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Colin Hodgkinson, Spring 2004
On a bitterly cold day just before last Christmas I said a final goodbye to a man who was not only an incredibly gifted musician and one of my dearest friends, but also my musical partner in Back Door - the most exciting and significant time of our musical careers. We met in 1968 when I had a residency at the Starlight Club in Redcar. I came from a self-taught rock and blues background, Ron was a brilliant sight reader and lead alto player, and at the time was in a rock / soul band every Tuesday in the club. He taught me to read; I taught him about Robert johnson and Leadbelly, and we both joined Eric Delaney's band, which included a four month season in Bournemouth. That's when we hatched the musical plot that became Back Door.
The success of that band and our subsequent world tours have been well documented elsewhere, but it was then that I really encountered his musical perfectionism. And his great sense of humour. When we were co-writing the material for the band we would almost come to blows over a riff or phrase - anything in fact that did not come up to his own high standards and musical honesty. Although we were perceived as a 'wild' kind of band Ron always had a grip on everything. It was this quality, I believe, that made him such a successful session musician after we broke up in 1976 - and later, a composer of everything from jingles to TV and library music, although he did have one further spell touring, with John William's Sky.
Stories about his sense of humour and awkward squad mentality abound from this period: like the time he took the imperious Marvin Hamlisch down a peg (to the delight of the RPO musicians who were working on the session with him). Of all the memories of his irrepressible sense of comedy, one stands out; at the Starlight Club, New Year's Eve, 1970. The place was packed, the atmosphere like a sauna, and we couldn't get a drink. 'I'll get you to the bar' he said, ' Start up the conga ....'. With that he took out his little curved soprano, led everyone round the club a couple of times and then out into the street, leaving the club empty and the rest of us at the bar with welcome pints. Ten minutes later he came back, trousers soaked to the knees and every dancer in the same state. He had led them all into the freezing North Sea - and they had all followed him! Magic!
His health had been poor for a long time before he died, but we did make one more album, which came out last year. I am so glad that he was pleased with it, because his musical standards were as high as ever. He has left us too soon, but his music has touched people all over the world.
John Fordham
Saturday January 3, 2004
The Guardian
The saxophonist behind a Yorkshire fusion band that briefly conquered the music world - and left a unique legacy.
In the 1970s, a fusion trio, Back Door, wailed out of a remote pub on the Yorkshire moors, hooked a record deal with Warner Brothers on its first appearance at Ronnie Scott's club in London, and was soon playing international stadia, - and California's Fillmore West. Ron Aspery, who has died of a stroke aged 57, was Back Door's saxophonist, keyboard player and dominant composer and no fusion band anywhere in the world at that time sounded quite like Back Door, one of the most original jazz groups ever to have formed in Britain.
The group plugged into the soulful, funk-driven, blues-rooted elements that were making jazz fusion marketable and hot in the 1970s, and pushing the more traditional acoustic sound of a modern jazz band into the back seat. But, while seemingly interchangeable fusion bands were developing, Back Door was eccentrically different - in its odd instrumentation, appetite for improvisation and surprise, and unusual repertoire. It was a pungent stew. There was early urban R&B, which often had Aspery's vocalised sax-playing in place of a voice. There was 60s soul jazz somehow caught up with the lateral-sax of an Ornette Coleman or an Albert Ayler.There was a muscular English folksiness, and a remarkable relationship between Aspery and electric-bass virtuoso Colin Hodgkinson.
The two musicians could lay back with brooding,
spacious alto-sax ruminations exploiting Aspery's bluesy tone
and uncanny pacing, snap into a punchy 12-bar in which Hodgkinson
would combine a bassline and a guitar lead while his groove was
as unwavering as Tony Hicks' drumming, and unpredictably open
the improvising out to the borders of free-form. The band was
once described as "Ornette Coleman playing Robert Johnson".
Aspery was born in Middlesbrough. His parents were ballroom-dancing enthusiasts, and as a boy he was fascinated by the look and sound of the saxophones in the touring orchestras that dominated popular music before rock'n'roll. Aspery took up the sax, and was taught by a successful local bandleader, Jimmy Carr. By the age of 12, the boy was competent on saxophones and woodwind, and already composing. Aspery played alto with the Middlesbrough municipal jazz orchestra, and by his early teens Carr had given him a professional gig on the departure of his own altoist.
