My dad was a fan of the big bands - Duke Ellington; Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald - and my mum loved Nat King Cole and the post-war musicals, so I guess that what we now call ‘The Great American Songbook’ was hardwired in my psyche more or less from the start. Now, as I work in my studio for long periods, increasingly I find myself listening to the music my parents loved. As I painted Last Tango, with Glenn Miller, Ella, Tommy Dorsey et al playing in the background, I was transported to smoky art deco interiors of jazz clubs, palm courts and dance halls which – if they really did exist – had largely disappeared by the time I was born. I like to think that in their youth, mum and dad might have danced at a place somewhere a bit like the ballroom in Last Tango!