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‘He fondly called me his hash baby’: Mandy Sayer on her larger-than-life father – a lawbreaking jazz musician who couldn’t read or write Gerry Sayer was a warm, funny, yet absent father, so consumed with music that he sacrificed family – but his ‘flair for improvisation’ inspired his writer daughter * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email After her wedding service in 2003, Mandy Sayer stopped traffic. Or at least the musicians leading her and her new husband, Louis Nowra, through the streets of Kings Cross did. “Saxophones wailing, tambourines jingling, drums booming, even managing to pick up one or two rough sleepers along the way,” she writes in her latest memoir, No Dancing In The Lift. Three years earlier, in 2000, the same scenario had played out at the funeral of her jazz musician father, Gerry. The congregation followed the hearse down Darlinghurst Road, “all playing percussion instruments to the saxophonist’s fast blues,” she tells Guardian Australia. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/sep/07/mandy-sayer-gerry-no-dancing-in-the-lift-memoir?CMP=aus_bsky