Sam

Sam Coppen - born in London in the Swinging Sixties to a musical father, her early memories incluse the family home full of musicians and singers, artists and beatniks who she entertained with puppet shows and by miming pop songs with a hairbrush as microphone.
At 12 years old, she wanted to learn saxophone but was told at her convent school that it was ‘no instrument for a lady’. Being then given a clarinet, she determined to hate the latter and to never become a lady. However, the woody, dulcit tones of the clarinet soon had her wooed and during an early classical training, she played first clarinet in different orchestras and small formations.
Later, however, she found her calling in the freer environment of jazz and improvisation. Sax in hand at last, she moved to Paris where she haunted the jazz clubs, meeting and playing with musicians from around the globe. From playing Irish folk-punk in street bands to Klezmer and Tom Waits with the Screaming Ab-dabs, Sam further broadened her musical experience.
It was while living in Paris that she met PK and where, apart from playing in different bands together, they also started writing arrangements for just themselves - guitar, vocals and clarinet - the first whispers of the Blue Planet Sound. Sharing a love for travel as well as music, they set of on a journey which has taken them around the world, through all the scales and has cemented a joint love for Brazilian music and culture, especially the bossa nova.
Apart from playing sax, clarinet, Brazilian percussion, working on studio recordings and collecting vinyl records, Sam is also a member of the samba school Sambrasileia, performs regularly as dj miss golightly, enjoys graphic design - being responsible among other things for most of the CD covers on the BPS catalogue & is the inventor of the cute & cheeky Poppeteers.