A Manchester hospital psychiatrist who grew disillusioned with his job quit to pursue a childhood dream.
With Manchester's Royal Northern College of Music turning 50 this year, the M.E.N. spoke to one of its alumni whose own career path didn't always stick to the script. Aged 10-years old, Jeremy Sassoon was the music school's youngest student when it opened in June 1973; he even presented HRH the Duchess of Kent with a bouquet at its official opening.
In life's funny way of coming back on itself full-circle, Jeremy, 58, is now back at the RNCM teaching a masterclass on the pop music course. But his career took an unexpected turn at the age of 18 when, like a true musician, he "rebelled".
"They all expected me to go on and have a career in music but I went on and did medicine," said Jeremy. "I became a doctor, ended up becoming a hospital psychiatrist in Manchester, literally a few hundred yards down the road from the college."
After going off to study medicine in London, he had worked as a doctor for a time in Australia before returning to his home city to practice psychiatry at Withington Hospital and Manchester Royal Infirmary. Yet despite his love for his profession, he wasn't entirely satisfied with his life's path.
"I wasn't entirely happy," Jeremy said. "It's funny, we're actually talking right now at a time that the junior doctors are on strike.
"That was always the case, even 30-years ago, junior doctors were really unhappy. It was an unhappy place to work, so although the content of the job was wonderful and I'm still very very affectionate towards anything to do with mental health – the job, the system, the NHS, was still an issue back then.
"When doctors tend to leave medicine, they often go into the creative arts. You get a lot of comedians, or they go into theatre. There's no point being in medicine and becoming an accountant, if people leave they leave for something quite different."
Which is exactly what Jeremy did in 1995 when he left his job with the NHS. Having studied as a pianist and trumpeter at the RNCM, he started playing gigs in small bars, mainly playing and organising gigs with a soul and reggae band based in Moss Side.
Determined to pursue his career as a full time musician, he later began concentrating on playing piano and keyboards. "Being a keyboard player I worked a lot with singers," he said.
"I worked with a jazz and gospel singer called Paul Bentley, who really was a wonderful singer. The two of us worked together for nearly 10-years and became known as a bit of a double act."
Following his musical partner's decision to stop performing in 2010, Jeremy found himself at another career crossroads. "At that point I was stuck," he said.
"It was like being back to square one as my whole career was based on this double act as a keyboard player. So I had to think long and hard as what to do next and decided to try singing myself, because I had never done that.
"And the minute I started singing my career took an upward trajectory, and within a year-and-a-half, I headlined Ronnie Scott's jazz club during the Olympics in 2012. I then launched a show of the music of Ray Charles with a 17-piece big band.
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"We played at Ronnie's and all sorts of festivals, and in 2019 I had my biggest gig, which was a place called the Love Supreme festival. It was on the main stage alongside Jamie Cullum and Lauren Hill. So this was a big moment."
Following this success, Jeremy devised a new show just before the country unexpectedly went into lockdown in 2019. Now back touring again as a trio, the show is called Jeremy Sassoon's MOJO, with MOJO standing for Musicians Of Jewish Origin.
It charts the history of 100-years of Jewish songwriters. "It starts with George Gershwin and Erving Berlin 100-years ago and it goes right through to rock 'n' roll – Carol King, Billy Joel, Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and all the way up to Amy Winehouse and beyond," he said.
Tickets for the Manchester gig which takes place on June 18 at Hale Synagogue, Shay Lane, Hale Barns can still be purchased here. He's also performing his MOJO show at the Sonata Piano and Cabaret Bar in Manchester on July 9, with tickets still available here.
In another career twist, recently Jeremy has found himself hosting a masterclass talking about his career as a musician at both Salford University and the RNCM. In the course he speaks about his musical career as well as incorporating his life working in mental health.
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"I speak a bit about psychiatric services for students, music students in particular, and the interplay between psychiatry and the creative arts," he said. "I think that music is inextricably linked to mental health.
"You and I, or anyone else, if you want to manipulate change or raise your mood you will go to your record or CD collection, and you will put a particular album on. You will know at that time, at that moment, emotionally you will want to hear that particular album rather than another.
"We use music to change our mood and that's pretty much what I do in gigs. People often comment on the huge difference between my career in psychiatry and my career in music, and I actually say, they're almost identical to me because what I do in music is communicate with a large group of people in a room and hopefully they leave in a better mood than when they came in."
Adding: "The main thing that's different is the lifestyle, the way it operates. Being employed in a system versus being self-employed. For more precarious you could read more freedom.
"The currency for medicine may be more stability and certainly more money, that's what it's high in. But the currency for music is the freedom and the creativity.
"So when people say which one do you prefer I say neither of them. I don't really prefer one over the other, I'm still very much connected and in love with psychiatry, but it's which one suits you more, which lifestyle suits you more.
"Being a musician, I know I'm in the right place."
You can learn more about Jeremy and his music on his website by clicking here.
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