Derek Wadsworth

Derek Wadsworth (5 February 1939 – 3 December 2008) was an English jazz musician, composer and arranger.

Wadsworth was born in Cleckheaton, Yorkshire on 5 February 1939.^[1] His first instrument was the cornet^[2] and he started playing the trombone at the age of eleven.^[1]

Wadsworth played in bands in Huddersfield in the late 1950s.^[1] He was based in London from the early 1960s and played in several bands.^[2] He was musical director for singer Dusty Springfield in the mid-1960s, and for a Diana Ross world tour, and held the same position in the musical Hair for five years^[1] from 1968.^[3] He first arranged music in 1970, for Spring and Port Wine.^[3]

As a musician, he toured Europe with Georgie Fame and was with Humphrey Lyttelton into the mid-1970s.^[2] Wadsworth toured the United States with Maynard Ferguson in 1972, as well as recording with the bandleader.^[2] He also had lengthy periods in the 1970s with Graham Collier and John Dankworth.^[2] Wadsworth founded the Musicians Union's Rock Workshop and lectured there in the latter part of the decade.^[2] He also led his own sextet.^[1] In 1975 he arranged for Alfie Darling^[3] and in the following year he composed and arranged for the 24-part television drama Space: 1999^[1][2] (including this second series's newly-composed main theme tune) and worked on the film The Man Who Fell to Earth.^[3]

Wadsworth was also busy as a session musician, including for recordings by Tony Bennett, George Harrison, Tom Jones and Dionne Warwick.^[3] Years later, he commented: "We flitted from one studio to the next, never quite knowing what we had recorded [...] Now that there's money available for people who played on records of yesteryear we're all busy scrabbling about trying to find out who did what."^[3] For some projects, Wadsworth played electronic keyboards and was credited as Daniel Caine.^[3]

By the 1980s he was concentrating on film composing and arranging, but also led the band Blind Alley.^[1] He was involved in the 1983 film Britannia Hospital.^[3] He was able to continue playing jazz into the 1990s, in bands led by Harry Gold, Brian Priestley and Bob Wilber.^[1] In the same decade he also conducted the Prague Symphony Orchestra for recordings^[1] and was involved in the documentary film Wild Man Blues.^[3]

In the 2000s, his playing included a quintet that he co-led with Ray Warleigh.^[1] Wadsworth wrote around two hundred pieces of music for television advertisements.^[3] He died suddenly on 3 December 2008. His wife, Betty, died in 1987 and he is survived by his partner, Patsy Halliday, and a son and a daughter from his marriage.^[3]

• Hair (Original London Cast Recording) 1968

With Graham Collier

• Songs for My Father (Fontana, 1970)
• Darius (Mosaic, 1974)
• Midnight Blue (Mosaic, 1975)
• Space: 1999 year 2 (CD, Fanderson. Original incidental music from the series, released in 2000)
• Space: 1999 year 2 (CD, Fanderson. Original incidental music from the series, re-released posthumously in 2016)