It was such an honour to spend time with Dave Brubeck let alone interview him at the Newport Jazz Festival. There are a few figures in the world of jazz who are still around who pretty much created the music and Dave Brubeck is one of them. Such an important figure and a great, great guy.

We went over to his hotel one morning while we were at the Newport Jazz Festival and we sat down with him at his hotel and the whole thing felt more like a conversation. It was so interesting to hear his stories of how he got started and his time in the war. He's just an extraordinary musician and he just comes over as a phenomenal man, a family man, a great sense of who he is but also who he is in his family as well.

He's been married to his wife Iola for 67 years and what really transpired in the interview is a lot of that stuff people know him for, Take 5 and It's A Raggy Waltz and that whole Time Out album, he's been developing and creating his music for his entire career right up until the current day. He's writing ballets, he's writing entire masses for church. An incredibly interesting musician who's never stood still a day in his life.

One of the things I love about Dave Brubeck's music that I've always tried to apply to my own music is to not sacrifice certain musical complexities in the music but also make it really listen-able for people who aren't necessarily that drawn to jazz. Dave Brubeck was really the first jazz musician to have a huge hit in the charts and that was with Take 5 and indeed the whole album Time Out was a huge, huge hit with people that had probably never really listened to jazz before and I just find that amazing because this is music that is technically very difficult to play but he makes it sound easy with its playfulness and sheer listen-ability.

The two-part special we recorded with Dave Brubeck runs on the 30th November and the 7th December to coincide with his 90th birthday.

Find out more about the programme