The Godfather of British Jazz: The Life and Music of Stan Tracey
by Clark Tracey
(Equinox, £39.95)

IN HIS 80th year, Britain's greatest jazz pianist Stan Tracey described his life in music as “one long voyage of discovery” and this biography by his son Clark, who played regularly with his father as a drummer from 1978 to 2013, is a profoundly engaging account of that journey.

[[{"fid":"1073","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"},"link_text":null}]]Tracey, born in South London, grew up “between Tooting and Brixton” and Clark relies on his father's diaries to describe his boyhood as an accordionist before becoming a pianist and his launch into professional music with Tony Hancock's comedy tours and as a member of the RAF Gang Show touring Palestine and Egypt.

His trips as pianist on the liner Queen Mary took him to New York where he found his heroes. “Monk and Ellington were the two piano players who really zapped me,” he wrote.