At 16, he was spotted on a jam session by one of popular bandleader Eric Delaney's sidemen, and he got the call to join an orchestra led by a musical hero he had long admired. Working with Delaney was a baptism of fire, but Aspery rose to the challenge - honing theoretical and sight-reading skills as well as performing talents that underpinned his entire career.
Aspery had met Hodgkinson when the latter had a residency at the Starlight Club in Redcar and Aspery was a regular visitor with a local rock/soul band - the landlord had told Hodgkinson that one of the best saxophonists in the country was coming, and when he heard Aspery for the first time he immediately agreed. Aspery drew Hodgkinson into the Delaney circle, giving the self-taught bassist a crash-course in the sight-reading he was so fluent at himself.
By 1969, they were on a 16-week Delaney summer season at the Bournemouth Winter Gardens. Bored by the repertoire, they took to improvising as a duo during afternoons in the empty theatre, and thus did the first Back Door pieces come to be written.
Moving to London to play Mecca ballrooms, Aspery began to make his way on the session circuit (his skills made him a natural) while Hodgkinson joined blues singer Alexis Korner. The two were beginning to prosper, but the embryonic Back Door was beckoning. They moved back to Redcar, discovered a free-thinking local drummer in Tony Hicks and Back Door began to take shape at the Lion Inn, at Blakey Ridge on the North Yorkshire moors.
Record companies turned them down flat, baffled by the absence of a lead singer or a guitarist. But the Lion's landlord, Brian Jones, financed an album. One copy ended up on Charles Shaar Murray's desk at the New Musical Express, and his glowing review set the ball rolling. Pete King of Ronnie Scott's club came across another at Drum City in Shaftesbury Avenue - the Middlesbrough-raised manager had received a consignment of albums from Aspery - and promptly offered the band a gig.
Playing opposite Chick Corea's Return To Forever at Ronnie Scott's for three weeks in 1971, they were welcomed by record labels that had previously rejected them, and were eventually signed by Warner. They released four albums during four years, and toured the United States and Europe. Aspery disliked touring, but found himself in packages with the biggest rock names of the period. Sharing a bill with the J Geils Band, Aspery found himself playing chess with a blonde woman in shades - who partnered one of the Geils Band members - in flights all over the US. Aspery didn't find out until later that she was Faye Dunaway.
Back Door's reviews were always excellent,
and budding celebrities, including Phil Collins and Sting, had
wanted to become involved, but the box-office takings declined.
In 1976, they wound the band up, and Aspery played, arranged and
composed music for TV, radio and commercials. He worked on scores
for Baywatch, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Friends, The Simpsons, Natural
Born Killers, The Spy Who Loved Me, McVicar and Sesame Street
among many others, and performed with Chris Rea, Status Quo, Ronnie
Scott and Keith Richards. Aspery also worked in guitarist John
Williams's crossover band Sky, the only other group in his life
that he regularly toured with.
Aspery occasionally appeared with other
high calibre players he deserved to partner, notably with Gil
Evans's band at the Montreux Festival. Moving to Sussex, he commuted
to London for endless sessions, but by the end of the 1980s was
happy to withdraw to a solitary role, composing stock tunes and
library music for the industry, but subjecting all work to his
rigorous standards and subtle craftsmanship.
In March 2003, with original copies of Back Door's home-produced
vinyl debut fetching astronomical prices, the group returned to
the Lion Inn for two ecstatic nights. Once again, the audience
was jammed against the walls and others were peering through the
windows for a glimpse - and the familiarity of the scene quelled
the stage-fright that had come to haunt Aspery.
The music still had the trademark Back Door econ omy, of "get in, say it, get out". The music on the 2003 album Askin' The Way confirmed his talents still flowered, with some powerful new material, revealing revisits to old songs, and a husky, haunting tenderness with ballads that revealed a new side.
He continued to love all musics, but spontaneous lyrical geniuses like Miles Davis and Johnny Hodges were always at the forefront of his mind. He would also listen to the big-band music that first inspired him, playing Woody Herman discs on an old Ferguson auto-changer to recapture those first magic sounds.
Hodgkinson's CV contains many eminent musicians
but the bassist said that the largely unsung Aspery was one of
the greatest musicians he had ever worked with. Back Door will
always be a cult band, rediscovered by succeeding generations
- but despite its success in its prime, it never veered from making
music for the love of it, or exploring unexplored territory to
see what adventures might happen on the way. Aspery was its modest
inspiration. 
