When I was studying classical saxophone at Trinity College of Music (1977-81), I applied and auditioned for the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) panel to teach peripatetic woodwind in London schools. This was in my final year at Trinity. I was soon employed in several schools, a day in each. This included Haverstock School in Camden, Skinners in Stamford Hill and another in Kennington. I fell into teaching to earn some money and learnt teaching skills and how to communicate music and ways to practice to students, on the job. The rest of the time I was practicing, trying to understand jazz, transcribing solos and tunes, learning a musical vocabulary and improvising and playing with other like minds in jazz. I was also beginning to compose my own music and was doing some gigs.

I had been going to a Monday night adult education jazz workshop in Kilburn run by saxophonist John Williams. He then moved to Shropshire and offered me the job of continuing the class. This began for me around 1986 and also at that time I began teaching a saxophone class and ensemble at Richmond Adult Education college on Saturdays. Teaching just seemed to fall into my lap. Apart from the ILEA application I have never applied for any teaching or had a CV in those days.

Ian Carr the trumpeter/composer and author ran a summer jazz course in Hull and he had already asked me to dep for him at Interchange in Camden, a jazz class he had set up that mentored many musicians who are on the jazz scene now. I was lucky enough to meet the wonderful drummer Tom Skinner when he was a teenager there. We recorded and performed together many times in the years after. The Hull course was centred around Ian’s band Nucleus. Phil Todd was in it at the time and he called me to dep on the summer course as he had so much other work. I was petrified to be around my heroes like Ian, drummer John Marshall and bassist Jeff Clyne. They were all so welcoming and I did it for several years after that until it finished. My experience in teaching 1-1’s and ensembles was increasing, and seemingly my reputation as a teacher was also increasing.

During this period in the 1980’s I was also touring a lot with the saxophone quartet Itchy Fingers and we did some teaching when on tour in Africa and South America.

After 10 years of teaching in various schools in London I was offered the saxophone teaching at Middlesex Polytechnic. This was 1990. Alan Barnes had been doing it previously and gave it up. Although the ILEA teaching had been saxophone, clarinet and flute, I stopped playing the latter two instruments, realising for me that saxophone was hard enough for me without adding other instruments.

Around the same time in the late 80’s composer and bassist Graham Collier had set up a jazz degree course at the Royal Academy of Music. Barak Schmool (who I had met when I had depped in the big band Loose Tubes) was a student there studying composition and classical saxophone and he suggested to Graham that he wanted lessons from me. So I have Barak to thank for getting me in to RAM in 1990 until the present. I am still on the books at RAM but have no work there due to the ‘cancel culture’ experience I have had since March 2024. A story that can be found online in detail with interviews with me such as:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlGdwUAUAcc&t=103s

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuKez3zQCvY&t=61s

By 1990 I had given up the ILEA school teaching, the Richmond Saturdays and the Kilburn Monday evening class had stopped in 1991. That same year I went to study at Banff Centre For the Arts in Canada, a month-long jazz course with Steve Coleman as artistic director. This was life changing in many ways and my experience there also fed back into my teaching and playing.

I now was teaching at RAM and Middlesex where the students were at a higher level and were there voluntarily to study jazz. This was an exciting period and my teaching and understanding of the music was developing. Graham at RAM was very supportive of me and gave me lots of work there. Students of all instruments came to me for 1-1 improvisation lessons so I could have bassists, drummers, piano players, singers, trumpet players, guitarists in addition to all the saxophone players. I would be taking repertoire ensembles, jazz history, marking recitals, auditions and attending faculty meetings discussing how to develop the course. I miss those days and it was before student fees which changed the whole mentality of higher education in 1998 when introduced.

I began teaching on other summer course including Wavendon and Treforest in 1996. All my experience I was also having of playing and recording with many different musical collaborations was feeding back into my teaching at the institutions.

In 1997 I began teaching ensembles at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD). Looking in my diaries from that time, some days I would teach at RAM in the morning, GSMD in the afternoon and then a gig in the evening. Exciting times for me and a lot of work. I was loving it all and I felt it as one thing, the playing and teaching, particularly with the high level of students.

The Treforest summer school, which moved to Glamorgan became a regular for me from this period and that was a wonderful week-long experience (sometimes I did 2 weeks).

In the next decade I became an external examiner for Birmingham Conservatoire (BCU) and also did some teaching there and Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD). I began teaching on another summer course in Roujan, France with Simon Purcell and Lianne Carroll organised by Clive Fenner which I did for several years. 2002 I also taught on the Perth Jazz Summer School in Scotland. In 2003 I taught on the Michael Garrick Summer School.

On the Isle of Wight, I taught on the summer course with Jeff Clyne, Trevor Tomkins and Nick Weldon.

By 2007 I stopped teaching at Middlesex University (previously Polytechnic) as I had so much teaching at RAM and Trinity (later becoming Trinity Laban-TL) and GSMD.

From 2010 I began teaching on the newly formed National Youth Jazz Collective (NYJC) summer school run by Issie Barratt. This is for young musicians up until 18 years old and is often a feeder course for the Conservatoires as many students went on to study at degree level at RAM, TL, GSMD, BCU and RWCMD. I did that until 2021.

In 2019 and 2020 I was asked to teach on the Hong Kong Youth Jazz Collective.

In 2022 I taught on the winter Jazz course at Engelsholm, Denmark alongside

Hilmar Jensson, Tina Raymond, Rachel Eckroth and others.

Until 2024 I was still teaching at TL, RAM and GSMD.

I have left TL and GSMD and although still on the books at RAM I have no work there. So after four decades of teaching in Higher Education that has come to an end.

Going through my diaries and documenting all of this has made me realise I have had a vast wealth of experience of teaching jazz and improvising to all levels of age and experience and all instruments. There are probably many teaching experiences I have missed out including all the many private students I have had along the way.

I am now available to teach saxophone students or any other instrumentalists interesting in developing jazz vocabulary, repertoire and improvisatory skills.