Peter King in June 2015. Photo credit: Melody McLaren

Walter Houser, who was one of the Directors of Ronnie Scott’s from the 1960’s until the club was sold to Sally Greene in 2005, has been staying in touch with saxophonist Peter King and is concerned to bring the urgency of his situation to a wider attention, and has taken the initiative to raise money to help him. 

100% of what is raised will go directly to help Peter. Walter (contact details below) can answer questions as required. He writes:

Peter King: an appeal

Peter King’s accomplishment as a jazz saxophone player has led many critics to compare him with Charlie Parker and not always favourably as far as Bird is concerned. I have no doubt that Peter is now a better saxophone player than Charlie Parker. After all, he has had more than double the number of years granted to Charlie to work on, to hone and finally to perfect his technique.

I prefer to compare Peter to Mozart.

Like Mozart Peter has a bottomless fund of musical inventiveness and like him he is always short of money.

But like Mozart he also fears dying as a pauper and being buried in an unmarked grave. We must not let this happen.

Peter King has recently been the victim of a cruel fraud, a financial scam that has left him penniless. I will not go into the details as I am trying to persuade his bank to take some of the blame.

He is also in very poor health. I have known Peter for more than 50 years and I know him to be very fragile emotionally and never terribly robust physically.

He needs help and support both financially and emotionally. Most of all he needs to be encouraged to play. Only when playing does he feel ok and – believe me – he can still turn it on.

Here is how you can help him.

1) A bank account details to receive donations has just been set up:

Bank:                                HSBC sort code 40-04-25 
Account number                81514407.
Account Name:                  Walter Houser   Peter. (there are three spaces between Houser and Peter).

Donations large and small are welcome and will make a difference.

If you send an email to Walter –  w.houser (at) btinternet (dot) com – your donation will be acknowledged. 

2) There are dates fixed in Peter’s diary including a major festival headline appearance – programme not yet announced – band it is certainly to be hoped that others will emerge.