SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
WINTER, 2017
VOLUME FIVE NUMBER ONE
ORNETTE COLEMAN
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
TYSHAWN SOREY
(November 4-10)
JALEEL SHAW
(November 11-17)
COUNT BASIE
(November 18-24)
NICHOLAS PAYTON
(November 25-December 1)
JONATHAN FINLAYSON
(December 2-8)
JIMMY HEATH
(December 9-15)
BRIAN BLADE
(December 16-22)
RAVI COLTRANE
(December 23-29)
CHRISTIAN SCOTT
(December 30-January 5)
GIL SCOTT-HERON
(January 6-12)
MARK TURNER
(January 13-19)
CRAIG TABORN
(January 20-26)
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/jimmyheath
Jimmy Heath
(b. October 25, 1926)
Jimmy Heath has long been recognized as a brilliant instrumentalist
and a magnificent composer and arranger. Jimmy is the middle brother of
the legendary Heath Brothers (Percy Heath/bass and Tootie Heath/drums),
and is the father of Mtume. He has performed with nearly all the jazz
greats of the last 50 years, from Howard McGhee, Dizzy Gillespie, and
Miles Davis to Wynton Marsalis. In 1948 at the age of 21, he performed
in the First International Jazz Festival in Paris with McGhee, sharing
the stage with Coleman Hawkins, Slam Stewart, and Erroll Garner. One of
Heath’s earliest big bands (1947-1948) in Philadelphia included John
Coltrane, Benny Golson, Specs Wright, Cal Massey, Johnny Coles, Ray
Bryant, and Nelson Boyd. Charlie Parker and Max Roach sat in on one
occasion.
During his career, Jimmy Heath has performed on more
than 100 record albums including seven with The Heath Brothers and
twelve as a leader. Jimmy has also written more than 125 compositions,
many of which have become jazz standards and have been recorded by other
artists including Art Farmer, Cannonball Adderley, Clark Terry, Chet
Baker, Miles Davis, James Moody, Milt Jackson, Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles,
Dizzy Gillespie J.J Johnson and Dexter Gordon. Jimmy has also composed
extended works - seven suites and two string quartets - and he premiered
his first symphonic work, “Three Ears,” in 1988 at Queens College
(CUNY) with Maurice Peress conducting.
After having just concluded
eleven years as Professor of Music at the Aaron Copland School of Music
at Queens College, Heath maintains an extensive performance schedule
and continues to conduct workshops and clinics throughout the United
States, Europe, and Canada. He has also taught jazz studies at
Jazzmobile, Housatonic College, City College of New York, and The New
School for Social Research. In October 1997, two of his former students,
trumpeters Darren Barrett and Diego Urcola, placed first and second in
the Thelonious Monk Competition.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jimmy-heath-mn0000120241/biography
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jimmy-heath-mn0000120241/biography
Jimmy Heath
Artist Biography by Scott Yanow
The middle of the three Heath Brothers, Jimmy Heath
has a distinctive sound on tenor, is a fluid player on soprano and
flute, and a very talented arranger/composer whose originals include
"C.T.A." and "Gingerbread Boy." He was originally an altoist, playing
with Howard McGhee during 1947-1948 and the Dizzy Gillespie big band (1949-1950). Called "Little Bird" because of the similarity in his playing to Charlie Parker, Heath switched to tenor in the early '50s. Although out of action for a few years due to "personal problems," Heath wrote for Chet Baker and Art Blakey during 1956-1957. Back in action in 1959, he worked with Miles Davis briefly that year, in addition to Kenny Dorham and Gil Evans, and started a string of impressive recordings for Riverside. In the 1960s, Heath frequently teamed up with Milt Jackson and Art Farmer, and he also worked as an educator and a freelance arranger. During 1975-1982, Jimmy Heath teamed up with brothers Percy and Tootie in the Heath Brothers, and since then has remained active as a saxophonist and writer. In addition to his earlier Riverside dates, Jimmy Heath has recorded as a leader for Cobblestone, Muse, Xanadu, Landmark, and Verve.
https://jazztimes.com/departments/overdue-ovation/jimmy-heath-the-endless-search/
Jimmy Heath: The Endless Search
Courtesy of Dansun Productions
Jimmy Heath
Beloved by his bop-era colleagues as well as generations of
disciples, veteran saxophonist-composer-arranger Jimmy Heath is an
active octogenarian on the scene, still swinging after all these years.
At age 83, the NEA Jazz Master (Class of ’03) is blowing potent lines on
both tenor and soprano saxophones, as evidenced by two recordings from
2009: the Heath Brothers’ Endurance (JLP) with Albert “Tootie”
Heath on drums, David Wong on bass and Jeb Patton on piano; and the
Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band’s live outing, I’m BeBoppin’ Too (Half Note).
Endurance was the first Heath Brothers project since the passing of brother and bassist Percy in May 2005. (As the saxophonist says, using humor to offset hard reality, “Two out of three ain’t bad!”) The album finds Jimmy in top form, bearing down with fluent tenor lines on his buoyant opener “Changes” and on his urgent shuffle-swing number “Wall to Wall,” flaunting robust tenor tones on the poignant “Ballad From Leadership Suite,” and switching to soprano sax on Patton’s engaging “Dusk in the City.” He navigates the tricky head of “Two Tees” with ease before delivering a smoky, burnished sound on “Autumn in New York.” The diminutive (5-feet-3-inches) jazz giant concludes the set with a strong tenor performance on “The Rio Dawn,” his musical impression of his first visit to Brazil in 1982.
While clearly in full command of his instrument, Heath has also been showcasing his considerable writing-arranging and conducting skills with his celebrated big band-most recently documented on 2006’s Turn Up the Heath on Planet Arts. In this regard, he’s come full circle from his first leader experience in 1946, the Jimmy Heath Orchestra, which featured a very young John Coltrane on alto sax. “I still love big band,” he beams. “I was raised up with that sound. After Duke Ellington and people like that, how can you give that up? The only problem is transporting a big band because it’s so expensive. But there are still nuts out here like me, Maria Schneider, Slide Hampton, Jon Faddis, Frank Foster, the Vanguard Orchestra and some others who believe in the big band. This is our symphony orchestra. And from an arranger’s point of view, it’s so satisfying because we can get so many musical textures and sounds out of a big band with the pairing of instruments. It’s endless.”
Heath, in fact, wrote an extended piece for the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra called “The Endless Search,” which premiered in 2006 (an excerpt can be heard at www.srjo.org). “That’s what my life is about … the endless search,” he says. “As long as I’m here I’m gonna be trying something.”
One intriguing project on Heath’s horizon is a hip-hop-big-band experiment featuring his son Mtume and grandson. “We had a proposal that involved three generations of the Heath family,” he explains. “My grandson is going to come in with some beats and all that. You know, I don’t have blinders on, I’m still open to new sounds and ideas. My problem with a lot of today’s contemporary music is that in my day we were looking for artistic excellence and now they seem to be into narcissistic decadence. … But we just want to show that this blending of hip-hop and jazz can be done with taste.
Heath reveals the details of his life and illustrious career in his recently published memoir, I Walked With Giants (Temple University Press). Co-written by Joseph McLaren, a former flute student of Heath’s at the Jazzmobile during the early ’70s who is currently an author and professor of English at Hofstra University, this compelling 336-page book captures the essence of the bebop era from an insider’s view while retaining the saxophonist’s colorful storytelling style. From his first touring experiences with the Calvin Todd and Nat Towles orchestras to early gigs with the Howard McGhee Sextet and Gil Fuller’s band in the late ’40s, we see the young musician develop his own sound while dealing with dispiriting acts of segregation and racism on the road.
We read about his stint with mentor Dizzy Gillespie in 1949-50, followed by a gala tour in 1952 with the Symphony Sid All-Stars. We follow Jimmy’s progress from his brief tenure with Miles Davis in 1959 (as a replacement for Coltrane) to his marriage to Mona Brown (they recently celebrated their 50th anniversary) and the eventual formation of the Grammy-nominated Heath Brothers band. Through it all, the middle Heath brother-Percy was the elder sibling-spares no detail.
