It was by listening to Goodman's band, that I began to notice the guitarist Charlie Christian, who was one of the first musicians to play solos in a big band set-up.

We were a band who made it very, very big. That's all.

Being such a big band is never a problem but it can be distracting.

We used to play the underground clubs like the UFO, and Middle Earth, and they were great because they would have on things like a poet, string quartets, and then a rock band! It was kinda cool!

When I got my band in 1983, I knew what I had to do. If I'm going to have a big band, they're going to have to sound equally as good as what I'm used to hearing.

So I was always around music and my dad was in his own way a progressive jazzer, a big band jazzer guy.