Simon Spillett

I've always been slightly wary of those blogs which do nothing but act as a thinly disguised advert for their authors wares. You know that sort of thing: "I'd love to wish all our readers a wonderful new year and remind them that my new album The Ingratiating Sound of Mr. Obsequious is available from all good shopping malls" . I'd far rather talk about the really important things in my life; service station food, the misuse of the English language and albums which no-one has ever heard of, but for once I'm going to offer something which, whilst it might superficially resemble a plug, is actually more of an explanation.

On second thoughts, it's more of a progress report. It's no secret among those interested in such things that I'm writing a biography of Tubby Hayes, to be titled The Long Shadow Of The Little Giant. However, what does remain something of a mystery is how far I've got with it, or, as one especially loquacious gentleman said to me on a gig the other week, "will the bleedin' thing ever get published?"

Hitherto I've been a bit shy about my efforts, as if discussing things at length would forestall the results, but now, perhaps with confidence renewed by having recently passed the 300,000 word mark, I can safely say I'm in the home straits.

I started researching Tubby's life more as a hobby than a vocation, but as my own musical career took shape, it was rapidly apparent that what I was actually doing was piecing together the framework of a biography. Since labelling that first A4 document wallet back in 2004, I've accumulated an avalanche of material: letters, tapes, scrapbooks, e-mails, photographs, newspaper clippings, saxophone mouthpieces, posters, manuscripts. And, through a fortuitous and almost unreal sequence of events, I've also met and interviewed (and in some instances become good friends with) many people who knew Tubby well including one wife, one girlfriend, one of his children, many of his friends and even more of his colleagues, some of whom (with the same surreal sense that I alluded to in my tribute to Jeff Clyne) I'm proud to say have become my colleagues too.

There have been countless hours of interviews, longer still spent in painstakingly overturning the dusty pages of Melody Maker, Crescendo and Jazz News, and, above all, days and days of listening to Tubby. There have been times when my living room floor resembled armageddon at The National Jazz Archives and it's all got too much, but six years after starting the project I am as convinced of it being one of the most worthwhile things I've undertaken as I was nervous at phoning my first interview "victim", the wonderful Allan Ganley (and I couldn't have started with a nicer bloke).

Now, the book is close to completion, with a few remaining chapters to be written, and it has become a very different beast to that which I once naively envisaged. I was considering penning a brief study and have ended up writing a tome. The problem is that not only have I researched my subject in such detail that I've seen everything from his school photographs to his death certificate, but that Tubby's was a life all too often wrongly and badly documented. Unravelling fact from folklore, truth from rumour and a lifetime from a legend is something I've enjoyed greatly and when I enjoy something I have a peasant-like attitude to abstinence: writing a lot about Tubby only makes me want to write more.

Hopefully, when the book is published, readers will recognise this enthusiasm as genuine, but even more, I'd like to think that Tubby's music will be the ultimate beneficiary.

Having received so much unsolicited help with the book through the ever so immediate medium of the Internet it's particular fitting that in turn I might reverse the equation. The publisher to whom I'd intended my manuscript to go eventually turned me down and so, like a theme in search of a movie, I have a story in search of a publishing outlet. I'm reliably informed by my website statistics (surely no-one can spend all day Googling themselves, can they?) that my blog has some sort of readership. If there's anyone out there who either owns, knows someone who owns, works for, once had a relationship with a guy who did deliveries for, or can put me in touch with, a suitable publisher, please do get in touch. I think I may have the makings of a good book here.