THE wife of a world famous Jazz musician who lived in Borehamwood has paid tribute to her “devoted” husband who passed away at the end of November.

Monty Sunshine is perhaps best known for his clarinet playing on the multi-million selling song Petite Fleur, which he recorded with the Chris Barber Band in the late 1950s.

The track, which was originally composed by Sidney Bechet, reached number four in the British charts in 1959.

Jackie Sunshine, who was married to Monty for 47 years, recalled how the song came about. She said: “We went on holiday to Spain and we heard it playing in a dance hall. He said listen to that tune isn't that great.

“When he came back he found it and started playing it. They only tacked it on to the end of a Chris Barber album because they just needed one more tune. 'Oh Monty do your Petite Fleur thing' and that's how it started.”

Unfortunately Monty did not reap the financial rewards for popularising the song, but was thanked by the original New Orleans composer for putting “the sunshine back into my life”.

Asked whether this was a sore point with Monty, Mrs Sunshine said: “It probably was and probably wasn't. He was very philosophical my old man.

“If it did bother him he never made much of it, he just got on with it, playing was the most important thing.”

Monty left the Chris Barber band at the beginning of the Sixties, establishing the Monty Sunshine Jazz Band. He toured the world and continued performing on stage until 1998, when he was 70.

Mrs Sunshine remembers the first time she saw Monty. She said: “I saw Monty playing once at a club in Marble Arch and I just looked at him, up on the stage with his lovely music and blond hair and thought yes that is for me, great, lovely. But I didn't know him and didn't speak to him then.

“I went to Spain with a girlfriend about three years later, just walking along the beach in the Costa Brava, and he's sitting there with a couple of the boys from the Chris Barber band. So we sat next to them and that was it, we clicked straight away.”

Originally from Hackney, Monty was the son of a Jewish tailor in the east-end of London. He was evacuated during the war to Northampton, before returning to the capital and studying at Camberwell School of Art, where he discovered his love of jazz music.

Monty also served with the Royal Air Force, before working as an illustrator, contributing cartoons to newspapers. Later in life he also designed album covers.

The Sunshine family settled in Borehamwood, living for a time in Shenley, where Mrs Sunshine said they had made some great friends.

Mrs Sunshine, who has received letters from around the world from fans wishing to pay their respects, said Monty was a devoted family man.

She said: “He adored his family, he took a bit of reeling in, we were together for seven years before I could pin him down. But he loved his kids and adored his grandchildren.”

Mrs Sunshine said that other highlights of Monty's career included playing at the Sydney Opera House for the Queen's silver jubilee, and performing in Westminster Abbey at the funeral of Lord Harlech, who was the British ambassador to the United States.

Monty stopped playing after a cruise holiday in 1999, when he was taken ill. After a big heart operation and then suffering a stroke, he was forced to stop playing.

Monty Sunshine died aged 82, on November 30. A funeral was held on December 2 at Golders Green Crematorium. He is survived by his two children Louise and Laurence, and five grandchildren.