Vic Ash obituary

My good friend Vic Ash, who has died aged 84, was both a brilliant jazz soloist and a successful session musician, who enjoyed a lengthy career with the BBC Big Band and travelled the world as part of the singer Frank Sinatras musical entourage. In 2006, he published his autobiography, I Blew It My Way, written with the help of his wife, Helen, and a fellow saxophonist, Simon Spillett. Not unreasonably, he subtitled it Bebop, Big Bands and Sinatra.

Vic was born in the East End of London, around the corner from Brick Lane, part of a close-knit Jewish community that spawned a number of significant jazz modernists including Ronnie Scott and Harry Klein. His parents, Sarah and Isaac, were of Polish and Lithuanian stock; both were deaf and made their living in the local rag trade.