Fergus Walker

I’m the tenor saxophonist on the right in the photo of Conrad teaching at Scraptoft. I recalled the story of how Conrad got me into jazz on Dave Smith’s Facebook page. I really knew nothing about jazz, so he gave me a cassette of Kind of Blue on a Friday night and told me to listen to it over the weekend. I did, and I didn’t get it at all. Over days weeks and months Conrad patiently and expertly taught me and my fellow students how to listen, to understand and to play jazz. 35 years later I’m living in Saigon, Vietnam and playing jazz piano in the Mekong Delta Big Band, as well as other jazz groups. If it wasn’t for Conrad, I would never have got started. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for that. He was a great teacher, a lovely man and he will be sorely missed.