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Dick Morrissey

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Richard Edwin Morrissey (May 9, 1940 - November 8, 2000) was a British jazz musician and composer. He played tenor sax, soprano sax, alto sax and flute.

Background

Dick Morrissey came to the fore of a new generation of British sax players in the early 60s inspired by Tubby Hayes, Britain’s pre-eminent sax player. He recorded his first solo album at the age of 21, It’s Morrissey, Man! (1961, Fontana), which featured Stan Jones on piano, Colin Barnes on drums, and Malcolm Cecil on bass. He went on to form the Dick Morrissey Quartet, with the legendary Phil Seamen on drums, Harry South on piano and Phil Bates on bass, recording two classic British Jazz LPs, the live recording Storm Warning! (1965, Mercury); and Here and Now and Sounding Good (1966), with Bill Eyden on drums. The band, which also featured Jackie Dougan on drums, played regular London gigs to packed houses.

He also played in Ted Heath’s Big Band, the who’s who of the British jazz scene for many years, as well as with Johnny Dankworth and his Orchestra and the Harry South Big Band. Many US musicians touring Britain at the time, notably Brother Jack McDuff, Jimmy Witherspoon (live recording), J.J. Jackson (2 LPs), Sonny Stitt and Ernest Ranglin (live recording) recorded with him during the Sixties and early Seventies.

IF

In 1969, Dick Morrissey, by then many-time winner of the prestigious Melody Maker Jazz Poll, as well as many other British Jazz awards throughout his career, teamed up with another Melody Maker award-winner, guitarist Terry Smith, with whom he had worked in J.J. Jackson’s Band, to form Britain’s seminal jazz-rock group, IF.

Encouraged by the success of the then recently-formed US bands Blood, Sweat and Tears, and Chicago, both of which featured heavy brass sections, the time was ripe for a British answer, less influenced by the American big band sound of trumpets and trombones. Although the original band consisted of a different line up, IF’s first five records featured J.W. Hodkinson on lead vocals, John Mealing on keyboards, Jim Richardson on electric bass, Dennis Eliott on drums, Dave Quincy on alto and tenor saxes, Terry Smith on guitars, and Dick Morrissey on tenor and soprano saxes and flute.

Essentially a live band, and true to its jazz influences, IF was the only jazz-rock group, both then and now, to feature solos by all the band members, not just by the lead instruments. They recorded five albums under the above line up plus another two albums featuring Geoff Whitehorn on guitar and vocals, Gabriel Magno on keyboards and Walt Monaghan on bass and vocals, Cliff Davies on drums and Dick Morrissey. For full line-ups see under IF.

Morrissey Mullen

When IF disbanded in 1975, Dick Morrissey went off to the United States to tour and record with the Average White Band, and met up with Glasgow-born guitarist Jim Mullen, who had played with Brian Auger's Oblivion Express with some of the guys from AWB, and together they formed Morrissey - Mullen (aka M&M), recording their first album, UP (1976) in New York. On returning to the UK, Morrissey Mullen formed a band which rapidly became Britain’s most highly acclaimed jazz-fusion band, initially including two top session musicians from New Zealand, Frank Gibson Jr. and Bruce Lynch. M&M recorded seven albums over the 16 years they were together, with Dick Morrissey and Jim Mullen also collaborating on each other’s solo albums. The line-up for later gigs often featured three British jazz greats Martin Drew on drums and John Burch or John Critchinson on piano.

Other collaborations

In between regular M&M gigs, Dick Morrissey would also meet up with old friends Ian “Stu” Stewart, Charlie Watts, Alexis Korner, Jack Bruce, Colin Hodgkinson, etc., to play boogie-woogie/jazz/rock with the back-to-the-roots fun band Rocket 88 that Stu put together with Bob Hall.

Apart from the early recordings with visiting US performers mentioned above, Dick Morrissey also collaborated with Charly Antolini (3 albums), Alexis Korner (several albums), Mike Carr (several albums), Georgie Fame (2 albums), Brian Auger (2 albums), Dusty Springfield, Pete York, Paul McCartney (2 albums), Gary Numan (8 albums), Phil Carmen (3 albums), Herbie Mann, Shakatak (2 albums), Peter Gabriel (2 albums), Jon Anderson (2 albums), Jon & Vangelis (2 albums) and Vangelis (2 albums - as well as playing the hauntingly famous sax solo on the Love Theme track of Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner) on more than one recording and/or tour.

Other musicians and performers Dick Morrissey shared the stage with include Boz Scaggs, Dave Sanborn, Steve Gadd, Richard Tee, Michael & Randy Brecker and Teddy Edwards (with whom he jammed a memorable "duel" at London's 100 Club in the early 80s).

Death

Dick Morrissey died on November 8, 2000 after many years fighting various forms of cancer. To the last, he could been seen and heard, seated in his wheelchair, playing to a packed house at his local pub.