He is survived by his wife Jenny and daughter Sarah.
Ronald Aspery, musician and composer, born June 9 1946; died December 10 2003
Ron Aspery obituary January 6 2004
The Antichrist of Jazz Noodlers
RON ASPERY 1943-2003. Saxophonist, Flautist, Pianist & Composer
Some musical pairings seem to encapsulate
high spots in artists' careers. I'm thinking of jazzers, I suppose,
like Coltrane and Tyner, Ornette and Don Cherry, I suppose, but
also of Stan Tracey and Mike Osborne, Dudu Pukwana and Mongesi
Feza among others. These particular duos have all been brought
to mind by the fact that the mighty pairing of saxophonist Ron
Aspery with bassist Colin Hodgkinson will not be heard again.
They formed the original nucleus which, with the addition of that
exceptional drummer, Tony Hicks, became Back Door the band that
first played in a small pub on the North Yorkshire moors then
were catapulted to fame, supporting Chick Corea as well as touring
and recording in the USA. Though fame for a band that played an
unfashionable mixture of jazz and delta blues was never going
to last you can't ever eradicate talent however capricious the
music business may be.
So, Back Door enjoyed a revival over the last couple of years , with some of their BBC radio sessions from the 1970s appearing thanks to Hux Records. But the release of "Askin The Way" on the Cultural Foundation label this summer showed that the band, reunited, had lost none of their collective fire and vitality. Aspery is at his best, combining lyricism with a sometimes keening, acerbic tone. On one track "Spare Me The Tears" he simply makes the saxophone sing, so pure and vocal is the tone. His playing was always gutsy and drenched in both blues and jazz but some of my favourite moments were when he let his melodic side show. Tracks like "Askin The Way", "Hurlingham Down" and "Folksong" are especially haunting. Nevertheless, "Slivadiv", a completely different shot of raucous energy, also continues to float my boat. And Aspery's soloing was constantly a model of economy and invention, he was, without doubt, the Antichrist of noodling jazz "artists" everywhere. He could say more in a couple of minutes than others in a couple of albums.
There is no way I can imagine an incarnation of Back Door without him so I would guess it is the end of the band but if you haven't heard them then try to get hold of either of the cds I've mentioned. He was a rare talent and will be much missed.
Paul Donnelly
Ron Aspery
I was completely shocked by the UK Guardian obituary to Ron Aspery
who died on December 10th. I had seen no news of his death. Back
Door's first 2 albums are up there in my top ten. After many years
silence they were back and kicking as a great live band. Now he's
gone - it is a great loss.
Richard Gardner
Ron Aspery - The Times
obituary
RON ASPERY
Soprano saxophonist with the shortlived but widely admired jazz-rock
band Back Door.
The jazz-rock fusion trio Back Door was together only for five years, 1972-77, but it established itself as one of the most original groups of the time. Although he occasionally played keyboards in the band, the lasting image of Ron Aspery is of a hirsute, bespectacled figure pugnaciously blowing his tiny curved soprano saxophone, backed by the chords and basslines of the bandís virtuoso bass- guitarist, Colin Hodgkinson.
The trio was signed to Warner Brothers in 1972, starting a brief period of worldwide touring and recording. Amid dozens of encounters with the star names of the rock, jazz and pop worlds, Ron Aspery found himself learning chess from the actress Faye Dunaway on the tour bus with the J. Geils Band, and stepping in to play in Miles Davis's group at the Hammersmith Odeon when the trumpeter's own saxophonist failed to arrive. He went on to be one of the most prolific session players in the London studio world, appearing on soundtracks that ranged from James Bond films to Birdís Custard commercials, and backing other artists such as Frankie Miller, Chris Rea and Roger Daltrey.
Aspery grew up in Middlesbrough, where he
decided on playing the saxophone at the age of 11, having been
taken by his parents to hear the junior municipal orchestra. While
waiting for his mail-order saxophone to arrive, he learnt the
fingering positions from drawing pins stuck into a broom handle.
Lessons followed from the local bandleader Jimmy Carr, and Aspery
became a proficient sight reader, in due course playing second
alto saxophone for Carr on the Mecca dance hall circuit.
