Legendary British saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, who played with a list of musicians that reads like a who’s who of the international jazz and rock music scene, has died.
Musician and long-time friend Roger Bunn says Heckstall-Smith died “after a long battle with cancer”. “He was a giant of the music industry,” Bunn said.
Heckstall-Smith, born Richard Malden in September 1934, played with the likes of John Mayall, Alexis Korner, Jack Bruce, Mick Jagger and Ginger Baker as well as fronting bands including Colosseum – an influential jazz/rock ensemble in the late 1960s. Bruce, bassist of the legendary Cream, described Heckstall-Smith as his “musical father”.
When Colosseum folded in 1971, Heckstall-Smith went solo and formed his own band Manchild which toured the US supporting Fleetwood Mac and Deep Purple.
A severe spinal problem forced him to stop playing and touring for several years but in 1981 he returned to the stage with a new band, Mainsqueeze, which toured supporting Bo Diddley.
Heckstall-Smith then directed his talents to Celtic folk music, African-influenced jazz and blues until illness struck again in 1992 in the shape of two severe strokes
while on the operating table for a heart bypass operation.
A year later, he was back in the studio with Bruce and in 1994 the original line-up of Colosseum reformed for a full-scale European tour the following year.The band released its first studio album for 27 years in 1997.
In his later years, Heckstall-Smith divided his time between Colosseum and the hard-working Hamburg Blues Band. His party piece was playing two horns at the same time.
In 2000, he returned to the studio again with a string of friends including Mayall, Bruce, one-time Rolling Stone Mick Taylor and Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green to record Blues and Beyond – a record he said he had always wanted to make.
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