Bill Ashton, the founder of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, was pivotal in my life – and in the lives of so many musicians.
At the age of 18, I used to get up at 6am every Saturday and catch the train from Leicester to London, just to attend his rehearsals at the Cockpit theatre. You never knew who would be there: one week, you might find yourself learning from a dozen of the country’s best saxophonists; the next, you could be leading the sax section yourself.
To an outsider, it may have looked chaotic. But to those of us hungry to learn and desperate to play alongside the greatest musicians of our generation, Bill created a kind of paradise. No course, book or curriculum could have come close to the living, breathing education he offered. He was devoted to the orchestra, to music, and to young people.
