The bassist Herbie Flowers took his music seriously, but himself less so. I once arrived early at the village hall in Rottingdean, near Brighton, for one of his gigs. He was the sole other person there, and asked me: “Have you seen a drummer?” I hadn’t, and half expected him to say the event was cancelled. But he just shrugged and said: “Oh, that’s a shame. He’s got the sandwiches in his car.”
During the interval of one of Herbie’s sold-out jazz gigs in Brighton on a hot Sunday morning, I joined a queue for water. Herbie joined it behind me and asked: “Is this the queue for refunds?”
He will be much missed.