Most gripping is Heath’s account of his heroin addiction and arrest for possession and sales, leading to his incarceration in 1955 at the Lewisburg Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. As he writes: “They charged me as a second-time drug offender for drug sale. When I went before Judge Lord, I was told that each sale had two counts-selling, facilitating, and resale, so I had six counts. I got six years on each count, but the first five counts ran concurrently, so I had a six-year sentence.” He chronicles his kicking the heroin habit and organizing a prison big band while in jail, and explains how brother Tootie smuggled his new compositions out of prison and delivered them to Chet Baker, who included a few on his 1956 album Playboys.
In an interview at his home in Corona, Queens, where he and Mona have been living since 1964, Heath commented on those tumultuous times: “Yeah, Dizzy fired me and then he hired me back after I straightened my life out. Because I was a sick man, you know? That’s what it is. It’s a sickness that’s very difficult. But in retrospect, I think it was a blessing that I went away to get straight. I just thought four and a half years was too long, man. It definitely stifled my career, but it also saved my life. My career I could get back. My life … I got to have my life. And when I look back, a lot of my peers didn’t make it. Charlie Parker was only 34, man, and he was outta here! He left the world with a wealth of music, but he doesn’t get his life back. Coltrane died at 40. We were boys together in Philly, man! And so many others died young. So being in Lewisburg was a blessing in disguise. I learned from that never to do that again, and I didn’t.”
Upon being released from prison on May 21, 1959, Heath almost immediately began working regularly around Philadelphia with trumpet great Kenny Dorham. He also picked up a high-profile gig in June of that year at the Apollo Theater with the Gil Evans big band. Cannonball Adderley, who had championed Jimmy’s cause during his period of incarceration, recommended Heath to Orrin Keepnews, who quickly signed the saxophonist to Riverside after his release and presided over 1959’s The Thumper and 1960’s Really Big! But even though he was out of prison, Heath was not entirely a free man. When he couldn’t make a gig in Chicago, a condition of Heath’s probation requiring him to remain within a 50-mile radius of Philadelphia ultimately foiled his chance to work with Miles Davis. As he writes, “I told my probation officer, ‘I got the best job I ever had in my life. I’m making a lot of money, five or six hundred dollars a week. You’re cutting me off from making my livelihood.’ And he said, ‘I can’t do anything about it.’ He had just given me permission without checking-he blamed it on higher-ups in Washington, D.C.-and now he found out that he shouldn’t have. Miles was very disappointed, but he had friends in Philly. He tried everybody he knew with authority in Philadelphia, but no luck. … Now I had a job, an opportunity to be with one off the best bands in the land and in the world, and I couldn’t go. I was being penalized for my past.”
Fifty years later, Heath’s many awards, trophies, citations, medals and plaques are piling up in his computer room, where he works on his big-band arrangements and extended compositions (using Finale software on his Mac). “Plaques? I got more plaques than people got on their teeth,” he jokes. On prominent display in this cluttered workroom is a large framed picture of Charlie Parker sitting as a guest soloist with Heath’s big band, circa 1946 (with a youthful John Coltrane in the horn section on alto).
As far as the state of jazz in the year 2010 and in the future, Heath remains hopeful. “There are some artists out here that are leading young players into something that doesn’t swing,” he says. “They think it’s hip to change up, but all changes are not good. You have to be careful about throwing away everything to get to something new. But I also know, from going around to schools like Queens College and Loyola in New Orleans and judging the Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition, that there are some very good young players out there who are steeped in the tradition and ready to take the music forward.”
As for his own accomplishments over his lengthy career, Heath has never thought of himself as a star, a term he actually disdains. “I’ve always been one of the guys, and I like that,” he says. “To be respected by your peers, you can’t ask for anything better than that.”
Recommended Listening:
The Heath Brothers Endurance (JLP, 2009)
The Jimmy Heath Big Band Turn Up the Heath (Planet Arts, 2006)
The Jimmy Heath Orchestra Really Big!
(Riverside, 1960)
http://www.jazzwax.com/2009/10/interview-jimmy-heath-part-1.html
Tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath is best known as the timeless anchor of the famed Heath Brothers band. When Jimmy's brother and bassist Percy died in 2005, Jimmy and drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath continued on, and their most recent album, Endurance, is a perfect example of how greatness only improves with age. On the CD of originals and standards, Jimmy exhibits a firm, smoky sound while Tootie's touch remains shrewd and motivating.
Jimmy's career began in the mid-1940s, and he played with virtually every modern jazz
trumpeter, including Howard McGhee, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Kenny
Dorham, Lee Morgan, Art Farmer and Freddie Hubbard. Jimmy's career was
interrupted by a four-year prison sentence for narcotics possession in
the mid-1950s, a period that would have destroyed most artists. Instead,
Jimmy continued to compose and play during his incarceration, and he
emerged determined to succeed and flourish.
In Part 1 of my two-part interview with Jimmy on the 1940s and 1950s, the 82-year-old tenor saxophonist talks about growing up in two cities, starting on the alto sax, joining Howard McGhee in 1948 and how he and his brother Percy came to the attention of Dizzy Gillespie in 1949:
JW: Did it feel good getting hired by Gillespie?
JH: Oh man, that was it. That was the top of the heap.
Dizzy had the bebop, the new music, and his band was incredible
musically. That was the top. I felt I had made it. Dizzy loved my
playing. He said in his book To Be or Not to Bop that this was
the best reed section he had had. It was me, Coltrane, Jesse Powell,
Paul Gonsalves and Al Gibson. [Pictured at center, from left: John
Coltrane, Jimmy Heath and Paul Gonsalves in Dizzy Gillespie's band;
click to enlarge]
JW: What made Dizzy special?
JH: Dizzy was a teacher all the time. Every day he was showing you something new rhythmically or harmonically
on the piano. Dizzy was the most accessible genius I have ever met.
Dizzy would stop to talk to the garbage man, kids, everybody. He was not
a guy who had an entourage like some people. He was an ordinary human
being with a world of talent. And he would give his talent to others. He
would show you a lot of things. We all learned from Dizzy, and those
who passed through Dizzy’s bands all went on to become the giants of the
music.
Tomorrow, why
Jimmy switched to tenor sax, the niche Miles Davis carved out for
himself in the early 1950s, Jimmy's years in prison and how Picture of Heath wound up on a Chet Baker album.
JazzWax tracks: Jimmy Heath recorded on alto saxophone in the late 1940s and sounds remarkably like Charlie Parker. Jimmy's earliest recordings with
Howard McGhee can be found on Howard McGhee 1946-1948. Jimmy appears on tracks 14-20 (with Earl Coleman on vocals on 14 and 15). You'll find a download here. His recordings in Paris with Kenny Clarke are tracks 1-4 on Kenny Clarke 1948-1950, a download here. Jimmy's recordings in 
Paris with Howard McGhee are tracks 8-20 (Al's Tune through Prelude to Nicole) on Howard 
McGhee: 1948, a download here. Jimmy with Dizzy Gillespie is on the downloadable Dizzy Gillespie and His Orchestra: 1949-1950, tracks 1-12 here.
JazzWax pages: Jimmy's autobiography, I Walked with Giants (Temple University Press) will be published January 28, 2010.
http://www.jazzwax.com/2009/10/interview-jimmy-heath-part-2.html
Up until 1952, Jimmy Heath's instrument was the alto saxophone. A fast study, Jimmy sounded almost identical to Charlie Parker, earning him the nickname "Little Bird." But the novelty of mimicking Parker soon wore thin, especially as the tenor saxophone emerged in the early 1950s as the more popular reed instrument. So Jimmy made the switch, and in 1953 began recording a series of important sessions with Miles Davis, Clifford Brown and Kenny Dorham. By late 1953, Jimmy was fast on his way to becoming one of the best-known saxophonists of the period. [Photo of Jimmy Heath in July 2009 by Paul Slaughter]
Then everything came crashing down. In 1954, Jimmy was arrested and convicted for drug possession and spent 4 1/2 years in prison
.