Before long, he was hired by Eric Delaney, and at 17 he first went to London, playing high-profile engagements and regular broadcasts with Delaneyís band. He met the bass player Colin Hodgkinson at a club in Redcar while playing briefly in the rock band Real McCoy, and cajoled him into joining Delaneyís band too.
The genesis of Back Door was during a summer season backing Norman Wisdom, where bass player and saxophonist jammed together to create a core repertoire of original tunes. Leaving Delaney to work in the house band at the Starlight Club in Redcar, Aspery and Hodgkinson joined forces with the drummer Tony Hicks to play a weekly gig on their night off at the Lion Inn on Blakey Ridge. Within weeks the bandís sessions had acquired a cult following, and the pubís landlord, Brian Jones, financed the trio's first LP, which ended up with Back Door playing at Ronnie Scott's.
They were the first band to bring massive amplification to Scott's, dwarfing the equipment of Chick Corea's Return to Forever, whom they supported.
When Scott beckoned him aside, Aspery expected to be ticked off for removing seats to accommodate stack speakers. Instead Scott asked him for some tips on saxophone playing.
The trio turned down a record deal from Richard Branson, whom Aspery thought had few prospects as an apparently penniless student living on a narrowboat and selling secondhand records in Notting Hill. Instead, they signed with Warners, making a series of four albums culminating in Activate (1976).
The pressures of touring and playing to huge stadium audiences, together with the ready availability of alcohol and stimulants, took their toll on the band, and it eventually split up.
Aspery guested with other bands, including the Icelandic fusion group Mezzoforte, and Sky, in which he replaced the guitarist John Williams for tours of Australasia.
Leaving the session world at the end of the 1980s, Aspery subsequently worked as a composer and arranger for various music publishers. His public appearances were infrequent, and he spent various periods in rehabilitation. In the spring of 2003, Back Door were reunited for two nights at the Lion Inn, resulting in the critically acclaimed album Askin' The Way.
Aspery is survived by his wife and daughter.
Ron Aspery, jazz-rock saxophonist, pianist and composer, was born
on June 9, 1946. He died from a stroke on December 10, 2003, aged
57.
Devastated
Just found out about Ron .
He was my hero.
What can I say?
Martin Normington
Ron Aspery
A massive loss to the music world. Ron was a first rate player whose style was enormously influential. I know from first hand experience that he was held in the highest of esteem by his fellow musicians.
I first saw him playing in local bands around the area in the late 60's : River's Invitation, for example, played at our school, Whitby Grammar, and also at my College of Ed. I guess that Coverdale would have been in the line-up.
In 72 I went to Blakey one night to see
Back Door after reading about them in the local press and was,
like so many others, astonished at the sheer power and musicianship
of this incredble trio. I saw them many times after this and never
lost my admiration for their work. Everything that needs to be
said about them has been covered by so many others so all I can
add is an unshakeable belief that the likes of Back Door were
never seen before and will never be heard again. Thank God and
Brian Jones we have the albums and CD's. I shall treasure my original
Blakey LP forever !
Rest in peace Ron.
Anon. Middlesbrough.
Ron Aspery
I never knew Ron but heard many stories about him from professional musicians I got to know.
I had a good friend (Ritchie Close) from college days who went on to become a highly respected keyboard player, composer and producer. Like Ron he worked his way up from the cabaret and club scene, with bands from Tony Christie, Eric Delaney, Mike Harding through to Big Country who he was with when he sadly died of Legionnaire's Disease in 1990.
Ritchie knew everyone in the business and
worked in Eric Delaney's Band long after Aspery's stint. However
he retold me the hilarious stories about Ron and his escapades.
'Allegedly' Delaney was pretty tight and paid the band poorly.
(Even in the 70's he made his band wear stage clothes that he
had used in his hay-days of the early 60's - long green waistcoats!)
To get some kind of retribution Ron played all kinds of tricks
on him. Once on a continental tour, I think in Switzerland, the
band tied Delaney's drum kit to the stage-curtains which were
the type that rose up rather than pulled apart. Now Delaney was,
and for all I know still is, a great showman of the old school.
He always started his show with a big drum roll before the curtains
opened... on this occasion the audience were treated to half his
kit going up in the air and him left on a drum stool, sticks held
high and enraged. I beleieve it was after this that Eric sacked
the band, but then had to reinstate them as he was left with no
band and no hope of getting one. Other stories, involving a certain
toupee are possibly too libelous to re-tell here!
Regards, Les
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