A Bird On The Side .sx In all his years with The Rolling Stones , Charlie Watts has nursed a private passion - for jazz giant Charlie 'Bird' Parker .sx Now , his secret love's no secret any more .sx John Fordham reports .sx If there was a musical equivalent in rich eccentrics' hobbies to the Howard Hughes wooden flying boat , it was Charlie Watts's Big Band .sx An immense aggregation of three generations of British jazz musicians ( including a three-man drum section ) , it bulged the walls of international jazz haunts in the 1980s .sx On a bad night it was a mess , players of completely different allegiances getting in each other's way as if simultaneously trying to get through a revolving door .sx On a good night , though , it was a riot .sx Better known , obviously , as The Rolling Stones' drummer , Charlie Watts is currently on the jazz beat again , one of his oldest and deepest loves .sx The incentive is a strange one .sx Back in the mid-'60s , Watts published a tribute to the jazz legend Charlie 'Bird' Parker , a book of drawings and a short but heartfelt biography about a musician most of the Stones' fans of that time would probably never have heard of .sx Now the book , Ode To A High Flying Bird , is re - published , and an accompanying CD ( featuring a quintet with Watts in the drum chair ) provides a soundtrack to it .sx Watts had aimed to ghost the sound of the Parker quintet that included the trumpeter Red Rodney and - a little unexpectedly - the music is delicious .sx Peter King , one of the best saxophonists ever to have developed in Britain and a man who preceded the 'jazz revival' by 25 years , wrote the arrangements and represents Bird's voice .sx Gerard Presencer , a blazing teenage trumpeter , soars over the music with almost as much certainty as King .sx Charlie Watts , though he keeps his head down , plays with a soft , lissom swing .sx In fact , this rich eccentric's hobby-music gives off a surprising warmth .sx Charlie Watts prepares himself fastidiously for what is plainly the taxing prospect of talking about a personal preoccupation :sx Jermyn Street shirt studded and pressed to a razor's edge , tie arching so decisively from between the jaws of his collar it could have been whittled from timber , waistcoat as taut as he is himself .sx " Don't like talking about myself , " he mutters .sx " Makes me paranoid .sx " But start to turn the subject around with him - Is all music the same ?sx , Does jazz have a special song ?sx , Was this a slow - burn affair or an overnight rush ?sx , What was the '60s Soho jazz and blues scene like ?sx - and he stretches back on the sofa , inspecting the ceiling for the distant sounds of the three or four bands a week he played in before he joined the biggest rock'n'roll phenomenon ever .sx " Good rock'n'roll shouts what it is , and ends on a shout , that's what I've always thought .sx It may be an old way of looking at it , but the people I've always played rock with , they just look in and stay there , and that's it .sx With jazz it's a much looser thing , it breathes , it stretches .sx If you try to bring things down in volume on the drums in a rock band like you do in jazz , it just disappears .sx I always wanted to sound like the loosest drummers , originally .sx Keith Moon used to say that he loved Gene Krupa , but I never wanted to sound like that , I used to sound like the first bebop drummer , Kenny Clarke .sx Kenny Clarke was the best rider of the cymbals .sx .. ( Watts demonstrates here with a lazy rocking of his wrist , making a noise like rain on a metal roof ) .sx .. and the nearest to him is Billy Higgins , who has the sweetest ride of anybody alive today , and that includes Tony Williams .sx Tony's ride is an instrument in itself , but Billy's just floats .sx That's jazz to me .sx " .sx When he was a kid , Charlie Watts made a saxophone out of rolled up newspaper ( and painted it bright orange ) after he bought his first horn record , an Earl Bostic blues set .sx Gerry Mulligan followed , and the Bird :sx " I fell in love with it .sx I still don't know what it was that got me , but if I play Just Friends now , or Dancing in The Dark , anything like that , I just go cold and it still means the same thing now as it did then .sx It's improvisation , it's an amazing thing to do .sx I love the people who can do it , same as I love being around painters and sculptors .sx They seem like amazing things to do with your life .sx " .sx But Charlie Watts didn't do that with his life .sx He claims he was never good enough , and the Stones picked him up and swept him away before he ever got the chance to learn to be , though he worked frequently with jazz musicians in the active all-night scene of '60s Soho , in Alexis Korner's blues band , and in a group with Stan Tracey's tenorist Art Themen .sx Believing it was impossible for any band to last more than a couple of years , Watts kept his day job in graphic design ( " commercial artists , they called it then " ) , sat in the flat he occupied on weekdays with Mick Jagger , Keith Richards and Brian Jones , reading the jobs section of Advertising Weekly while Jones crafted high-flown letters to the music papers proclaiming how unbelievable the Stones were .sx But after a while , they all found that the band just couldn't shake audiences off .sx " One week you'd play in a pub and there'd be 10 people , " Watts says .sx " Next week there'd be 30 .sx After a few years , 90,000 .sx We never wanted for an audience , whether they were laughing at us or clapping us .sx " Eventually it convinced Watts he could leave commercial art without starving , but not before the skills of his apprenticeship had made High Flying Bird possible .sx He was on his own in the Stones as a jazz fan though , and still is .sx " Keith likes Louis Armstrong because he's a great blues player , and he's got good ears so he can't put any of the musicianship down .sx But basically I think Keith would sum jazz up as toodly-toodly .sx " .sx Charlie is modesty itself when he discusses his book and