Howell (Jack Howell)

Howell is the one-man handmade pipe workshop run by American musician Jack Howell in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pipe making is not Howell's primary profession: since 2015 he has served as principal bass clarinetist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and he also teaches clarinet at Duquesne University. The workshop therefore does not run continuously but works in the gaps left by the concert calendar; production volume rises and falls along with that schedule.

From Music to Pipes

Howell is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado; he has served as principal clarinetist of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and has played with the Santa Fe Opera and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Since 1996 he has taught clarinet and chamber music at Duquesne University's Mary Pappert School of Music. Before pipe making, he had also worked in other handcraft fields: knife making and bamboo fly-rod making chief among them, and he has written a book on bamboo rod making. The fact that clarinet playing requires carving one's own reeds appears to have fed a habit of working with fine hand tools.

He began making pipes in 1999 and sold his first pipe in 2004. During the same period he attended the Chicago and Columbus pipe shows and became known in the online pipe communities of the time. By his own account, his output ran for a while at around fifty pipes a year; after joining the orchestra's roster it turned into a largely commission- based and infrequent production, a figure with no independent record. In the long stretches when the concert calendar clears, the pace at the workshop rises again.

Style and Craftsmanship

Judging from known examples, Howell's work leans on the classic repertoire rather than on experimental freehand exploration: straight and bent billiards, lovats and short-shanked shapes, and acorn-like bodies are frequently seen types. Since the workshop has no published shape catalog, this account is based on observation of pieces in circulation. Shape choices are generally made to keep the grain in the block visible.

Sandblasting holds a prominent place among the surface treatments. On sandblasted pipes, layering lighter brown or reddish tones over a dark underlying ground gives the texture added depth. Semi-rustic and smooth polished surfaces also appear. Both vulcanite and acrylic are used for mouthpieces; horn or light-colored spacer rings placed between shank and mouthpiece form part of the design on some examples. The material of these rings goes undocumented in most examples.

Stamps and Identification

According to restoration records, the stamp struck under the shank of these pipes carries the name "Howell" in an arched arrangement, with the letters "JH" and the year of manufacture below it. Since there is no official statement on the stamp's form, this description is based on individually examined examples. Including the year in the stamp is considered a detail that makes it easier to date secondhand examples.