SYNCOPATION exists in any music, though it’s sometimes talked about as if it turned up exclusively in jazz. But in jazz, syncopation is very widely used, and it gives the music much of its characteristic rhythmic feel.

In one of the simplest of time-signatures – 4/4 – there are four beats in a bar with the first, or ‘downbeat’ usually hit more strongly than the rest, the second less so, the third strongly again, the fourth weaker. It creates a regular, steady, predictable kind of time. But in jazz and much dance-music, something different happens. The traditionally weaker beats might be accented instead of the strong ones, or the beats that are hit harder vary in position from bar to bar. Or a group might use syncopation by contrasting the beat of one instrument with the beat of another – the way a regular funk drum-pattern might be set against a voice or an instrument placing the beat differently.

Gareth Williams began to try out syncopation against the simple, steady form of the blues, using patterns of notes in groups of three, or triplets – a favourite way of phrasing in jazz, with roots that go all the way back to percussion players in Africa.