While serving time, Jimmy continued to play and compose. But by the
time he was released in 1959, Jimmy had missed out on what's arguably
the most important period in modern jazz history. Today, Jimmy looks
back and views those years as just another chapter in his life, albeit
an unfair one.
In Part 2 of my two-part interview with Jimmy, the legendary tenor saxophonist talks about Miles Davis and the niche he carved out, playing the baritone saxophone on two recordings, his admiration for trumpeter Kenny Dorham, his incarceration, and how Chet Baker wound up recording an album in 1956 that featured Jimmy's jailhouse compositions:
in 1953 can be found on Miles Davis Vol. 2 (Blue Note) as a download at iTunes. Jimmy with the J.J. Johnson Sextet featuring Clifford 
Brown, John Lewis, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke can be found on the Eminent Jay Jay Johnson Vol. 1 (Blue Note) as a download at iTunes and Amazon or here on CD. Jimmy plays alto and tenor saxophones on Kenny 
Dorham Quintet
(Debut), featuring Dorham on trumpet, Walter Bishop Jr. on piano, Percy
Heath on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums. The album is available as an
iTunes and Amazon download or on CD here.
Chet Baker and Art Pepper's Playboys, featuring
compositions by Jimmy Heath, has been reissued with a more politically correct title and cover image as Picture of Heath
(Pacific Jazz). The sextet included Baker (trumpet), Pepper (alto sax),
Phil Urso (tenor sax), Carl Perkins (piano), Curtis Counce (bass) and
Lawrence Marable (drums). It's available as a download or on CD here.
JazzWax pages: Jimmy's autobiography, I Walked with Giants (Temple University Press) will be published January 28, 2010.
Endurance was the first Heath Brothers project since the passing of brother and bassist Percy in May 2005. (As the saxophonist says, using humor to offset hard reality, “Two out of three ain’t bad!”) The album finds Jimmy in top form, bearing down with fluent tenor lines on his buoyant opener “Changes” and on his urgent shuffle-swing number “Wall to Wall,” flaunting robust tenor tones on the poignant “Ballad From Leadership Suite,” and switching to soprano sax on Patton’s engaging “Dusk in the City.” He navigates the tricky head of “Two Tees” with ease before delivering a smoky, burnished sound on “Autumn in New York.” The diminutive (5-feet-3-inches) jazz giant concludes the set with a strong tenor performance on “The Rio Dawn,” his musical impression of his first visit to Brazil in 1982.
While clearly in full command of his instrument, Heath has also been showcasing his considerable writing-arranging and conducting skills with his celebrated big band-most recently documented on 2006’s Turn Up the Heath on Planet Arts. In this regard, he’s come full circle from his first leader experience in 1946, the Jimmy Heath Orchestra, which featured a very young John Coltrane on alto sax. “I still love big band,” he beams. “I was raised up with that sound. After Duke Ellington and people like that, how can you give that up? The only problem is transporting a big band because it’s so expensive. But there are still nuts out here like me, Maria Schneider, Slide Hampton, Jon Faddis, Frank Foster, the Vanguard Orchestra and some others who believe in the big band. This is our symphony orchestra. And from an arranger’s point of view, it’s so satisfying because we can get so many musical textures and sounds out of a big band with the pairing of instruments. It’s endless.”
Heath, in fact, wrote an extended piece for the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra called “The Endless Search,” which premiered in 2006 (an excerpt can be heard at www.srjo.org). “That’s what my life is about … the endless search,” he says. “As long as I’m here I’m gonna be trying something.”
One intriguing project on Heath’s horizon is a hip-hop-big-band experiment featuring his son Mtume and grandson. “We had a proposal that involved three generations of the Heath family,” he explains. “My grandson is going to come in with some beats and all that. You know, I don’t have blinders on, I’m still open to new sounds and ideas. My problem with a lot of today’s contemporary music is that in my day we were looking for artistic excellence and now they seem to be into narcissistic decadence. … But we just want to show that this blending of hip-hop and jazz can be done with taste.
Heath reveals the details of his life and illustrious career in his recently published memoir, I Walked With Giants (Temple University Press). Co-written by Joseph McLaren, a former flute student of Heath’s at the Jazzmobile during the early ’70s who is currently an author and professor of English at Hofstra University, this compelling 336-page book captures the essence of the bebop era from an insider’s view while retaining the saxophonist’s colorful storytelling style. From his first touring experiences with the Calvin Todd and Nat Towles orchestras to early gigs with the Howard McGhee Sextet and Gil Fuller’s band in the late ’40s, we see the young musician develop his own sound while dealing with dispiriting acts of segregation and racism on the road.
We read about his stint with mentor Dizzy Gillespie in 1949-50, followed by a gala tour in 1952 with the Symphony Sid All-Stars. We follow Jimmy’s progress from his brief tenure with Miles Davis in 1959 (as a replacement for Coltrane) to his marriage to Mona Brown (they recently celebrated their 50th anniversary) and the eventual formation of the Grammy-nominated Heath Brothers band. Through it all, the middle Heath brother-Percy was the elder sibling-spares no detail.
Most gripping is Heath’s account of his heroin addiction and arrest for possession and sales, leading to his incarceration in 1955 at the Lewisburg Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. As he writes: “They charged me as a second-time drug offender for drug sale. When I went before Judge Lord, I was told that each sale had two counts-selling, facilitating, and resale, so I had six counts. I got six years on each count, but the first five counts ran concurrently, so I had a six-year sentence.” He chronicles his kicking the heroin habit and organizing a prison big band while in jail, and explains how brother Tootie smuggled his new compositions out of prison and delivered them to Chet Baker, who included a few on his 1956 album Playboys.
In an interview at his home in Corona, Queens, where he and Mona have been living since 1964, Heath commented on those tumultuous times: “Yeah, Dizzy fired me and then he hired me back after I straightened my life out. Because I was a sick man, you know? That’s what it is. It’s a sickness that’s very difficult. But in retrospect, I think it was a blessing that I went away to get straight. I just thought four and a half years was too long, man. It definitely stifled my career, but it also saved my life. My career I could get back. My life … I got to have my life. And when I look back, a lot of my peers didn’t make it. Charlie Parker was only 34, man, and he was outta here! He left the world with a wealth of music, but he doesn’t get his life back. Coltrane died at 40. We were boys together in Philly, man! And so many others died young. So being in Lewisburg was a blessing in disguise. I learned from that never to do that again, and I didn’t.”
Upon being released from prison on May 21, 1959, Heath almost immediately began working regularly around Philadelphia with trumpet great Kenny Dorham. He also picked up a high-profile gig in June of that year at the Apollo Theater with the Gil Evans big band. Cannonball Adderley, who had championed Jimmy’s cause during his period of incarceration, recommended Heath to Orrin Keepnews, who quickly signed the saxophonist to Riverside after his release and presided over 1959’s The Thumper and 1960’s Really Big! But even though he was out of prison, Heath was not entirely a free man. When he couldn’t make a gig in Chicago, a condition of Heath’s probation requiring him to remain within a 50-mile radius of Philadelphia ultimately foiled his chance to work with Miles Davis. As he writes, “I told my probation officer, ‘I got the best job I ever had in my life. I’m making a lot of money, five or six hundred dollars a week. You’re cutting me off from making my livelihood.’ And he said, ‘I can’t do anything about it.’ He had just given me permission without checking-he blamed it on higher-ups in Washington, D.C.-and now he found out that he shouldn’t have. Miles was very disappointed, but he had friends in Philly. He tried everybody he knew with authority in Philadelphia, but no luck. … Now I had a job, an opportunity to be with one off the best bands in the land and in the world, and I couldn’t go. I was being penalized for my past.”
