Richard Malden Heckstall-Smith (26 September 1934 – 17 December 2004) was an English

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...

saxophonist. He played with some of the most influential English

blues rock Blues rock is a fusion music genre that combines elements of blues and rock music. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes w ...

and

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and ke ...

bands of the 1960s and 1970s. He is known for primarily playing

tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880& ...

and baritone saxophones, as well as

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitch ...

and

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B t ...

Early years

Dick Heckstall-Smith was born in the Royal Free Hospital, in

Ludlow Ludlow () is a market town in Shropshire, England. The town is significant in the history of the Welsh Marches and in relation to Wales. It is located south of Shrewsbury and north of Hereford, on the A49 road which bypasses the town. The ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

, England, and was raised in Knighton,

Radnorshire , HQ = Presteigne , Government = Radnorshire County Council (1889–1974) Radnorshire District Council (1974–1996) , Origin = , Status = historic county, administrative county , Start ...

, learning to play piano,

and

in childhood. He attended a

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of " room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exte ...

but refused a second term there, instead enrolling in

Gordonstoun Gordonstoun School is a co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils in Moray, Scotland. It is named after the estate owned by Sir Robert Gordon in the 17th century; the school now uses this estate as its campus. It is locate ...

, where his father had accepted a job as headmaster of the local

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

. Heckstall-Smith completed his education at

Dartington Hall School Dartington Hall in Dartington, near Totnes, Devon, England, is an historic house and country estate of dating from medieval times. The group of late 14th century buildings are Grade I listed; described in Pevsner's Buildings of England as "o ...

, before reading agriculture – and co-leading the university jazz band – at

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Sidney Sussex College (referred to informally as "Sidney") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wif ...

, from 1953. Aged 15, he had taken up the

soprano sax The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third-smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists (from smallest to largest) of the soprillo, sop ...

while at Dartington, captivated by the sound of

Sidney Bechet Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important soloists in jazz, and first recorded several months before trumpeter Louis Armstrong. His erratic tempe ...

. Then

Lester Young Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist. Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most ...

and tenor saxophonist

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...

jazzman Wardell Gray proved to be major influences for him.

Musical career

Heckstall-Smith was an active member of the London jazz scene from the late 1950s (including a six-month stint from December 1957 with the band led by clarinettist Sandy Brown)."Dick Heckstall-Smith" (obituary)
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'', 21 December 2004. He joined

Blues Incorporated Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, or simply Blues Incorporated, were an English blues band formed in London in 1961, led by Alexis Korner and including at various times Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts, Terry Cox, Davy Graham, Ginger Baker, Art ...

Alexis Korner Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner (19 April 1928 – 1 January 1984), known professionally as Alexis Korner, was a British blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a founding father of British blues". A major in ...

's groundbreaking blues group, in 1962, recording the album '' R&B from the Marquee''. The following year, he was a founding member of that band's breakaway unit,

The Graham Bond Organisation The Graham Bond Organisation (GBO) were a British jazz/rhythm and blues group of the early 1960s consisting of Graham Bond (vocals, keyboards, alto-saxophone), Jack Bruce (bass), Ginger Baker (drums), Dick Heckstall-Smith (tenor/soprano saxo ...

. (The lineup also included two future members of the blues-rock supergroup

Cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...

: bassist

Jack Bruce John Symon Asher Bruce (14 May 1943 – 25 October 2014) was a Scottish bassist, singer-songwriter, musician and composer. He gained popularity as the primary lead vocalist and ‍bassist ‍of British rock band Cream. After the group disband ...

and drummer

Ginger Baker Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker (19 August 1939 – 6 October 2019) was an English drummer. His work in the 1960s and 1970s earned him the reputation of "rock's first superstar drummer", for a style that melded jazz and African rhythms and pi ...

.) In 1967, Heckstall-Smith became a member of guitarist-vocalist

John Mayall John Mayall, OBE (born 29 November 1933) is an English blues singer, musician and songwriter, whose musical career spans over sixty years. In the 1960s, he was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among it ...

's blues rock band,

Bluesbreakers John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers are an English blues rock band led by singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist John Mayall. While never producing a hit of their own, the band has been influential as an incubator for British rock and blues ...

. That jazz-skewed edition of the band also included drummer

Jon Hiseman Philip John Albert "Jon" Hiseman (21 June 1944 – 12 June 2018) was an English drummer, recording engineer, record producer, and music publisher. He played with the Graham Bond Organisation, with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and later ...

, bassist

Tony Reeves Anthony Reeves (born 18 April 1943, New Eltham, South East London) is an English bass guitarist/contrabassist, noted for his "distinctive and complex bass sound" and use of electronic effects. Career As a teenager Reeves learned orchestral do ...

