In the old George Evans band, Don Rendell and I sat together for a time. Don used to keep time by stamping his feet on the legs of my baritone stand. This was fine, as long as I played the machine on a sling.

Playing on the stand was another matter. After a few days of putting up with this I had to complain to Don who, to give him his due, graciously apologised.

We had some interesting times in the band—musically, if not financially.

George had the unusual combination of ten saxes, five trumpets, four rhythm and vocalist. I was on tenth sax (presumably because there wasn’t an eleventh sax). We mustered up five altos and five tenors, or three sopranos, two altos, three tenors, baritone and bass saxes. Our piece de resistance was a monster clarinet section, comprising six clarinets, two alto clarinets, and two bass clarinets. George’s arrangements were way ahead of his time, and I always feel that his subsequent disbanding, due to illness, robbed the world of a most interesting addition to the music scene—one that would have made the grade.

One player in the band who really knocked us all out was altoist Charlie Chapman, now a famous teacher and virtuoso. I’ll always remember an arrangement of “Apple Honey”, that featured a written break for Charlie. The band stopped for several bars, and Charles triple-tongued at break-neck tempo-and never faltered or slowed down once. Jimmy Staples