Charlie Watts, The Gentleman of Rhythm Calls Time – 2 June 1941 - 24 August 2021

The elegant, imperturbable master of rhythm for the Rolling Stones and his own jazz ensembles, Charlie Watts, died yesterday, 24 August, at a London hospital surrounded by his wife of over 50 years and family. Earlier in the month it was announced that he had to miss the Rolling Stones' forthcoming US tour dates on doctor's advice while recovering from a routine medical procedure following a check-up. He was looking forward to playing again with the band in 2022, the 60th anniversary of the Stones.

Born in Wembley during the Second World War on 2 June 1941, Charlie lived opposite Dave Green, a childhood friend, later respected bassist and stalwart of all Watts's jazz bands. They both discovered jazz through 78rpm records poring over sides by Charlie Parker, (who he dreamt of drumming with), Jelly Roll Morton and Gerry Mulligan, the latter whose 'Walkin Shoes' was a big favourite and whose drummer Chico Hamilton captured Watts's imagination. " He was the first one I heard that made me want to play drums" he told me in 2000. Joe Morello was another early hero as were Dave Tough from Woody Herman's band, Philly Jo Jones, Billy Higgins and Art Blakey. He was drawn not so much to their technique and solos as to their ability to play for the band, drive the rhythm and lift the top line soloist – enduring virtues that were clearly evident throughout his own lengthy career.

Supportive parents bought him a second-hand kit in the mid-1950s and he learnt, as did so many players from that era who didn't read music, from listening and playing along to records. After a Graphics course at Harrow School of Art he left in 1960 to become a graphic designer for an advertising agency while at the same time he and Green had started playing in a local jazz band, the Jo Jones All Stars.

After moving jobs to the more prestigious, Charles, Hobson and Gray, Watts spent more time in Soho regularly checking Phil Seaman at the Flamingo and Ronnie Scott's club, buying jazz albums from Ray Smith at Collett's and playing the odd gig at Earls Court's Troubadour club where he was spotted by Alexis Korner (pictured below with Watts second left), who invited him to join Blues Incorporated alongside Dick Heckstall-Smith, singer/harpist Cyril Davies and later Jack Bruce on bass.

The London rhythm & blues scene was now hotting up and Korner offered guest spots to up and coming R&B players, including young singer Mick Jagger. Meanwhile Watts had been playing in Blues by Six, where he dug deeper into the blues, developing a harder backbeat and playing the odd gig with Brian Jones's fledgling Rolling Stones, including Jagger, Keith Richards and Bill Wyman. On 14 January 1963 he quit his job and joined the Stones, stepping onto a rollercoaster, which, bar the odd quiet patch, has not stopped rolling for the last 59 years.

Charlie's economical but hard driving rhythm and supple swing became, along with Ringo Starr, the trademark backbeats of the massive 1960 British Explosion as the Beatles and Rolling Stones conquered the world, ushering in a cultural zeitgeist and influencing every group that followed.

Perhaps lesser known is the phenomenal influence the drumming styles of Starr and Watts had on a generation of young men in the mid-1960s where their forceful, compelling but largely untutored-style encouraged hundreds of thousands to pick up sticks, much to the delight of Messers Ludwig, Gretsch and Premier. Watts's trademark rhythms such as the pounding four on four beat he used for 'Satisfaction', and the off-kilter funk of 'Honky Tonk Women' are forever etched into drum history. Always modest with his playing achievements, he knew how to let the rhythm breathe and importantly how to play for the song, rather than an endless show of chops, of which he was the first to admit he possessed few.

During lulls in the Stones' huge worldwide tours, and a brief flirtation with heroin in the early 1980s, he returned to his first love, putting together a sprawling big band, the Charlie Watts's Jazz Orchestra in 1985, including Courtney Pine and John Stevens, echoing the days of Woody Herman's Herd. Following UK and USA dates and Live At Fulham Town Hall album, the unwieldy project gave way to the far more manageable Charlie Watts's Quintet in 1991 with Peter King, Gerard Presencer, Brian Lemon and old pal Dave Green. Their first album From One Charlie was a nod to the Charlie Parker Quintet with Red Rodney and came in a deluxe edition which reprinted Watts's 1964 book of cartoon graphics and prose, Ode To A High Flying Bird. Further well received quintet albums followed before he released the experimental Charlie Watts/Jim Keltner Project mixing electronics and jazz in 2000. He enlarged the quintet to a tentet for dates at Ronnie Scott's in 2001, captured on the album Watts At Scott's and played further sold-out tentet dates there in 2004 before dates with the Danish radio Big Band in 2010, released by Impulse! in 2017, and a spell with the ABC&D of Boogie Woogie with Axel Zwingenberger, Ben Waters and Dave Green.

I last spoke to Charlie at the 2017 Jazz FM Awards, where he was presented with a Gold Award for Lifelong Contribution to Jazz and Blues, and, as ever, wanted to know about any new archive releases coming from Jimmy Deuchar, Tubby Hayes and Phil Seaman and what Courtney and the others were up to. His unflinching support for British jazz never faltered.

When he learned of being unable to fulfil the Rolling Stones US dates starting this September he gave his blessing to jazz drummer Steve Jordan, who the band had worked with in the past, and in his own inimitable deadpan way said, "For once my timing has been a little off."  RIP Charlie.