FRIENDSHIP AND PAUL ZEC
I am particularly saddened by the loss of Paul Zec because he was the last of my old, close friends. And he was the one of that small, now extinct, fellowship with whom I had the most in common.
We gave each other such delight making music together, listening to music together, watching old British films together, fantasizing together, indulging in a surreal humour somewhere out of Peter Cook.
What a special guy Paul was.
A very fine alto saxophone player, right from his Cambridge days with fellow undergraduates pianist Lionel Grigson, bassist John Hart, saxophonists Art Themen, and Dave Gelly. To mark Paul’s passing, I’ve been listening again to his CD The scene is Mclean. It’s a beautiful album on which he plays at his best. We heard the title track just now.
Like Art, Dave and myself, Paul chose – despite his talent - not to spend his life after university as a full time professional musician.
Instead he combined playing with a teaching career, first at school and then in higher education, notably at Canterbury university. He taught philosophy of education and had a great enthusiasm for political history. His overnight case on visits to see us in Brighton would always be weighed down by whatever large hardback tome on history he was currently devouring.
I first met Paul in about 1966 when we were playing on Sunday afternoons at the Troubadour Café in Earl’s Court. After the gig, the band would retire to his flat round the corner to relax, chat, listen to records, drink and smoke what are euphemistically referred to as jazz cigarettes.
At this early stage in our acquaintance, we developed the cultish obsession which we would share for the rest of our lives with Harold Pinter’s The caretaker and its original cast of Donald Pleasance, Robert Shaw and Alan Bates. This was long before the days of video so, having seen the film on its brief release in the cinema, we had to be content with a double LP of the soundtrack, from which Paul committed to memory almost every line of dialogue. We fell into the habit whenever we met of trading quotes, mostly from Donald Pleasance’s part as the irascible tramp. The ever-patient and long-suffering Frances eventually decided enough was enough and tried to rein us in by levying a small monetary on-the-spot fine whenever one of us lapsed into Caretaker-speak.
In fact Paul had a yen for acting itself and he joined a local amateur dramatics company. I believe he once fulfilled his dream by playing the tramp in The caretaker and I know for sure he played another favourite character of his - the forlorn public-school master Crocker-Harris nearing the end of his last term in Terence Rattigan’s The Browning version.
We also shared a common interest in cricket. Paul had been at school with England captain Mike Brearley and played in the same team with him. But as adults we were watchers, not doers. We loved the Sussex county ground at Hove and would go there when he was visiting his wonderfully eccentric grandmother in her nearby flat. That surreal fantasy humor I mentioned before usually came to the surface fairly swiftly on such occasions. A silly example has stuck with me. At one county match, we noticed that the visiting Kent side included a Scottish player. While Sussex batted, this fielder was at long leg on the boundary waiting for a lofted catch. Paul and I decided that, if a catch came his way, he would find to his dismay that he couldn’t get his hands out of his trouser pockets because they were full of porridge.
Oh Paul, I hope you can hear me and be reduced to hysterics once again!
England Test matches we would watch on television in our respective homes, maintaining remote communication by telephone. Thus we were able to conduct a mutual running commentary which was part serious and part spoof on John Arlott, Trevor Bailey and Freddie Truman.
NONE OF THE ABOVE delights however could surpass the sublime pleasure of sitting together and sharing our appreciation of the finer points of whatever record we were listening to – be it Dexter Gordon, Hank Mobley or Paul’s special favourite Horace Silver. We will hear a classic example at the end of this service – Horace Silver’s great composition “The Outlaw”.
Should friendships be so indulgent and such fun as all this sounds? Absolutely, provided always that the friends are also there for each other through hard or sad times. I think we were but I am aware of how much Paul suffered privately in his last days and I only wish we lived nearer Broadstairs so that we could have been on hand to support Frances and Joanna.
Paul, you were simply my best friend. The kindest, the wittiest, the wisest, the most sympathique. Thankyou for everything. Goodbye and may you rest in peace.
