He is an inspiration and role model for a whole generation in France, Spain, Ireland and other countries around the world. Gordon Duncan, who died in December 2005 at the age of 41, was one of the most skilled and innovative bagpipers the piping art has ever known.

He is an inspiration and role model for a whole generation in France, Spain, Ireland and other countries around the world - as well as here in Scotland. Gordon Duncan, who died in December 2005 at the age of 41, was one of the most skilled and innovative bagpipers the piping art has ever known. That young pipers in Brittany and Galicia revere him as guitarists have worshipped Jimi Hendrix is testament to his ability to play on the chanter seemingly anything that he heard in his head.

And then there are his tunes, a book of which has just been published, including Zito the Bubbleman, The Belly Dancer, The Famous Baravan and Andy Renwick's Ferret, which have been taken up enthusiastically by folk groups and musicians.

Now Gordon's status as a national treasure is official, with a concert of that name being held this weekend in Perth to launch the Gordon Duncan Memorial Trust and to celebrate his life and music. The trust aims to encourage musicians under the age of 30 to study traditional music and the great Highland bagpipes in particular.

They don't have to play the pipes while riding on a motorbike, as Gordon famously did in Lorient, or to give customs officials heart attacks by becoming a skeletal tin-whistle player passing through the airport X-ray machine in New York, another of his countless japes.

I first got to hear about Gordon Duncan around 1980. His brother, Ian - then as now - was teaching piping in Dundee schools and used to come into the music shop where I worked to buy practice chanters and reeds for his pupils. On one visit, Ian voluntarily demonstrated to a sceptical customer how reasonable these cheap chanters could sound with a brief march. The sweetness of his playing turned heads in the shop but he held up his hands and said that we should hear his wee brother, who was the champion piper of the family.

It was some time after Ian's demonstration that I made the connection between the school teacher and the champion piper and their dad, Jock, who is one of Scotland's great ballad singers.

By this time Gordon had been touring with the Tannahill Weavers and was playing with singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean, whose home near Dunkeld is just down the road from the Duncan family base in Pitlochry. Every time Gordon put his pipes or a whistle to his lips, MacLean's music soared into the stratosphere.

This was musical excitement on a level usually associated with jazz saxophonists or guitarists with Fender Stratocasters. When I drew some analogy between him and Charlie Parker, Gordon told me, with typical modesty and in the kindest possible way, to "Awa' 'n no' be daft." He was right. He was more of a John Coltrane, as his sheets-of-sound interpretation of AC/DC's heavy rock anthem Thunderstruck, complete with "feedback" and "hammering on" effects, would later confirm.

It's partly due to this amazing piece of piping, unleashed during Gordon's Edinburgh Festival appearance in 1999, that this newspaper holds the Duncans so close to its heart because, uniquely, there are three Bank of Scotland Herald Angel winners in the family. Ian won one of these trophies, which are presented during the Edinburgh Festival, for his marvellous marshalling of the Vale of Atholl Pipe Band, to which Gordon made a major contribution as member and composer.

Jock responded in kind when he performed his inimitable Plooin' Match song after receiving his Angel for his contribution to the official festival's Scots song series. And had it not been for his EIF piping series concert falling the night before the final Angels presentation in 1999 - by which time all the decisions had been made - Gordon would have won one, too. So we presented it to his sister, Frances, last year in posthumous recognition of his work.

Gordon was, as many have remarked, a great and world-renowned talent who worked as a dustman. In a more enlightened country, such as Norway, where established artists receive a stipend that allows them to develop without worrying about income, he might have been able to concentrate on taking his piping further and writing more tunes. But he actually seemed quite happy in his day job - and once in New York he showed his American counterparts how bins were lifted Pitlochry-style, while wearing his Vale of Atholl Pipe Band finery.

It was such capers that made Gordon's funeral such an affecting juxtaposition of wretched grief at his early death and unbridled hilarity as story followed story, each more ridiculous than the one before. He'll be remembered as a character, for sure. But, more importantly, he'll be remembered for his music and for sharing his skills with others, some of whom - including Dougie MacLean, young pipers Ross Ainsley, Jarlath Henderson and Ali Hutton, and the Atholl Highlanders Pipe Band - are among the cast paying tribute to him this weekend.

• A National Treasure: A Celebration of the Music of Gordon Duncan takes place at Perth Concert Hall tomorrow. Just for Gordon is available on Greentrax Recordings.