Stan Tracey: the pianist who let the music do the talking There was a moment at Stan Tracey's 80th birthday concert six years ago that was treasurable, as it summed up the man. Typically, it wasn't somewhere grand such as the Barbican or the Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was at the Bulls Head pub in Barnes, south-west London, where Tracey played two generously lengthy sets with a few long-time colleagues. Before he began, he cast a jaundiced eye over us fans packed into the warm, friendly fug. "Lost your way, have you?" he asked, before stabbing one of his trademark pungent left-hand chords to launch the first number. Such Eeyore-like self-effacement might seem affected. But Tracey genuinely hated being the centre of attention. He was one of those musicians who live completely through music, and seem a little lost when it stops. The obsession began when he was 14, growing up in London during the war, and spotted an accordion in a shop window. He begged his mother to buy it for him. A few years later, he got his first musical job through ENSA, the organisation that put on musical entertainment for the troops. Shortly afterwards, he switched to the piano. Tracey had the good luck to begin his career in an era of tremendous musical and social ferment. Swing, bebop, skiffle and rock and roll all jostled for attention, and musicians could slip between them without anyone turning a hair. Jazz still had its roots in popular entertainment, but had the musical resources to soar to the level of art. Which was where Tracey believed it belonged - though he would have thought it the height of pretentiousness to actually say so. He had that instinctive awareness, so rare nowadays, that too much talk about art from its creators is indecent. The web of words gets in the way of the thing itself. First came years of playing in dance bands, some of which took him to the US. There, he could finally savour Ellington's big band, and all those other legendary American musicians that, until then, he knew only through records. Saxophonist Stan Getz actually criticised Tracey and his colleagues in public, a moment that must have really stung. Nevertheless, Tracey's trenchant on-stage response ("B-------") showed the pride that went with the modesty. It was well-earned, as some recordings of that era demonstrate. Every move is unexpected, and yet as the solo unfolds, a sense of inevitability gathers. Through saxophonist Bobby Wellins, Tracey had become intrigued by the idea of mingling poetry and jazz, and the fruits can be seen on the remarkable recording by Tracey's New Directions Quartet, where the music is inspired by the poetry of Michael Horowitz. Yet Tracey, supported by his third wife Jackie, pulled through and went on to a prolific second career that was actually longer than the first. Instead, a bunch of long-standing collaborators including his son, Clark, played music from Tracey's new album, Flying Pig, which was inspired by thoughts of his father's First World War experiences. One number, Bouncing Bertha, had a witty, side-slipping bass that showed Tracey's old curiosity about the basic stuff of music was undimmed. Stan Tracey's final album, 'Flying Pigs" (Resteamed), is out now