William S. Heckscher
From 1918 to 1921, the family lived in the Netherlands while Heckscher's father served as the Weimar Republic's ambassador to The Hague; there, Heckscher enrolled at the Nederlandsch Lyceum. Heckscher pursued his interests in history and Flemish art by spending his off hours studying at the Dutch Royal Library, the Mauritshuis and the Kröller-Müller Museum, but was dismissed from the Lyceum in 1920 for "lack of scholarly potential". After the family returned to Hamburg, Heckscher attended the city's Kunstgewerbeschule, now the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, but failed a class in ceramics.
Jeff Hirshfield
Hirshfield was born in New York City. He studied under Ed Soph. He worked for the Joffrey Ballet in 1976-77 and then played with Mose Allison (1977–79). During the 1980s he worked with Red Rodney and Ira Sullivan (1981–85), Toshiko Akiyoshi (1986-89), and Bennie Wallace (1987–90). Alongside Fred Hersch and Steve LaSpina, he was a member of the trio "Etc." during 1988-91. During this time he also played in a trio with Hersch and Michael Formanek. From 1990 he played with Harold Danko, played in Formanek's Wide Open Spaces project, and played again with LaSpina in a quartet setting. He also worked in a quartet with John Abercrombie and Andy LaVerne early in the 1990s. In the mid-1990s he played in a trio with Marc Copland and Dieter Ilg (1992–95), another trio with Tim Berne and Formanek (1993–94), and the Lan Xang ensemble with David Binney, Donny McCaslin, and Scott Colley (after 1995).