Fifty years later, Heath’s many awards, trophies, citations, medals and plaques are piling up in his computer room, where he works on his big-band arrangements and extended compositions (using Finale software on his Mac). “Plaques? I got more plaques than people got on their teeth,” he jokes. On prominent display in this cluttered workroom is a large framed picture of Charlie Parker sitting as a guest soloist with Heath’s big band, circa 1946 (with a youthful John Coltrane in the horn section on alto).
As far as the state of jazz in the year 2010 and in the future, Heath remains hopeful. “There are some artists out here that are leading young players into something that doesn’t swing,” he says. “They think it’s hip to change up, but all changes are not good. You have to be careful about throwing away everything to get to something new. But I also know, from going around to schools like Queens College and Loyola in New Orleans and judging the Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition, that there are some very good young players out there who are steeped in the tradition and ready to take the music forward.”
As for his own accomplishments over his lengthy career, Heath has never thought of himself as a star, a term he actually disdains. “I’ve always been one of the guys, and I like that,” he says. “To be respected by your peers, you can’t ask for anything better than that.”
Recommended Listening:
The Heath Brothers Endurance (JLP, 2009)
The Jimmy Heath Big Band Turn Up the Heath (Planet Arts, 2006)
The Jimmy Heath Orchestra Really Big!
(Riverside, 1960)
http://www.jazzwax.com/2009/10/interview-jimmy-heath-part-1.html
October 19, 2009
Interview: Jimmy Heath (Part 1)
Tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath is best known as the timeless anchor of the famed Heath Brothers band. When Jimmy's brother and bassist Percy died in 2005, Jimmy and drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath continued on, and their most recent album, Endurance, is a perfect example of how greatness only improves with age. On the CD of originals and standards, Jimmy exhibits a firm, smoky sound while Tootie's touch remains shrewd and motivating.
Jimmy's career began in the mid-1940s, and he played with virtually every modern jazz
In Part 1 of my two-part interview with Jimmy on the 1940s and 1950s, the 82-year-old tenor saxophonist talks about growing up in two cities, starting on the alto sax, joining Howard McGhee in 1948 and how he and his brother Percy came to the attention of Dizzy Gillespie in 1949:
JazzWax: Where did you grow up?
Jimmy Heath: In Philadelphia. There were four of us—my sister, Percy, Tootie and me. My father was an auto mechanic, but for a period we were on welfare. It was the Depression.
Jimmy Heath: In Philadelphia. There were four of us—my sister, Percy, Tootie and me. My father was an auto mechanic, but for a period we were on welfare. It was the Depression.
JW: Why did you initially choose the alto sax?
JH: I had heard Johnny Hodges [pictured] and Benny Carter, and later Jimmy Dorsey. The alto just appealed to me. I began playing in high school, in the marching band, for football
games. I played the fight songs of all the colleges I couldn’t attend economically or racially, like On Wisconsin! and Notre Dame Victory March and so on. I also had a couple of private teachers and learned from mentors and the band director down in North Carolina.
JH: I had heard Johnny Hodges [pictured] and Benny Carter, and later Jimmy Dorsey. The alto just appealed to me. I began playing in high school, in the marching band, for football
JW: You mean Philadelphia, no?
JH: No, Wilmington, N.C. My older brother Percy and me used to go down there to live with my grandparents and go to high school there. Because of the economic problems my father had in Philadelphia. My grandmother and grandfather ran a grocery store that supplied all the teachers who taught at the black high school. They were like the neighborhood store where teachers would get things on credit. Percy and I would stay with my grandparents during the school year and then go back to Philadelphia in the summer.
JH: No, Wilmington, N.C. My older brother Percy and me used to go down there to live with my grandparents and go to high school there. Because of the economic problems my father had in Philadelphia. My grandmother and grandfather ran a grocery store that supplied all the teachers who taught at the black high school. They were like the neighborhood store where teachers would get things on credit. Percy and I would stay with my grandparents during the school year and then go back to Philadelphia in the summer.
JW: Could you read music at that time?
JH: I began to learn. I learned in high school. My private teacher was in Philadelphia, so I’d study more intensively when I’d return home in the summer.
JH: I began to learn. I learned in high school. My private teacher was in Philadelphia, so I’d study more intensively when I’d return home in the summer.
JW: Did learning to read music come easy?
JH: No, no, no. It took time. Nothing that’s good is ever easy [laughs]. After graduating from high school in 1943, I put together a band in Philadelphia. We played locally and out of town once in a while. We played swing and dance music. Bebop was just beginning, and I didn't hear Charlie Parker and Dizzy until 1945.
JH: No, no, no. It took time. Nothing that’s good is ever easy [laughs]. After graduating from high school in 1943, I put together a band in Philadelphia. We played locally and out of town once in a while. We played swing and dance music. Bebop was just beginning, and I didn't hear Charlie Parker and Dizzy until 1945.
JW: When did you lead your first serious band?
JH: In 1947. I had a couple of well-known guys in there. I had trumpeters Johnny Coles and Bill Massey, who knew
John Coltrane and introduced me to him. And I had tenor saxophonist
Benny Golson [pictured] and bassist Nelson Boyd. Percy couldn’t play the
bass that well that yet. He had just gotten out of the service. Percy
was drafted in 1944 and became a Tuskegee Airman, a second lieutenant, a
pilot. We played a lot of cheap little gigs in bars and at dances
occasionally. That was a way to survive. Specs Wright was our drummer.
Looking back, it was almost like a feeder band into Dizzy’s orchestra.
Nelson, Coltrane, Golson, Specs and myself—we all eventually went with
Dizzy's band.
JH: In 1947. I had a couple of well-known guys in there. I had trumpeters Johnny Coles and Bill Massey, who knew
JW: Your earliest recordings were with Howard McGhee in 1948.
JH: McGhee [pictured] was a very nice guy. He was the first one to get me on the road as a professional musician, before I
got with Dizzy in 1949. By the time I was with Howard, I was copying
Charlie Parker and sounded so much like him that they called me "Little
Bird."
JH: McGhee [pictured] was a very nice guy. He was the first one to get me on the road as a professional musician, before I
JW: Did you like being called Little Bird?
JH: I felt great about it at the time because he was the man. Later I wanted to get my own reputation going, which is still very difficult. When you're an alto player and you come from the Charlie Parker school of playing, it’s hard to get away from it regardless of what instrument you change to. I changed to tenor, but I’m still playing some Charlie Parker in there.
JH: I felt great about it at the time because he was the man. Later I wanted to get my own reputation going, which is still very difficult. When you're an alto player and you come from the Charlie Parker school of playing, it’s hard to get away from it regardless of what instrument you change to. I changed to tenor, but I’m still playing some Charlie Parker in there.
JW: Was McGhee frustrated as a trumpeter in the shadows of Fats Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis?
JH: Not at all. Howard and Fats lived together and made
records together in late 1948. The thing is, we have a system in this
country that promotes No. 1. “He’s No. 1.” “You’re No. 1.” “We’re No.
1.” When the culture rewards No. 1, it means everyone else is nothing.
It’s corny the way they rate things. Because No. 3 could come up and
kick your butt the next day [laughs]. Everybody has something
to offer. Howard McGhee made a living out of music. He just tried to
play and enjoy himself as a human being. That’s what we do. If musicians
worried about the polls, we’d go nuts. Everyone can’t be No. 1.
JH: Not at all. Howard and Fats lived together and made
JW: You and your brother Percy went with McGhee to Paris in May 1948.
JH: Howard was one of my heroes. We actually flew to Paris.
JH: Howard was one of my heroes. We actually flew to Paris.
JW: Was flying scary?
