I love music books. If I could play a tenth of the music in all the music books I have lying around I’d be some kind of piano hero. I had a piano tuner ask if I was a teacher. Nope. I just like the books. There’s a part of my brain that thinks that owning a book is like knowing a thing. That part of my brain is wrong.

I have a great fondness for New Orleans style piano solo, and it’s a nut I’ve been trying to crack for some time. It sounds very relaxed and natural, and not nearly as daunting as popular 20th-century forms like stride and rag. But the relaxed feel is very deceptive.

There’s been a resurgence of interest online in 60s-style commercial design, that really evocative screen-print business with the deep cool colours, the kind of stuff Saul Bass made a name…