Book of Remembrance

Everybody lives on in the memories of their friends and family, and in their children. But great musicians live on in a special way, in the music making they inspire in those who have heard and loved them. It's true for me. I must have first heard Jon when I was sixteen years old. Do you like jazz a friend said, and slipped Bare Wires on his cool 60s stereogram. I couldn't really take it in at first but came to love it. It opened the door to jazz and blues for me. A lifelong passion. I saw Jon several times with Colosseum and heard his amazing drum solo at the Bath Festival at Shepton Mallet. He seemed such a gentleman. As Dick Heckstall Smith told us in his biography, when everyone else was out of their minds in the Graham Bond Organisation, Jon was reading the paper or nipping out for quiet curry with Dick. If you haven't heard Bare Wires, Those Who Are About to Die Salute You or the wonderful New Jazz Orchestra albums well you should do. And if you have then listen again. They are little masterpieces. The whole British jazz and blues scene gave us so much and still does. Truly, it is part of Jon's living memorial.