JH: Sure was. First time? Seventeen hours to get there? In May 1948? On a jet prop—not a jet. Jets weren’t there yet. It was called a Constellation. We had to stop in
Newfoundland to refuel and stop again at Shannon Airport in Ireland for
more fuel before going on to Orly Airport in Paris. I was scared to
death with the fire coming out of the back of the jet engines. Percy was
telling me, “Be cool, James, it’s alright” He had been a pilot, so he
knew what was going on. He calmed me down.
JH: Sure was. First time? Seventeen hours to get there? In May 1948? On a jet prop—not a jet. Jets weren’t there yet. It was called a Constellation. We had to stop in
JW: How long were you in Paris with McGhee?
JH: Only a week. It was the first jazz festival. I don’t understand how documentation says that the one with Miles [Davis] was the first. This was a year before that, in May 1948. While we were there, we were big time. We were accepted. However, the headliner
was Le Grand Coleman Hawkins. But the guy who got over best with the
people was Erroll Garner, with bassist Slam Stewart and guitarist John
Collins. Erroll took the French by storm.
JH: Only a week. It was the first jazz festival. I don’t understand how documentation says that the one with Miles [Davis] was the first. This was a year before that, in May 1948. While we were there, we were big time. We were accepted. However, the headliner
JW: How did the Paris experience change you?
JH: Even for that short period of time, we were accepted as artists, and it felt great to be respected that way. We weren’t getting that kind of respect here. You know, that’s all artists need, frankly.
JH: Even for that short period of time, we were accepted as artists, and it felt great to be respected that way. We weren’t getting that kind of respect here. You know, that’s all artists need, frankly.
JW: You joined Dizzy Gillespie’s orchestra in 1949. How were you hired?
JH: There was another fellow in my band named James Foreman. He was my piano player. He got with Dizzy's band also. Me and Percy used to follow Dizzy’s band, wherever
they played. We would stand in front of the band with our artist ties
and berets, imitating Dizzy’s guys. Dizzy kept saying, “Hey, there’s the
Heath brothers from Philly.” Eventually, Dizzy and Gil Fuller, the
band's arranger, decided to hire us. Coltrane and I got in within a
month of each other. Both of us played alto because Dizzy’s two alto
saxophonists had left. Coltrane had played alto in the navy band. [Photo
of Dizzy Gillespie at McElroy's Ballroom in Portland, Ore, in 1949 by
Al Monner]
JH: There was another fellow in my band named James Foreman. He was my piano player. He got with Dizzy's band also. Me and Percy used to follow Dizzy’s band, wherever
JW: Did it feel good getting hired by Gillespie?
JH: Oh man, that was it. That was the top of the heap.
JW: What did Gillespie teach you musically?
JH: He’d say, “Hey, come here. Let me show you something on the piano.” The first time I had him at my home in Philadelphia, he showed me things on our piano.
He said, “If you want to be an arranger and composer, you have to learn
this keyboard.” He showed me harmonies that I still use. I can’t
explain it for your interview but I can play it [laughs]. Very
modern voicings on the piano. He’d voice chords differently than anyone
else. He was the first to show me the 9th next to the 10th, and how to
create note clusters and harmonic devices that I still use today.
JH: He’d say, “Hey, come here. Let me show you something on the piano.” The first time I had him at my home in Philadelphia, he showed me things on our piano.
JW: What made Dizzy special?
JH: Dizzy was a teacher all the time. Every day he was showing you something new rhythmically or harmonically
JazzWax tracks: Jimmy Heath recorded on alto saxophone in the late 1940s and sounds remarkably like Charlie Parker. Jimmy's earliest recordings with
JazzWax pages: Jimmy's autobiography, I Walked with Giants (Temple University Press) will be published January 28, 2010.
http://www.jazzwax.com/2009/10/interview-jimmy-heath-part-2.html
October 20, 2009
Interview: Jimmy Heath (Part 2)
Up until 1952, Jimmy Heath's instrument was the alto saxophone. A fast study, Jimmy sounded almost identical to Charlie Parker, earning him the nickname "Little Bird." But the novelty of mimicking Parker soon wore thin, especially as the tenor saxophone emerged in the early 1950s as the more popular reed instrument. So Jimmy made the switch, and in 1953 began recording a series of important sessions with Miles Davis, Clifford Brown and Kenny Dorham. By late 1953, Jimmy was fast on his way to becoming one of the best-known saxophonists of the period. [Photo of Jimmy Heath in July 2009 by Paul Slaughter]
Then everything came crashing down. In 1954, Jimmy was arrested and convicted for drug possession and spent 4 1/2 years in prison
In Part 2 of my two-part interview with Jimmy, the legendary tenor saxophonist talks about Miles Davis and the niche he carved out, playing the baritone saxophone on two recordings, his admiration for trumpeter Kenny Dorham, his incarceration, and how Chet Baker wound up recording an album in 1956 that featured Jimmy's jailhouse compositions:
JazzWax: When you recorded with Miles Davis in 1953, you switched to tenor saxophone. Why?
Jimmy Heath: I had switched to tenor a little earlier. I did that to get my own thing. I wanted to be Jimmy Heath, not Bird [Charlie Parker].
The tenor was the way to get an identity. It also was an economic move.
The tenor was the fourth instrument hired around Philadelphia after a
rhythm section. They wouldn't hire no alto in the early 1950s. They
wouldn’t hire a trumpet either. And [laughing] they sure
wouldn’t hire no trombone. If it wasn’t the guitar, it was a tenor as
the fourth instrument. When I switched, work picked up for gigs.
Jimmy Heath: I had switched to tenor a little earlier. I did that to get my own thing. I wanted to be Jimmy Heath, not Bird [Charlie Parker].
JW: What was Miles Davis like back then?
JH: Miles said the only reason he didn’t play like Dizzy is because he couldn’t. Miles wanted to play like Dizzy, but he found his own niche.
JH: Miles said the only reason he didn’t play like Dizzy is because he couldn’t. Miles wanted to play like Dizzy, but he found his own niche.
JW: What was that niche?
JH: Ballads. Miles loved Freddie Webster, who had played with Jimmie Lunceford. Freddie was a guy with a beautiful sound. Miles knew him. Freddie didn’t make but a few
recordings in the 1940s, and all were historic for trumpet players.
Freddie got a sound curve that Miles wanted to get. Nobody wants to be
just like someone else. But they’re inspired by their predecessors, and
they learn what they did. Then they come up in a matter of time with
their own sound. Nobody can play sax like Coltrane, Sonny Rollins or
Hank Mobley. But eventually you get your own sound. Clifford Brown loved
Fats Navarro, and Lee Morgan loved Clifford Brown. But each had his own
thing. It’s a continuum. Miles was very talented in organizing groups
and stylistically moving forward.
JH: Ballads. Miles loved Freddie Webster, who had played with Jimmie Lunceford. Freddie was a guy with a beautiful sound. Miles knew him. Freddie didn’t make but a few
JW: Did you enjoy listening to Davis when you played with him?
JH: Oh yeah. But when I was with him, he was missing notes and stuff, but you know, we all had to crawl before we could walk.
JH: Oh yeah. But when I was with him, he was missing notes and stuff, but you know, we all had to crawl before we could walk.
JW: Missing notes or leaving notes out?
JH: No, it actually was missing notes. Miles played with such
a good feeling that no one cared about the missing notes. He showed
that it’s about the feeling, not about perfection. [Photo of Miles
Davis: Herman Leonard Photography LLC]
JH: No, it actually was missing notes. Miles played with such
JW: Is it hard not to get caught up on perfection?
JH: You have to learn to let things go. When you practice and try to get everything in there perfectly, you wind up kind of stiff.
JH: You have to learn to let things go. When you practice and try to get everything in there perfectly, you wind up kind of stiff.
JW: You played baritone sax with J.J. Johnson and Clifford Brown in 1953, on Turnpike and Sketch One.
JH: [Laughs] I played a couple of tracks on baritone. They were John Lewis’ compositions, and he asked me to do that.
JH: [Laughs] I played a couple of tracks on baritone. They were John Lewis’ compositions, and he asked me to do that.
