It was sometime in the first term at Uni. Christ College was holding a Jazz-Funk 'bop'  (Uni-speak for disco), on like a Wednesday night and most of the usual crowd weren't bothered - it wasn't uptempo enough for the house crew like Irv and Jim, it was too uptempo for Gus, Katy and EZ and T-Boz had plans or work or something.  I think everyone assumed it would be shit.  But even though Gav was fairly sure it was going to be shit, he thought there was a small possibility that we could hear some proper music, and maybe find some other 'heads' so in the end just the 2 of us went.  

He was definitely disappointed.  It was mostly pop-funk like 'Superstition', 'I Feel Good'.  I think some people may have worn comedy flares and afro wigs although that could be imagined.  Plus it was in a room like a school gym, complete with bright white strip lighting.  We still had a bit of a dance though, Gav throwing his usual shapes.  At one point, a track came on which everyone went nuts for and I vaguely recognised - I asked Gav who it was and he looked at me like 'how could you not know?'.  It was 'Pick Up The Pieces' by Average White Band. 

Eager to address my lack of basic jazz-funk knowledge, he suggested we go listen to some real tunes, so we went back to his room and stayed up half the night as he went through the history of a bunch of jazz labels like Blue Note and ECM, and he played a bunch of deep cuts from Horace Silver, Gil Scott-Heron, Donald Byrd, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea - I left with my head spinning from all the backstories.  I couldn't believe how much he knew and I spent most of the next weeks checking out CDs from the library by artists he'd recommended - that was the beginning of our friendship.