I was sad to hear yesterday reports of the death of Roy Carr. There have been many tributes online to Roy since.

A legendary rock writer and editor on the NME for many years who also significantly loved jazz he wrote for Jazzwise later and I got to know him slightly, although never very well. I remember however first meeting him in a record shop on Oxford Street, the Virgin Megastore in the jazz section, which had became an engorged utterly irrelevant clothes boutique by the last time I passed. This first chance encounter was just before Jazzwise began in the spring of 1997. I recognised him, introduced myself a little apologetically given that I was a complete stranger, and explained that the magazine was going to start soon. He wished me luck.

Next time I saw him was at a press conference that Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter were giving, I think it was in the Grosvenor House on Park Lane next door to where Herbie was staying at the Dorchester, and Roy had just published a book, the informative chronology concept book Century of Jazz and had the final proof print outs prior to publication with him that he was, ever the pro, showing some of his fellow hacks waiting for proceedings to begin. 

He set up his own jazz label Giant Steps and his 2-CD Joe Harriott compilation Killer Joe in particular was one to cherish. I remember not that may years later after Jon Newey had introduced Roy to the writer roster at Jazzwise sitting on the same table with Jon, Roy [thought of by some wrongly as “the ringer” although he played a blinder] and film writer Selwyn Harris, at a quiz upstairs in Ronnie’s one time that Simon Cooke was drily compèring, and subsequently bumping into Roy a few times as you do at bus stops as he did not live that far from me and was a regular shopper in the area. Last time I saw him was again at a bus stop this time in December 2012 on Tottenham Court Road a little frailer by then about to get on a 178 heading to Muswell Hill.

His writing on jazz was always very witty and stylish. That is rare in my experience, only the best writers can do both or even one of the above. He wrote of the Montreux Jazz Festival from first hand experience and had interviewed many of the greats, including Miles Davis. He would often drop in an amused David Brent-like “Fact” in his reviews properly used when the nugget seemed outrageous but was “in fact” fact and managed in a spirit of slight impertinence pulling the rug from under you to underscore his easily relayed authority by his considerable lightness of touch. He could say what he thought and meant in a tiny number of words usually delivered by means of a snappy turn of phrase or three thrown in for the hell of it. SG