“I fought it as much as I could” says one of the UK’s leading saxophonists, Alex Garnett, on becoming a musician. This was not what I expected from our conversation.

“My dad was a saxophone player and my mum was a piano teacher so there was a lot of house parties with musicians coming round from when I was in the cot really. So I was surrounded by music, but you try to not turn into your parents when you’re a young man.”

At this point I could not be more intrigued as to how one of the renowned Ronnie Scott’s All Stars – the co-band leader in fact – would have once done anything but music, now his biggest passion.

“I was classically trained by my mum as a boy. Even though my dad was a jazz musician, improvisation was a bit alien to me” Alex, 45, explains.

“I left music to find my own way and eventually returned to it later on in life after a string of day jobs.

“I ended up working in a music store and meeting people and began to practise again. One thing led to another, after a couple of years of that I was drafted into a few bands and eventually it became a full-time profession.”

He adds, I think as a joke: “I succumbed to my dad’s will.”

“I was playing with guitar bands who would do a riff and you would have to solo for about 20 minutes. I realised that you can create music, you’re not stuck to reading music and the classical, academic side of things. Suddenly it became fun and that changed everything.

“It was like how you develop a taste for food as a young person, your palate changes.”

Alex continued playing with different bands and immersing himself into the jazz scene of London over the past 20 years, building a reputation all over the world, but for him Ronnie Scott’s in Soho is the place to go.

“There were quite a few different clubs around in my youth, of course Ronnie Scott’s was always the jazz mecca in the UK. I used to try and sneak in there when I was a young man – it was quite an achievement to get through the doors at the time. The atmosphere was fantastic. I started playing there quite regularly and as I got more into the business I found myself being hired to play in bands there.

“Benny Green’s son Leo then took the club over and formed a pool of musicians which he called the Ronnie Scott’s All Stars and I happened to be in that pool. I seem to have found myself a part of the furniture, for want of a better description.”

The All Stars will be making their way to North Finchley’s artsdepot with 1959: The Year That Shaped Jazz, heavily narrated by Alex himself.

“The Ronnie Scott’s Story is a highlight of the musical life and time of Ronnie Scott and also the legend of the club that he and his partner, Pete King, created. There’s been a hell of a lot of goings on in that area in Soho and Ronnie’s has remained a constant as a club since 1959. You can imagine the kind of stories that surround it.

“Anyone that gets to know Ronnie Scott’s as a man knows he’s not only one of the great saxophone players that this country produced, but also a very comical and intelligent man. A British legend. The show highlights some of the more interesting stories and facts, not just about the club and the jazz scene, about Soho life.

“Doing this show we have found younger audiences coming to check the show out. Once they get to know the history a little bit more young people tend to take more of an interest and I think that’s pretty important to regenerate interest, not just in the art form but in the British cultural history.”

artsdepot, 5 Nether Street, Tally Ho Corner, North Finchley, N12 0GA, Sunday, October 2, 5pm. Details: 020 8369 5454