A popular and influential bassist Gary Crosby is celebrating his 60th birthday today.

The Jazz Jamaica leader later this week leads a band of young musicians paying tribute to the Windrush generation joined on the bandstand by special guest, calypso artist Alexander D Great. A significant figure on the UK jazz scene for many years, the Londoner was a founder member of the seminal 1980s big band Jazz Warriors, and also appeared on Courtney Pine’s 1986 hit debut Journey to the Urge Within seen in the archive TV video above in Pine’s band on the album’s break-out song, ‘Children of the Ghetto’. A nephew of Jamaican jazz great Ernest Ranglin Crosby continues to be an inspiration to a new jazz generation of Tomorrow’s Warriors, and remains at the propulsive heart and soul of his popular ska and Motown-influenced big band Jazz Jamaica. His small groups over the years have included most recently his current band Groundation, and the seminal 1990s hard bop group Nu Troop in which subsequent jazz stars Byron Wallen and Tony Kofi among several others first surfaced. Many happy returns! Stephen Graham

The Windrush gig takes place on Friday in the Front Room of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. More details here