, and future

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...

guitarist Mick Taylor. They released the album '' Bare Wires'' in 1968. From 1968 to 1971, Heckstall-Smith, Hiseman, and Reeves were members of the pioneering UK jazz-rock band

Colosseum The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world ...

. The band afforded Heckstall-Smith an opportunity to showcase his writing and instrumental virtuosity, playing two saxophones simultaneously. When Colosseum broke up in October 1971, Heckstall-Smith recorded solo albums and fronted and played in several other fusion units, including Manchild, Sweet Pain, Big Chief, Tough Tenors, The Famous Bluesblasters, Mainsqueeze, and DHSS. Collaborating musicians common to many of these outfits included

Victor Brox Victor Brox (5 May 1941 – 20 February 2023) was an English blues musician. Early life and career Born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, he attended St Mary’s, Droylsden and William Hulme's Grammar School where he played trombone in the sch ...

, Keith Tillman and harp player John O'Leary, a founder member of Savoy Brown. In the 1980s,, in his Electric Dream ensemble Heckstall-Smith also worked with the South African percussionist Julian Bahula. From 1983 to 1986, Heckstall-Smith was a member of 3-Space with John James (guitar), fellow Mainsqueeze member Dave Moore (keys), and Chris Billings (bass), with Paul Harris on keys for one tour. Apart from tenor and soprano sax, Heckstall-Smith also played baritone sax in 3-Space. Heckstall-Smith participated in a 1994 reunion of the original Colosseum lineup and played in the hard-working Hamburg Blues Band. In 2001, he recorded the all-star project ''Blues and Beyond'', which reunited him with Mayall, Bruce, Taylor, ex-Mayall and

Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac are a British-American rock band, formed in London in 1967. Fleetwood Mac were founded by guitarist Peter Green, drummer Mick Fleetwood and guitarist Jeremy Spencer, before bassist John McVie joined the line-up for their epo ...

guitarist Peter Green. Heckstall-Smith published his witty memoirs, ''The Safest Place in the World'', in 1984; an expanded version, retitled ''Blowing the Blues'', was published in 2004. He died aged 70 in 2004, as a result of

acute liver failure Acute liver failure is the appearance of severe complications rapidly after the first signs (such as jaundice) of liver disease, and indicates that the liver has sustained severe damage (loss of function of 80–90% of liver cells). The complicati ...

Discography

* ''Blues and Beyond'' (2001) * ''Obsession Fees'', with

John Etheridge John Michael Glyn Etheridge (born 12 January 1948) is an English jazz fusion guitarist, composer, bandleader and educator known for his eclecticism and broad range of associations in jazz, classical, and contemporary music. He is best known fo ...

group (R&M (Germany), 1998) * ''Celtic Steppes'' (33 Jazz) * ''On the Corner/Mingus in Newcastle'' (33 Jazz, 1998) *"Fat Guitar" album by Clas Yngström (1996) * ''Bird in Widnes'', with John Stevens (Konnex, 1995) * ''This That'', with Jack Bruce and John Stevens (Atonal, 1995) * ''Celtic Steppes'' (Twentythree, 1995) * ''Where One Is'' (1991) * ''Live 1990'', with John Etheridge, Rainer Glas, Joe Nay (L+R, 1991) * ''Woza Nasu'' (Aura, 1991) * ''A Story Ended'' (

Bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

, 1972) * ''Solid Bond'' with Graham Bond Organisation (Warner Bros, double album, May 1970) *There is a more complete discography at: https://www.discogs.com/artist/249817-Dick-Heckstall-Smith

Bibliography

* ''The Safest Place in the World: A Personal History of British Rhythm and Blues'' (Quartet, 1984, ) * ''Blowing the Blues: Fifty Years Playing the British Blues'', with Pete Grant (Clear Books, 2004, )

References

External links

"Interview with Dick Heckstall-Smith"
Let it Rock, July 2003.

Jack Bruce web diary entry and tribute
Dick Heckstall-Smith interviews on the Graham Bond websitePete Brown – poet, lyricist – discusses influences with Dick Heckstall-Smith
Morgensterns Diary Service. *Dick Heckstall-Smith's Memories of Cyril Davies

*Stephanie Lynne Thorburn

TrueFire. EBook text containing biography, interview and obituary. Retrieved 26 June 2012. {{DEFAULTSORT:Heckstall-Smith, Dick 1934 births 2004 deaths 20th-century British male musicians 20th-century saxophonists Alumni of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Blues Incorporated members British male jazz musicians British male saxophonists British rhythm and blues boom musicians Colosseum (band) members English blues musicians English jazz saxophonists English rock saxophonists John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers members Musicians from Shropshire New Jazz Orchestra members People educated at Dartington Hall School People educated at Gordonstoun People from Ludlow The Graham Bond Organisation members