I’ve been with the wonderful bunch of characters that is now Soulside since 2006.

I love the way being a musician allows me to enter hitherto unknown buildings and worlds and whether the venue is the five star Clivenden House Hotel, a village fair in Somerset, a bar in Britany or a wedding in Bristol, what I notice most is that, regardless of language, age or culture, music connects people to themselves and each other.

What a world it would be if everyone played an instrument.

There are only twelve notes, but how many tunes? I’ve attempted to play some of them in various arrangements. With Straighten Up and Fly Right, a five-piece Nat King Cole /Mose Allison / Harry Connick Jnr. style swing band I added the horn parts and improvised some alto solos; while for six years I was the horn section for KJ Music Zone -a covers band playing hits from the sixties to today; and then I underpinned The Big Red band -a twenty piece street band - with baritone bass lines. For a while, I also ran my own ten-piece Salsa band.

It has been my pleasure to meet many people and make many new friends because I can make sounds from a conical and no I didn’t say comical, metal tube. But what fun I’ve had with The Ambling band at the Venice Carnival parading under the Campanile in Piazza San Marco and through the mud and sunshine that is Glastonbury Festival or with Fanfare Zebalize pressing the keys on my saxophone at two in the morning in Cadiz or hanging onto the rigging of a preserved tea clipper in Brest harbour and what joy it has been to see people jump and giggle, dance and clap, hoot and holler, laugh and kiss, as I’ve blown warm air over a thin reed, with various jazzy combos at day centres, school fairs, birthday parties, weddings, corporate annual dinners and the occasional funeral.

I have taught saxophone privately for tens years up to Grade 8 and university entrance level and that has taught me so much about what people really want in their lives.