Music like King No-One

Peter John King (born 11 August 1940) is an English jazz saxophonist, composer, and clarinetist.

Peter King was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, on 11 August 1940. He took up the clarinet and saxophone as a teenager, entirely self-taught. His first public appearances were in 1957, playing alto in a trad jazz group at the Swan Public House, Kingston, in a group organised by trumpeter Alan Rosewell, with whom he worked at the Directorate of Overseas Surveys as an apprentice cartographer. After the performance, however, King made the choice of becoming a professional musician.

In 1959, at the age of 19, he was booked by Ronnie Scott to perform at the opening of Scott's club in Gerrard Street, London. In the same year he received the Melody Maker New Star award. He worked with Johnny Dankworth's orchestra from 1960–1961, and went on to work with the big bands of Maynard Ferguson, Tubby Hayes, Harry South, and Stan Tracey, the Brussels Big Band, and the Ray Charles band on a European tour.