JW: What did you think?
JH: Eh [pause, followed by laughter]. I just got the horn and tried it, you know.
JH: Eh [pause, followed by laughter]. I just got the horn and tried it, you know.
JW: What did you think of the baritone? Too big?
JH: Oh yeah. I didn’t even want to carry it around. I could just
about carry this tenor [laughs].
I had already played with Clifford [pictured] around Philly before this
record date and before he went with Max and made his rep. He always was
a Fats Navarro follower, and I had heard Fats. But you knew immediately
Clifford was exceptional.
JH: Oh yeah. I didn’t even want to carry it around. I could just
JW: What made Brown exceptional?
JH: His facility. And his mind. And his ideas, and his sound.
JH: His facility. And his mind. And his ideas, and his sound.
JW: You also recorded with Kenny Dorham in late 1953.
JH: Kenny was a romantic composer of the bebop generation.
He and Tadd Dameron wrote the most beautiful melodies. Most people
aren’t aware that Kenny was a guy who could play the tenor sax, piano
and the trumpet—and compose and sing.
JH: Kenny was a romantic composer of the bebop generation.
JW: Why isn’t Dorham better known and celebrated?
JH: Again, it gets back to the system of No. 1. Fats didn’t get the same as Miles. If you’re not No. 1, people don’t think there’s much value, and you’re forgotten. It’s a crazy world.
JH: Again, it gets back to the system of No. 1. Fats didn’t get the same as Miles. If you’re not No. 1, people don’t think there’s much value, and you’re forgotten. It’s a crazy world.
JW: Dorham was kind of low-key, yes?
JH: No. What do you mean, “low key?”
JH: No. What do you mean, “low key?”
JW: Reserved?
JH: Not really. Miles was no gregarious guy, either. Kenny
Dorham [pictured] was great. He was one of my favorite guys to play
with. I liked his whole musical knowledge. He was a person I would want
to be considered. He was a person who could write, play, orchestrate and
do all of the phases of music.
JH: Not really. Miles was no gregarious guy, either. Kenny
JW: You were shaped by trumpet players, weren’t you?
JH: Nooo. It's just that the trumpet and tenor sax was the instrumental combination of the period. I also played with Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Blue Mitchell, Art Farmer and so many others.
JH: Nooo. It's just that the trumpet and tenor sax was the instrumental combination of the period. I also played with Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Blue Mitchell, Art Farmer and so many others.
JW: When you practice, what do you do?
JH: Practice [laughs]. As a creative musician, when you practice, you are trying to
find your own way of improvising and your own sound. You’re not reading
anything. To be able to improvise is another kind of technique that
needs a lot of work. Sometimes you take standards and improvise on them.
Or you take sequences and work on them. You want to be able to play all
over the instrument. You want to play everything you know in every key
so that you’re fluent and articulate in what you’re doing when you stand
up and create music on the spot. Improvisation is a life’s work.
JH: Practice [laughs]. As a creative musician, when you practice, you are trying to
JW: How does a musician's sound change over time?
JH: Well, physical problems emerge sometimes due to your teeth or body, sometimes for the worse mostly. But if you keep practicing, you can overcome the aging issues.
JH: Well, physical problems emerge sometimes due to your teeth or body, sometimes for the worse mostly. But if you keep practicing, you can overcome the aging issues.
JW: How long will you practice today?
JH: An hour. Not as long as Trane but I don’t play as much stuff [laughs].
JH: An hour. Not as long as Trane but I don’t play as much stuff [laughs].
JW: Is there a jazz artist you wished you had played with?
JH: Yeah, Duke Ellington. We met when [tenor saxophonist] Paul Gonsalves was in the band. But I never had the opportunity.
JH: Yeah, Duke Ellington. We met when [tenor saxophonist] Paul Gonsalves was in the band. But I never had the opportunity.
JW: Your arrest for drug possession in 1954 must have been horrible.
JH: Oh yeah, it was. But you try to adjust to prison life and try to create as much as
you can there. While I was there, I was still writing tunes. I wrote Picture of Heath and For Miles and Miles
in prison. I got them out to Chet Baker by passing them to my brother
Tootie. He gave them to Jimmy Bond, who was Chet’s bass player on gigs
at the time. Jimmy gave them to Chet, and Chet and Art Pepper made an
album [Playboys] that included mostly my songs.
JH: Oh yeah, it was. But you try to adjust to prison life and try to create as much as
JW: Was your sentence unfair?
JH: Sure there’s an unfairness to it. There’s an unfairness
when you’re an addict and you sell something to somebody to support
your habit. You’re not trying to get rich as a dope pusher. You’re an
addict peddler. You’re selling drugs so you can get more. There should
be a difference in that when it came to a sentence. But they didn’t care
if you were creative or not. A lot of people had longer sentences than I
did. I was in prison for 4 1/2 years. I think Gene Ammons and Frank
Morgan were in for longer.
JH: Sure there’s an unfairness to it. There’s an unfairness
JW: Do you look back and resent that?
JH: What can you do? I can’t go back and change it. I had to restart my career, like the computer. When I came home, I had to restart. It was hard trying to catch up. You can’t catch up to the 4 1/2 years that are gone. Just missed. But you have to try.
JazzWax tracks: Jimmy Heath with the Miles Davis All Stars JH: What can you do? I can’t go back and change it. I had to restart my career, like the computer. When I came home, I had to restart. It was hard trying to catch up. You can’t catch up to the 4 1/2 years that are gone. Just missed. But you have to try.
Chet Baker and Art Pepper's Playboys, featuring
JazzWax pages: Jimmy's autobiography, I Walked with Giants (Temple University Press) will be published January 28, 2010.
Tags:
Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Duke Ellington, Fats Navarro, Frank
Morgan, Freddie Webster, Gene Ammons, Hank Mobley, Jimmie Lunceford,
Jimmy Bond, Jimmy Heath, John Coltrane, John Lewis, John Lewis, Kenny
Dorham, Miles Davis, Paul Gonsalves, Phil Urso, Sonny Rollins
In the room he uses as a practice space and office in his apartment in Corona, Queens, Jimmy Heath recalls a hit record from long ago.
"It's a song Bill Farrell, a popular singer, had years ago," he says, and then sings: "You've changed, you're not the angel I once knew / No need to tell me that we're through / It's all over now, you've changed." Then the 5'3" musician with the big sound picks up his tenor saxophone and blows.
When "You've Changed" was a hit song in 1949, Heath was a 23-year-old bebopper, a disciple of the new jazz pioneered by alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. Heath played alto then, and already had his own big band in Philadelphia. John Coltrane was a sideman in Heath's band, and at the end of 1949, they both joined the orchestra of their idol, Dizzy.
"We were actually second string beboppers," Heath says. "Because we had heard Dizzy and Bird and they had set such a high curve to all of us who wanted to be like that — Trane and myself — we all were trying to be like them."
"I wanted to get away from being called Little Bird," Heath says. "I liked the idea at first, but I wanted to be Jimmy Heath. So, I say, 'Well, I'll get the tenor and try this,' and you know, lo and behold, I still sounded like Bird on tenor."
But Jimmy Heath is more than an instrumentalist. He composes, arranges and orchestrates.
"He is one of the most important and essential soldiers in the armies of jazz's greatest players," says Phil Schaap, a curator of Jazz at Lincoln Center. "He wrote a piece that Charlie Parker used called 'Fiesta.' He doesn't get too much credit for that, just like he doesn't get credit for 'The Serpent's Tooth' that he did with Miles Davis. His compositions are great.
"Think about his translating the innovations of bebop into orchestral music," Schaap adds. "It's not an easy thing to do. It's been done infrequently, and he's done it now in several decades: the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s and teens."
On his new album, Togetherness, Jimmy Heath leads a big band at the Blue Note club performing his original compositions. Heath's affinity for big band music goes back to a time when the big bands were the biggest acts of the day. He heard them all and played with many of their star soloists. His 2010 memoir is called I Walked with Giants, a reference to Coltrane and Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Milt Jackson and Miles Davis.
