Dick Heckstall-Smith

Richard Malden Heckstall-Smith (26 September 1934 – 17 December 2004) was an English jazz and blues saxophonist. He played with some of the most influential English blues rock and jazz fusion bands of the 1960s and 1970s. He is known for primarily playing tenor, soprano, and baritone saxophones, as well as piano, clarinet and alto saxophone.

Heckstall-Smith was born in the Royal Free Hospital, in Ludlow, Shropshire, England, and was raised in Knighton, Radnorshire, learning to play piano, clarinet and alto saxophone in childhood. He attended a York boarding school but refused a second term there, instead enrolling in Gordonstoun, where his father Hugh Heckstall-Smith (1896-1973) had accepted a job as headmaster of the local grammar school.

Heckstall-Smith completed his education at Dartington Hall School, before reading agriculture – and co-leading the university jazz band – at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (1953–1956). Aged 15, he had taken up the soprano sax while at Dartington, captivated by the sound of Sidney Bechet. Subsequently, Lester Young and tenor saxophonist bebop jazzman Wardell Gray proved to be major influences for him.

His father was a Quaker, an anti-militarist, and a social reformer. Dick registered as a conscientious objector while still a school student. When he was called-up after university, he served as a hospital porter until he incurred the back injury that was to return to trouble him in the 1970s.

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). He joined Blues Incorporated, Alexis Korner'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. In 1967, Heckstall-Smith became a member of guitarist-vocalist John Mayall's blues rock band, Bluesbreakers. That jazz-skewed edition of the band also included drummer Jon Hiseman, bassist Tony Reeves, and future Rolling Stones 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 band afforded Heckstall-Smith an opportunity to showcase his writing and instrumental virtuosity, playing two saxophones simultaneously. During that period, he also worked with the New Jazz Orchestra and played on Jack Bruce's album Things We Like.

When Colosseum broke up in October 1971, Heckstall-Smith recorded solo albums (1972's A Story Ended featuring lyrics by Pete Brown) and fronted and played in several in the jazz fusion group Manchild.

In March-April 1973, Heckstall-Smith suffered a severe back injury. He was unable to stand up, and was incapable of moving for three months. He told interviewer Dmitry Epstein that ‘I spent a long time thinking about what I’d been doing. I got really pissed-off with not having any position on politics.’