It is somewhat unreal to read a comment on Twitter from the great jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins about a member of your extended family, admittedly one who has just had his obituary printed in the Guardian newspaper. My mum's cousin John was, by all accounts, a giant in the world of jazz - a highly respected and much loved promoter and founder of the London Jazz Festival. There will be numerous tributes written about him by far better writers than me but I thought I'd write my own memories of the man who was simply cousin John.
John was about 16 years older than me, and like me had gone to school at the Edinburgh Academy. I saw little of him while growing up, unlike his parents who were like grandparents to my sister and I as three of our grandparents had died long before we came into the world. I have very fond memories of his father Robert who was a lovely man with a contagious laugh. But when John was spoken of by my parents there was something rather disapproving in their tone relating to the fact that John had left university and was working at the Traverse theatre. As is so often the case with young people who decide to try and earn a living in the Arts, such a move does often not go down well with their parents' generation. There are usually comments along the lines of, why doesn't he get a proper job and just do this theatre stuff as a hobby?
Thankfully for the jazz world John ignored such comments and stuck with his love of theatre, subsequently moving down south to Bracknell and then on to London. On the day of his wedding to Ginnie I recall her coming up to me at the reception, which was held at their house in the country, and asking me who I was. From her delighted reaction I guessed that we had met sometime previously but I had changed somewhat since that time. The photos I have of John from those days are limited to their wedding and his mother's surprise 80th birthday party at a hotel somewhere in Wiltshire, this being where his parents moved to after his father had retired from the Health Service.
I did on occasion stay with them at their house in north London which was always enjoyable though I recall one slightly fraught incident when John accidentally hit his young daughter Kate with a door which he was opening. The poor girl burst into tears and John had that exasperated look on his face that said, "I can't do anything right here." I remember looking in awe at all the cds he had piled up on a table though John was somewhat dismissive of them as he remarked that he would never be able to find the time to listen to them all. Little did I know that I would experience the same thing when I became involved in local radio. Promoters would at times swamp me with new releases that I would struggle to keep on top of but it was a nice problem to have.
John was generous when it came to offering free tickets to family members and on one occasion we met him at the Usher Hall on the Edinburgh date of a Wynton Marsalis tour. I went to the concert with my father who was mainly a fan of the Big Band Era and wasn't sure about many of the younger musicians who John worked with but he enjoyed the Marsalis gig as did I. And when John discovered that I was a fan of Richard Thompson he put me on the guest list for a couple of his gigs.
It would have been nice to have talked with John more about jazz, especially our shared love of Blue Note Records, but as my wife observed, the times we saw him either at home or at family occasions he was in home mode and more interested in hearing our news or talking about our shared love of cats. But in the last email I received from him, while he was in hospital, he did comment on the fact that I'd recently downloaded a Dave Milligan album of solo piano pieces. He simply said, "Dave Milligan good.... very good."
I'm going to miss you cousin John as will Mr Rollins and countless others in the music world and beyond.
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