“EACH generation finds a new way to speak of their times through music,” says prime saxophonist Paul Dunmall.

He should know. Born in south London in 1953, he grew up with a mother who loved classical music and a father who was a semi-professional drummer.

Dunmall started on clarinet aged 12 and moved on to alto saxophone a few years later “as my father thought that playing jazz might be a good option.”

Leaving school at 15, he worked as a saxophone repairer but it was hearing John Coltrane’s records that changed his life.

He became a professional musician and from 1988 to 2010 played in the superb Mujician quartet with pianist Keith Tippett, drummer Tony Levin and bass player Paul Rogers. It was considered by some to be the best quartet since Coltrane’s.

In 2003, his Moksha Big Band recorded the epochal I Wish You Peace album, soon after the Iraq invasion by the US and Britain invasion of Iraq.

“It was an anti-war statement and also a desire for people to reach their own inner peace, to make less suffering and conflict in this world,” he says.

One of his most recent landmark albums is the scintillating Go Straight Round the Square, recorded live with bassist John Edwards, pianist Liam Noble and drummer Mark Sanders.

It’s a quartet which reminds him of the great musical moments with Mujician.

“When you play with such great musicians the music becomes so natural and easy,” he says. “They respond in a split second and let the music flow. Just a joy.”

You can hear Coltrane in his sound, deep and grounding. But overall it is his very own timbre, grown with decades of partnerships with other powerful musicians who have spurred Dunmall, taught him and responded to his own unique saxophone fire.

Hear him live or on record and your senses and soul will resound with him.

Go Straight Round the Square is released on FMR Records.