Q&A: Simon Purcell

PC: How did you become a jazz musician?

SP: I come from a family of classical musicians. My grandfather was quite a clarinettist in his time, playing for Sir Henry Wood. Fortunately my parents liked jazz, particularly my dad, and I became interested in it in my early teens. Besides The Beatles, we never had any kind of pop music on at home.

I got interested in jazz at school (in the mid-1970s), where there was no jazz but plenty of good, classical music. I used to try and transcribe Kenny Ball and Chris Barber, working from a reel-to-reel recorder, playing this with my friends and writing out all the parts and solos. I often got these wrong but learned a lot. I went to college [Trinity] as a French horn player. Jazz then became more than a hobby, particularly when I had an embouchure change and switched to piano as a relief from hours of long notes! I was besotted with jazz, buying records and going to gigs all the time. The only jazz connection I had was Jazz Journal, which came out once a month. If I didn't get the one single copy of it in Great Malvern, I was distraught! I also listened to jazz on the radio, to Peter Clayton's programme, literally under the pillow because it was at 11pm at night.