HEARING the veteran saxophonist Harrison Smith play recently at the Vortex, in a trio with the startling and beautiful discord of pianist Liam Noble and the arch-master of percussive invention Mark Sanders, was a sonic commentary on his words, describing the trio’s musicianship as born from “an openness of mind, listening to what is happening and reaching in terms of notes, colours and energies” – to which I would add, an astonishing lifetime’s musicianship.

Smith is a son of the Durham coalfields, born in the mining village of Murton in 1946. His father worked as a bus driver, a butcher and in a fish and chip shop and his mother was a shopworker. Music was central to his life: his grandfather played organ in the local church and sang in Durham Cathedral Choir.

He began to learn alto saxophone at 13, taking lessons from his village teacher, Mr Penman, who took him to rehearsals of the Herrington Colliery Band, which he joined, playing clarinet, to park performances and to the marching and playing in Durham City for the annual Durham Miners’ Gala. “The sense of community, of learning and playing together in the village was very strong,” he remembers.