Heath never reached the level of fame achieved by those jazz greats, but he's okay with that. "They're dead," Heath says, "and you become an icon when you're dead. I always say I'd rather be an acorn, and be alive."
At 87 years old, Jimmy Heath looks around his office — at his saxophones and flutes, at the stacks of sheet music, at his recordings and concert posters — and says there's no secret to his longevity.
"It's love! What else?" he exclaims. "Look at it. Nothing but love all around here, man. Music. See my closet? Full. That's all music, man. That's stuff I wrote. You know, all of that is music I wrote. Over here, in that case, is all the music; all in this cabinet, music. I've been in it all my life."
Jimmy Heath says he's going to be in it — as he puts it — "until he leaves."
http://monkinstitute.org/meet/jimmy-heath/
Known for his commitment to developing the talents of up-and-coming jazz musicians, Jimmy Heath serves as an Artist-in-Residence at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance. A member of the Institute’s Board of Trustees, he has also been part of the judging panel for several Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competitions.
Jimmy Heath embodies the history of jazz. In his 60 years on the jazz scene, the saxophone great has appeared on more than 125 records as both a composer and player. Heath grew up in Philadelphia alongside brothers Percy and Tootie, both renowned jazz players in their own right. At 14, he began studying saxophone and by 21 he was ready to move to New York with Percy to play with trumpeter Howard McGhee. In 1949, he became a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s sextet and big band. Heath’s alto saxophone style at the time was so reminiscent of Charlie Parker that it earned him the nickname “Little Bird.” After a switch to tenor saxophone and a brief stint with the Miles Davis Quintet, Heath formed his own group. With Art Farmer as co-leader, Heath’s group recorded and toured throughout the ’60s. During this time, Heath played with Cannonball Adderley, Chet Baker, James Moody, Clark Terry, and others. In 1975, he formed the Heath Brothers with Percy and Tootie and pianist Stanley Cowell. In this group, Heath played tenor saxophone and soprano saxophone as well as flute. The group’s Live at the Public Theatre was nominated for a GRAMMY Award in 1980. Since then, Heath has performed and recorded as the leader of his own quartet and alongside Slide Hampton, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Joe Henderson, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and many others. In 1993, he performed as part of the inaugural celebration for President Clinton at the White House Jazz Festival. In 1994, he was the recipient of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Maria Fisher Founder’s Award. Heath’s composition such as “CTA” and “Gingerbread Boy” are jazz standards that have been recorded by Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, and Chick Corea, among others. In 2003, Heath received an NEA Jazz Masters Award and in 2004 he received his third honorary doctorate. An active jazz educator, Heath has taught many of today’s successful, up-and-coming jazz musicians. He spent 11 years as Professor of Music at Queens College and currently presents workshops and clinics around the world. His most recent release is a Heath Brothers recording titled Endurance.
http://www.sent-trib.com/arts_and_entertainment/jimmy-little-bird-heath-brings-big-sound-to-bgsu/article_72ae5f3a-a244-11e4-a107-4bd778f54072.html
January 22, 2015
https://jazztimes.com/reviews/books/i-walked-with-giants-the-autobiography-of-jimmy-heath/
Jimmy Heath, the master sax player, was born one month after the late, and legendary John Coltrane, and a few months after the late Miles Davis. The year was 1926. To a certain degree considering that in one year those three jazz greats were born, you have to conclude that 1926 was a very good year.
The dividends brought forth by 1926 come later: In 1959, Davis and Coltrane shine on Davis’ Kind of Blue. Coltrane gives us his modal classic, “Giant Steps” that year as well. Heath, as he notes in I Walked with Giants (with Joseph McLaren writing), got out of prison from a drug charge, May 21, 1959 and vowed to never touch drugs again when released.
Heath did re-focus that year on the music and not its sideshow. He was fast friends with all the major cats: Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, Cannonball Adderly, and, of course, Miles, who summoned Heath to Los Angeles to play in his band in 1959. Heath admits he had trouble with the new “modal” style (unlike Trane) but eventually mastered it, a movement he calls “unique.”
There is something magical about most of these stories that Heath strings together in I Walked with Giants. They are simply timeless and captivating. They take the reader behind the music, into the lives and aesthetic choices of the players.
What other musicians are around now who knew and played with Coltrane, were at his funeral, and remember intimately the new sounds he tried in the 1960’s after the success of Giant Steps and A Love Supreme? Very few, of course, but that states the most important trait of Heath, the accomplished musician and composer: he is a survivor.
Heath plays with everyone along the way but the special portions of this book are his forays in the 1970’s with his brothers. Albert and Percy. Ken Burns forgot about the group in his film, Jazz but they are a missing link that must be noted.
“The albums with the Heath Brothers marked the peak of my recording success,” Heath states, though he states later that despite good sales, their label, CBS dropped them eventually (just as Burns drops this entire period from his film).
Most of all, I Walked with Giants, is a back and forth, call and response kind of book. Heath talks (McLaren writes it), and then someone else talks about Heath. Trumpet player, Art Farmer. Percy Heath, his brother. People and musicians who grew up with Jimmy on the streets of Philadelphia, and watched him grow up in the world. This swinging tale of one of jazz’s true survivors is a fine piece of history. It begins on the edge of the swing era, and is still going today, as Heath, now a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, continues to add to his legacy and remarkable body of work.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/i-walked-with-giants-jimmy-heath-by-russ-musto.php
Stanley Crouch To Present The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation’s Satchmo™ Award To NEA Jazz Master Jimmy Heath
At the Organization’s Celebration in Harlem at the Historic Alhambra Ballroom on October 28th
New York, NY (October 4, 2016) – The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation presents the SATCHMO™ Award to saxophonist and National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, MR. JIMMY HEATH. This is the 6th conferring of the award; and the 2nd Annual Satchmo™ Awards Celebration. On October 28th we are returning to the historic Alhambra Ballroom in Harlem, where big bands, swing dancers, and jazz vocalists once reigned supreme; and that night the dancers will swing to The Jimmy Heath Big Band!
The Satchmo™ Award represents a tribute to the life and legacy of LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S passion for jazz and excellence matched only by his joyous love of life and children. The recipients of The Satchmo™ Award are selected for their important and lasting contributions in the world of music and jazz education. The recipients reflect the spirit of Louis Armstrong and his inspiring belief in the power of the language of music, essential in making a wonderful world.
In making this announcement Stanley Crouch, President LAEF and David Chevan, Chairperson LAEF SATCHMO Award released this joint statement:
“Jimmy Heath has been a leader in the presentation, preservation, promotion and propagation of jazz his entire adult life. Throughout his musical career, he has entertained and inspired hundreds of thousands of jazz enthusiasts; and two of his performing students went on to place first and second in the prestigious Thelonius Monk Competition. We are proud to pay tribute to Jimmy Heath for his life-time commitment to America’s classical music jazz as a performer, composer, arranger, band leader and, as an educator — with the 2016 SATCHMO™ Award.”
On Friday October 28th 8:00-10:00PM at the Alhambra Ballroom, 2116 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Blvd. LAEF will present the Satchmo™ Award to Mr. Heath. Admission is free with refreshments and beverages available for purchase; however tickets are SOLD OUT. The Press is invited to attend and must RSVP by October 26th to: jha1270@gmail.com
James Edward Heath (born October 25, 1926),[1] nicknamed Little Bird, is an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger and big band leader. He is the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.