In the obituary published in The Times, British music critic Chris Welch wrote that Dick Morrissey was a “Fiery musician who straddled the worlds of jazz and rock, but with a style built firmly on bebop and widely regarded as the most brilliant British saxophonist to emerge in the wake of Tubby Hayes. His advocacy of jazz-rock fusion successfully brought jazz to a rock audience and rock to a jazz audience.”

Likewise, Steve Voce writing the obituary in The Independent said: “The key to Dick Morrissey's talent, in a career that spanned four decades, was his ability to get through to an audience. He was one of the great communicators of jazz and, ... able to communicate with his listeners and quickly to establish a bond with them. ... Like Charlie Parker before him, he was somehow able to lift audiences that knew little or nothing about his music.

Although one could from time to time imagine a feel of the American players Sonny Rollins or Ben Webster in Morrissey's work, he was outstanding among British players for his originality. Despite the sophistication of his ideas there was often a down-home quality to his punchy and hard swinging solos, and this was a reflection of one of his idols, the tenorist Stanley Turrentine. He was a lightning improviser and the flood of his inventions flew through his fingers with ease, for he was a masterful player.”

Selected Discography

Dick Morrissey performed on over 100 recordings, some of which are now collectors’ items.

  • It’s Morrissey, Man! (1961)
  • What The Dickens! - Johnny Dankworth and his Orchestra (1963)
  • Have You Heard? - Dick Morrissey (1963)
  • Dick Morrissey – There and Back (live Jan. 1964/Aug. 1965 – released 1997)
  • Storm Warning! - Dick Morrissey (Nov. 1965)
  • Here and Now and Sounding Good - Dick Morrissey (1966?)
  • Presenting the Harry South Big Band (1966)
  • Sound Venture – Georgie Fame and the Harry South Big Band (1966)
  • Acropolis - Ian Hamer Sextet (1966)
  • Spoon Sings and Swings – Jimmy Witherspoon (1966)
  • Two Faces of Fame – Georgie Fame (1967)
  • Sonny’s Blues: Live at Ronnie Scott’s – Sonny Stitt
  • The Greatest Little Soul Band in the Land – J.J. Jackson (1969)
  • J.J. Jackson's Dilemma (1970)
  • IF (1970)
  • To Seek a New Home - Brother Jack McDuff (1970)
  • IF 2 (1970)
  • IF 3 (1971)
  • IF 4 (Waterfall) (1972)
  • Not Just Another Bunch of Pretty Faces - IF (1974)
  • Whitehorn – Geoff Whitehorn (1974)
  • Tea Break Over, Back On Our ‘eads - IF (1975)
  • Don’t Get Around Much Anymore - Live at Bullerbyn (1975)
  • UP - Morrissey Mullen (1976)
  • Peter Gabriel I – (1977)
  • The Party Album - Alexis Korner (1978)
  • The Atlantic Family Live at Montreux - (1978)
  • Cape Wrath - Morrissey Mullen (1979)
  • Peter Gabriel III (aka Melt) – Peter Gabriel (1979)
  • White Trails – Chris Rainbow (1979)
  • Alexis Korner and Friends (1980)
  • Honky – Keith Emerson (1981)
  • Song of Seven – Jon Anderson (1980)
  • The Friends of Mr Cairo – Jon & Vangelis (1981)
  • Badness – Morrissey Mullen (1981)
  • In Hoagland – Georgie Fame/Annie Ross (1981)
  • Private Collection - Jon & Vangelis (1981)
  • Land of Cockayne – Soft Machine (1981)
  • Life on the Wire – Morrissey Mullen (1982)
  • Nightbirds - Shakatak (1982)
  • Animation – Jon Anderson (1982)
  • It’s About Time - Morrissey Mullen (1983)
  • The Warriors – Gary Numan (1983)
  • After Dark - Dick Morrissey (1983)
  • This Must Be the Place - Morrissey Mullen (1985)
  • The Fury – Gary Numan (1985)
  • Invitation - Shakatak (1985)
  • Souliloquy – Dick Morrissey (1986)
  • Animal magic - The Blow Monkeys (1986)
  • City Walls - Phil Carmen (1987)
  • Face to Face - Barclay James Harvest (1987)
  • Happy Hour – Morrissey Mullen (1988)
  • Resurrection Ritual - Dick Morrissey (1988)
  • Cookin’ – Charly Antolini (1989)
  • Super Jam – Villa Fantastica (live Nov/Dec. 1989)
  • Shaking the Tree – Peter Gabriel (1990)
  • Swinging Hollywood – Pete York (1991)
  • Superblues – Pete York (1994)
  • Good Times & the Blues – Mike Carr (1993)
  • Pretentions – The Clarke and Ware Experiment (1999)
  • The Instrumental Chris Rainbow – Chris Rainbow (1999)

Sources

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