Dick Heckstall-Smith

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Dick Heckstall-Smith

Richard Malden ( "Dick") Heckstall-Smith (* 26. September 1934 in Ludlow , Shropshire , † 17th December 2004 in London ) was an influential British blues - rock - and jazz - saxophonist .

Career

Dick Heckstall-Smith with Colosseum at the Joint Meeting Festival in Düsseldorf, May 1970

In the course of his career, Heckstall-Smith worked with many blues, jazz and rock musicians. He transferred jazz techniques to rock music on the saxophone and was also known for playing tenor and soprano saxophone at the same time. Heckstall-Smith is also known for knowing how to transform the playing techniques of John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins into rock music.

Heckstall-Smith led a jazz orchestra when he was a student of agriculture, became a professional musician in 1957 and performed a. a. with the clarinetist Sandy Brown . He toured America for five months with Jerome Robbins and his ballet ensemble. Alexis Korner brought him to his Blues Incorporated in 1962 . From 1963 to 1967 he worked for the Graham Bond Organization (with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker , later Cream founders) and John Mayall 's Bluesbreakers , before starting the legendary jazz rock group Colosseum in 1968 with drummer Jon Hiseman . After the temporary end of this formation in 1971, solo albums followed (A Story Ended) and a number of other engagements in rock, jazz, blues and fusion-oriented ensembles such as Manchild, Sweet Pain, Big Chief, Tough Tenors, The Famous Bluesblasters, Mainsqueeze. In 1972 he led his own live band. In 1978 he was seen with Alexis Korner at the Rockpalast ( The Party Album , 1978). In 1993 he appeared in Jack Bruce's band on the occasion of Jack Bruce's 50th birthday at the E-Werk in Cologne. The 1990s were marked by the fact that he made excellent, albeit hardly noticed, productions with changing English R&B lineups ( Obsession Fees with John Etheridge , Links in Colosseum style, Out of the Blue with Dave Wilkinson).

Dick Heckstall-Smith, who studied agricultural science , also devoted himself to an academic career.

Since 1994 Colosseum has been reactivated several times by himself and Hiseman (1994: Reunion Concert in the “ Rockpalast ”). In the last few years before his death, Dick Heckstall-Smith could be seen in Germany with the Hamburg Blues Band .

He died on 17 December 2004 on cancer , after he had already suffered two strokes in the 1990s, which could not even slow down the high-energy musician.

Discography

Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated

  • 1962: R&B from the Marquee
  • 1964: Red Hot from Alex
  • 1965: Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated

Graham Bond Organization

  • 1965: The Sound of '65
  • 1966: There's a Bond Between

John Mayall's Blues Breakers

  • 1967: The Diary of a Band
  • 1968: Bare Wires

Colosseum

  • 1969: Those Who Are About to Die Salute You - Morituri Te Salutant
  • 1969: Valentyne Suite
  • 1970: The Grass Is Greener
  • 1970: Daughter of Time
  • 1971: Colosseum Live
  • 1994: Colosseum LiveS
  • 1997: Bread and Circus
  • 2003: Tomorrow's Blues

Mainsqueeze

  • 1983: Live at Ronnie Scott's 1983

Hamburg Blues Band

  • 1989: Live; feat. Dick Heckstall-Smith
  • 1996: Real Stuff
  • 1999: Rollin '
  • 2001: touch
  • 2004: Live on The Edge of a Knife

Fonts

  • Dick Heckstall-Smith with Pete Grant The Safest Place In The World. A Personal History Of British Rhythm and Blues (1989); re-released as: Blowing The Blues. Fifty Years Playing The British Blues (Ingram 2004); ISBN 978-1904555049

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Rock Lexicon / Barry Graves; Siegfried Schmidt-Joos; Bernward Halbscheffel, one-time special edition, Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 2003, vol. 1, p. 411
personal data
SURNAME Heckstall-Smith, Dick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heckstall-Smith, Richard Malden (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British musician, saxophonist
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Ludlow , Shropshire
DATE OF DEATH December 17, 2004
Place of death London