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MPH: Mark Hughes on...

Pete King could have been a racing car aerodynamicist, but he's better known as a great alto-sax player. Even so, he retains a passion for F1, and it's audible in his music

Pete King is arguably the greatest living alto-sax player alive - and a Formula 1 fanatic.

When he's not bewitching audiences with that sweet mix of growl, rasp and pierce, he's likely to be reading up on aerodynamics. He completed a thesis in the subject just for fun, and put it to good use by winning model-aircraft-flying competitions. In the 1950s he began an apprenticeship that was intended to lead him to race car or aircraft design, but then the jazz bug grabbed him and took him away.

But he never lost his love of racing and his imagination is still captured by the deeds and techniques of the guys in the cockpit. He sees parallels between the two worlds: "Jazz is about pushing things to the absolute edge, picking something up and stretching it, beyond what might seem possible, but hopefully still bringing it back without crashing. The only difference of course is that we only risk looking foolish, not hurting ourselves or worse."

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