At the age of twelve I was at a school with a thriving music department, two teachers and an orchestra in which I played the violin, alongside my main instrument, the piano. The music of Bach, Mozart and Chopin became the
foundation of my musical life and then, as a teenager, I fell in love with Jazz and the Hollywood musicals featuring music by George Gershwin an Jerome Kern amongst others.
Because I have a natural bass ear I became a bass player and after completing my Nation Service, a freelance musician in London. In the world of Jazz my playing years were an experience in TIME, an adventure in TIME, but when playing written arrangements there were times when what I had to play did not flow, too many notes awkwardly written, all of which played a vital role in my years as a writer.
In 1969 I read a book on music, written by Spanish composer Roberto Gerhard in which I came across the following thought: ‘You must remember Music takes place in TIME’, which could be seen as a truism or, bearing in mind that Einstein showed us the true nature of TIME, something to be wondered at.
Reading a book takes place in TIME but the words do not change their meaning according to how quickly hor slowly you read them, nor in their meaning coloured by or given significance by TIME. TIME takes place in MUSIC. 
On my  website is to be found a selection of the best of what I wrote. A few words of explanation: The title ‘The Razzmatazz Me Blues’ is a play on ‘The Jazz Me Blues’ and ‘Sing Me A Choir’ has lyrics based on nursery rhymes.

The word ‘arrangement’ has no fixed meaning and for me it means compound variations, melodic, harmonic and rhythmic, on a given theme. In Jazz you have that thing called Swing, without which it don’t mean a thing, but in all music there should be Flow and Forward Motion. My love for melody is to be found in ‘The Jerome Kern Medley’ played by the Rotterdam Filharmonic, a labour of love indeed.

‘Celebration’ is the summation of my life in Jazz and Classical Music and in it the pianist (Cor Bakker) improvises on the piece, not on the chords, and the last eight bars of his solo are his version of what he has heard in the piece, that is the spirit of the improvised cadenza of olden times. Wonderful!

My great good fortune has been to have had my music played by so many fine musicians bringing it to life with their vitality and musicality. At the end of ‘The Lady In The Van’, Alan Bennett sits musing at his desk and makes the following observation: ‘You don’t put yourself into writing, you find yourself there.’ Music to my ears! Whilst I was writing I was only aware of choosing the notes and only later did I realise that I’d peen putting my heart and soul into it.

Writing for the Radio was a wonderful way to learn but no way to get heard so now – my website waits you – 
Happy Listening

Kenny Napper