1985

I’ve been thinking about Charlie and his progress from community jazz worker in the 80s to manager in the 90s (The Afghan Whigs!) to ME sufferer in the next decade to university lecturer in the next. That year, when he worked at Community Music, I must have asked is he knew any drummers. He suggested a teenager called Jan Kincaid. We (singer/guitarist, bassist – and me on my Wurlitzer electric piano) ‘auditioned’ him at a rehearsal place in Wapping. It didn’t take long. He was about 16 – and a thousand times better than us.
Someone asked him what he liked.
He said: Jazz funk.
We scratched our heads and said goodbye. (And soon split up.) But I always remembered his name. He was GOOD.
About 5 years later, I saw the Brand New Heavies on Top Of The Pops and recognised him. And went: Aha…
By then I’d given up music. I knew it was no use…