his record .sx ( " I can't see many people playing it , but it was a nice thing to do .sx " ) .sx A big part of his motivation when he put his '80s big band together was exposure for British jazz musicians , some of whom ( like bassist Dave Green , whom he's known since he was 10 ) are his own age , some either side of it .sx The record company suggested augmenting the band with Wynton Marsalis when they went to the States , and Watts declined , insisting that he was showing Americans what Don Weller , or Bill Eyden or Annie Whitehead could do , not tell them something they knew already .sx The main satisfaction for Watts in making the Parker tribute is the thought it might germinate more jazz lovers .sx " These are just little cameos illustrating a book , though Peter put it together beautifully , and put himself into it much more than I had any right to expect .sx But if somebody likes it , then they might listen to Parker and go on to other things .sx You know :sx Did he really ?sx Did he play like that ?sx That would be the best thing that could happen for me .sx " .sx Mr Chalk loves Mrs Cheese .sx They seemed to belong to different worlds :sx the avant-garde guitar boffin and the marmalade-haired Princess of Punk .sx Listen awhile , as Mat Snow recounts the heart-warming tale of Robert Fripp and Toyah - rock'n'roll's unlikeliest romance .sx Last year Toyah survived the most taxing performance of her career .sx She played the title role in an adaptation of Zola's Therese Raquin , and was on stage throughout .sx " Mad !sx " she declares in authentic thesp style .sx " Manic !sx " And worse .sx " There were , erm , explicit sex scenes .sx .. " .sx " They weren't that explicit .sx .. " Her husband , Dorset's most avant-garde guitarist , Robert Fripp , offers mild reassurance .sx " They were for me !sx " Toyah has none of his soft soap .sx " Every conceivable humping position !sx On every piece of furniture !sx " .sx " Gymnastic ?sx " her swain euphemises hopefully .sx " Yes .sx Very gymnastic .sx Thank you .sx " Toyah sniffs , and is midway through one of those actressy explanations of how portraying sexuality is " very challenging " when her husband whispers something in her ear , and the pair quake into conspiratorial giggles .sx " I came back from working abroad and had a seat in the audience , " Robert Fripp reminisces , beady glasses a-gleam .sx " And indeed , the stage furniture did have certain , ahem , demands put upon the strength of its construction .sx One of the other actresses asked me afterwards what I thought of my wife in this gymnastic scene , and I replied that it gave me an erection .sx Why ?sx she said .sx Does it excite you to think of your wife being in this way with another man ?sx And I said no - it was the thought of me being with my wife !sx " .sx The betrothal of shy , bespectacled rock guitar boffin Robert Fripp to the marmalade-haired actress and former 'Princess of Punk' , Toyah Willcox , was surely one of those bizarre incongruities which life occasionally throws up to amuse us .sx Only Kate Bush leaping the broom with Vanilla Ice could have raised eyebrows higher .sx He , of course , is Dorset-born and bred , rustic of accent , mild of manner and so studious of his art that , even when his group King Crimson were blowing minds back in 1969 , he would insist on being stool-bound throughout the show .sx In 1974 he broke up the band , declaring that the future lay in being a " small , mobile , self-sufficient unit .sx " And so it has proved .sx She , meanwhile , is Birmingham-born and posh with it ; her early role as 'Mad' in Derek Jarman's punk film Jubilee blossomed into real life rock stardom as an immodestly clad shocker whose strident singles It's A Mystery and I Want To Be Free took her to dizzy chart success and a standing invitation to represent Angry Young Women on stage and on screen .sx If , as The Bible claims , in the Kingdom of Heaven the lion will lie down with the lamb , then Mr and Mrs R. Fripp of Dorset offer reassuring evidence that it can be done .sx Nor does their partnership confine itself to the matrimonial arena .sx He has a hand in her albums , of which the latest , Ophelia's Shadow , bears all those characteristics - wrong-footed rhythms , algebraic melodies and so on - that ensure Toyah's recording career will continue to diverge from pop's mainstream .sx Conversely , when Robert is not instructing his furrow-browed disciples in the finer points of fretmanship in the virtuoso workshop they call The League Of Crafty Guitarists , he leads a pleasingly accessible new quartet called Sunday All Over The World .sx Their debut album , Kneeling At The Shrine , merges the old man's thoughtful guitar with the drama school diction and adolescent preoccupation of his bubbly spouse .sx ( One also detects her influence in the selection of his suits .sx ) .sx Clearly chalk and cheese can enjoy a meaningful creative partnership .sx One is curious , however , about how this unlikely union came to be .sx The Fripps , we learn , were brought together by Princess Michael of Kent .sx The occasion was a fund-raising lunch held by the great and the good of the UK rock industry in aid of Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy ; Toyah had just signed to the same management as Robert , and was thus seated at the same table .sx But it wasn't until the patroness of the trust , Michael herself , began working the room that contact was made .sx " The three of us were introduced and the national press descended to take pictures , and I smilingly walked backwards , " beams Robert .sx " But Princess Michael extended her hand , caught hold of my jacket and pulled me into the picture .sx It appeared the next day on page three of the Daily Express - with me cut off the end .sx The next time Toyah and I met was when we shared a taxi to the same event three years later .sx At the time I was also raising money for a children's school in America , and I said to Toyah , Would you help me make this charity record ?sx And she said yes .sx