As his fellow jazz musicians might say, Paul Smith is cookin' on gas.

The virtuoso saxophonist has combined his love of music with his culinary skills to provide Sussex's socialites with the country's first all-in-one dinner and entertainment service.

Mr Smith, 34, of Richmond Street, Brighton, is for hire to prepare a sumptuous feast in your kitchen before serenading you and your friends with jazz standards while you dine.

He said: "Having been a cook and a gigging musician, my dad once jokingly said, 'Why don't you combine the two?'.

"I had a discussion with business advisers and that's how Jazz Chef started."

Mr Smith, who went to school in Canterbury, Kent, first got into cooking after getting a job in a restaurant.

His first instrumental love was the trumpet but he soon switched to the sax when he joined a funk band called Fish Pie while on a furniture-making college course in Shrewsbury.

He said: "We became quite successful. I ended up going around the country doing loads of gigs rather than making furniture. We weren't getting paid loads but we were keeping our heads above water."

Mr Smith moved to Brighton four years ago after the band split up and studied for an HND in jazz at Chichester College.

Obsessed about cookery, he said he would dream about food and wake up screaming having bitten his tongue.

He would sit around the house playing his sax or inventing recipes when visiting his parents at Christmas. Then one day his father came up with the idea for the business.

At first sceptical, he talked about the idea to his hairdresser who thought it was brilliant and offered to be his first client.

That first booking was six months ago and went well.

He said: "It was really good but I was really nervous, pacing up and down the kitchen."

For bigger bookings he ropes in college friends who accompany him on the guitar and double bass.

His most difficult booking was on New Year's Eve, when he cooked for 11 people, two of whom were chefs.

He rustled up three different starters and four different main courses: A vegetarian mushroom stroganoff, a nut roast, three free-range lamb meals in Shrewsbury sauce and a stuffed chicken breast wrapped in Parma ham.

Each meal, accompanied by different vegetables and puddings, had to be cooked in one oven in a small kitchen with just four rings.

Afterwards he came out of the kitchen, still wearing his paper chef's hat, to entertain his satisfied customers with saxophone solos inspired by Thelonious Monk and Louis Armstrong.

Since then, he has prepared and entertained at a birthday buffet for 30 people in Rustington.

He said: "That was really hard work.

"I had a guitar and double bass playing for the guests and I joined them during the third set.

"It was all good fun once we had pulled it off. There is always about half an hour where you are just thinking, 'Oh my god! Oh my god!'.

"After that it's quite nice because you get to relax. I used to get nervous to begin with because if everyone is chatting and then a 6ft chef comes in with a saxophone, they all just stop and stare.

"I always say to them, 'Just pretend I'm not here'."

Visit www.jazzchef.co.uk for details.