piece soul and pop band) and last year he formed The Gatsbys when he saw an opportunity to do something in a small jazz way, different from Acappella.
‘In the last couple of years I realised that I could create an opportunity for myself to do something with music as a job,’ he said. ‘With Little Black Dress I knew I could make that work, so I decided to set up Music Managed by Luke Brown with a number of different acts under the umbrella.’
He now has ten acts on the books, among them Little Black Dress, Acappella Brass, The Gatsbys, Optimistic Voices, Majestic Fanfares, Kings of Swing, Little Big Band and Hayley Smith. His business also provides gigs at places like Radisson Blu Hotel, the Blue Note and the Troubadour.
‘I am passionate about music. It isn’t just about the money, it’s about providing a really good product to people – particularly for weddings, which the most important day in people’s life,’ said Luke.
‘My bands’ work is growing and I’m also teaching at Beaulieu, De La Salle and Victoria College and at the Jersey Music Service. I find it really rewarding working with the children.
Luke started playing the trumpet when he was nine, the age his own daughter, Gabriella, is now. There was little history of music in the family, although the boys’ interest in playing an instrument was clearly encouraged by their parents, Marilyn and Michael.
‘My mum played a bit of piano, but there weren’t really any musicians in the family,’ he said. ‘But I distinctly remember a car journey when my mum asked what instrument I was going to learn. I just wanted to be like big brother Lee, and then Adam was the same.
‘But we were lucky, because we were given a good opportunity to learn with the Jersey Instrumental Service, as it was then called. And there were lots of opportunities in and out of school, like playing in the Band of the Island of Jersey. We wanted to be the best, and entered the Eisteddfod and all the competitions at school. Music was our thing. I feel quite grateful for that.’
Sadly, the brothers and their sister Rani lost their mother (63) to cancer in 2012. They set up a charity called Operation Daffodil Jersey. ‘We plan three events a year to raise funds for local cancer charities in memory of Mum,’ said Luke, who has some big ideas for future events.
‘I want to bring over jazz musicians to teach for three or four days, but charge a reasonable amount, just to cover costs. It would raise awareness as well as a few funds for Operation Daffodil,’ he said.
He feels that there is a gap in the education of jazz for youngsters. ‘There wasn’t so much experience of jazz locally when I was growing up and not many opportunities to get involved with it. Even now, there’s not that much opportunity. I’d like to give young kids the chance to work with jazz musicians, maybe a couple of singers, a drummer, or couple of sax players, who are working professionally in the jazz world and who will come to Jersey on a charitable basis.’
One of the main reasons that Luke decided to turn his music into a full-time profession was the death of his father.
‘We lost Dad 12 months after Mum. He died suddenly in the kitchen, getting ready to go to work. Dad and I had got close after the loss of my mother and when he died it was harder because it was so sudden.
‘But born out of that pain, I became a new me. The fundamental change in me wanting to do music was realising that life is too short, that you’ve got to do the thing you want and be passionate about it, because you never know when your time’s up. The positive way of looking at it is to live each day fully.
‘I love music. And now I’ve got loads of projects that I want to do. When I commit to it, I can really make a difference.’
