Tubby Hayes: The Life Behind the Tenor

I have just received my copy of one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot of books!).

    Tubby Hayes: The Life Behind the Tenor is a simply stunning collection of visual artefacts around the great British jazz musician that far too few people have heard of.

    I was involved as a contributor to Mark Baxter and Lee Cogswell's film A Man in a Hurry, which served to introduce Hayes to a whole new audience. It's incredible that the film came out only in 2015, after a lot of work by Baxter, Cogswell, Hayes devotee Simon Spillett and Richard, son of Tubby.

    I must have first heard recordings of Tubby Hayes's playing in around 1981, when I moved to London, ostensibly to study for a Music and English degree, but actually to play sax in big bands and sessions.

    Along the way, I discovered many other sax players (several thanks to Paul Weller, who continued my musical education while I played with him and Mick Talbot in The Style Council), but none were quite like Edward Brian 'Tubby' Hayes.

    The dizzy heights of Hayes's performances were never within my grasp, but a number of my heroes at the time held the great man - gone just a handful of years before at only 38 - in great esteem.

    He was extraordinary and I stand by my one-word description of him on A Man in a Hurry - "Awesome".

    What's particularly pleasurable about this new book - apart from the perfection of the presentation - is the inclusion of images of mouthpieces and reeds, press cuttings, posters and diaries. Together, they shed light on the man who wielded the tenor sax in a genuinely unique way.

    I'm proud of this, number 29 of just 100 copies, signed by men I'm proud to call my friends - Mark, Lee, Simon and Richard. Thank you, gents, for shedding overdue light on the man his son rightly calls "A Legend".