During World War II, Heath was rejected for the draft for being under the weight limit. From late 1945 through most of 1946 he performed with the Nat Towles band. In 1946 he formed his own band, which was a fixture on the Philly jazz scene until 1949. John Coltrane was one of four saxophonists in this band, which played gigs with Charlie Parker and also at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Although Heath recalls that the band recorded a few demos on acetate, it never released any recordings, and its arrangements were lost at a Chicago train station. The band dissolved in 1949 so that Heath could join Dizzy Gillespie's band.[2]
One of Heath's earliest big bands (1947-1948) in Philadelphia included John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Specs Wright, Cal Massey, Johnny Coles, Ray Bryant, and Nelson Boyd. Charlie Parker and Max Roach sat in on one occasion. Received Grammy nomination for box set liner notes of The Heavyweight Champion, John Coltrane, the Complete Atlantic Recordings (Rhino), 1995, Grammy nomination for Little Man Big Band (Verve), 1994 and for Live at the Public Theatre (Columbia), with The Heath Brothers, 1980.
He briefly joined Miles Davis's group in 1959, replacing Coltrane, and also worked with Kenny Dorham and Gil Evans.[1][3] Heath recorded extensively as leader and sideman. During the 1960s, he frequently worked with Milt Jackson and Art Farmer.[1]
In 1975, he and his brothers formed the Heath Brothers, also featuring pianist Stanley Cowell.[1]
Heath composed most of the 1956 Chet Baker and Art Pepper album Playboys.[1]
Composed C.T.A., Gingerbread Boy among others.
In the 1980s, Heath joined the faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College in the City University of New York. With the rank of Professor, he led the creation of the Jazz Program at Queens College and attracted prominent musicians such as Donald Byrd to the campus. He also served on the Board of the Louis Armstrong Archives on campus, and the restoration and management of the Louis and Lucille Armstrong Residence in Corona, Queens, near his own home.[4] In addition to teaching at Queens College for over twenty years, he has also taught at Jazzmobile.[3] Heath was a recipient of the 2003 NEA Jazz Masters Award.[3] In 2004, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Human Letters.[5]
Heath is the father of R&B songwriter/musician James Mtume.[6]
Allmusic biography
Porter, Lewis. John Coltrane: His Life and Music Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. ISBN 9780472101610.
Friedwald, Will (July 19, 2010). "A Jazz Colossus Steps Out". The Wall Street Journal. New York: Dow Jones & Co. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved July 20, 2010.
Berman, Eleanor. "The jazz of Queens encompasses music royalty", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
January 1, 2006. Accessed October 1, 2009. "When the trolley tour
proceeds, Mr. Knight points out the nearby Dorie Miller Houses, a co-op
apartment complex in Corona where Clark Terry and Cannonball and Nat
Adderley lived and where saxophonist Jimmy Heath still resides."
CUNY.edu Archived September 8, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
National Endowment for the Arts. "NEA Jazz Masters: Jimmy Heath". National Endowment for the Arts. Archived from the original on March 20, 2012. Retrieved July 20, 2010.
https://www.npr.org/2014/01/11/261429783/sax-great-jimmy-heath-walked-with-giants-and-hes-still-here
National Public Radio
Sax Great Jimmy Heath 'Walked With Giants,' And He's Still Here
National Public Radio
Jimmy Heath and friends at a session at New York's WOR
Studios in 1953. Left to right: Miles Davis, Kenny Drew, Art Blakey,
Jimmy Heath. Temple University Press / Jimmy Heath collection
In the room he uses as a practice space and office in his apartment in Corona, Queens, Jimmy Heath recalls a hit record from long ago.
"It's a song Bill Farrell, a popular singer, had years ago," he says, and then sings: "You've changed, you're not the angel I once knew / No need to tell me that we're through / It's all over now, you've changed." Then the 5'3" musician with the big sound picks up his tenor saxophone and blows.
When "You've Changed" was a hit song in 1949, Heath was a 23-year-old bebopper, a disciple of the new jazz pioneered by alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. Heath played alto then, and already had his own big band in Philadelphia. John Coltrane was a sideman in Heath's band, and at the end of 1949, they both joined the orchestra of their idol, Dizzy.
"We were actually second string beboppers," Heath says. "Because we had heard Dizzy and Bird and they had set such a high curve to all of us who wanted to be like that — Trane and myself — we all were trying to be like them."
"I wanted to get away from being called Little Bird," Heath says. "I liked the idea at first, but I wanted to be Jimmy Heath. So, I say, 'Well, I'll get the tenor and try this,' and you know, lo and behold, I still sounded like Bird on tenor."
But Jimmy Heath is more than an instrumentalist. He composes, arranges and orchestrates.
Jimmy Heath directs his big band in New York, during a New Year's Eve broadcast for WBGO Radio in 1997.Alan Nahigian/Temple University Press
"He is one of the most important and essential soldiers in the armies of jazz's greatest players," says Phil Schaap, a curator of Jazz at Lincoln Center. "He wrote a piece that Charlie Parker used called 'Fiesta.' He doesn't get too much credit for that, just like he doesn't get credit for 'The Serpent's Tooth' that he did with Miles Davis. His compositions are great.
"Think about his translating the innovations of bebop into orchestral music," Schaap adds. "It's not an easy thing to do. It's been done infrequently, and he's done it now in several decades: the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s and teens."
On his new album, Togetherness, Jimmy Heath leads a big band at the Blue Note club performing his original compositions. Heath's affinity for big band music goes back to a time when the big bands were the biggest acts of the day. He heard them all and played with many of their star soloists. His 2010 memoir is called I Walked with Giants, a reference to Coltrane and Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Milt Jackson and Miles Davis.
Heath never reached the level of fame achieved by those jazz greats, but he's okay with that. "They're dead," Heath says, "and you become an icon when you're dead. I always say I'd rather be an acorn, and be alive."
At 87 years old, Jimmy Heath looks around his office — at his saxophones and flutes, at the stacks of sheet music, at his recordings and concert posters — and says there's no secret to his longevity.
"It's love! What else?" he exclaims. "Look at it. Nothing but love all around here, man. Music. See my closet? Full. That's all music, man. That's stuff I wrote. You know, all of that is music I wrote. Over here, in that case, is all the music; all in this cabinet, music. I've been in it all my life."
Jimmy Heath says he's going to be in it — as he puts it — "until he leaves."
NEA Jazz Masters
Tabs
http://monkinstitute.org/meet/jimmy-heath/
Meet - Jimmy Heath
Thelonious Monk Institute
Jimmy Heath, Institute Trustee
Known for his commitment to developing the talents of up-and-coming jazz musicians, Jimmy Heath serves as an Artist-in-Residence at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance. A member of the Institute’s Board of Trustees, he has also been part of the judging panel for several Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competitions.
Jimmy Heath embodies the history of jazz. In his 60 years on the jazz scene, the saxophone great has appeared on more than 125 records as both a composer and player. Heath grew up in Philadelphia alongside brothers Percy and Tootie, both renowned jazz players in their own right. At 14, he began studying saxophone and by 21 he was ready to move to New York with Percy to play with trumpeter Howard McGhee. In 1949, he became a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s sextet and big band. Heath’s alto saxophone style at the time was so reminiscent of Charlie Parker that it earned him the nickname “Little Bird.” After a switch to tenor saxophone and a brief stint with the Miles Davis Quintet, Heath formed his own group. With Art Farmer as co-leader, Heath’s group recorded and toured throughout the ’60s. During this time, Heath played with Cannonball Adderley, Chet Baker, James Moody, Clark Terry, and others. In 1975, he formed the Heath Brothers with Percy and Tootie and pianist Stanley Cowell. In this group, Heath played tenor saxophone and soprano saxophone as well as flute. The group’s Live at the Public Theatre was nominated for a GRAMMY Award in 1980. Since then, Heath has performed and recorded as the leader of his own quartet and alongside Slide Hampton, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Joe Henderson, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and many others. In 1993, he performed as part of the inaugural celebration for President Clinton at the White House Jazz Festival. In 1994, he was the recipient of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Maria Fisher Founder’s Award. Heath’s composition such as “CTA” and “Gingerbread Boy” are jazz standards that have been recorded by Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, and Chick Corea, among others. In 2003, Heath received an NEA Jazz Masters Award and in 2004 he received his third honorary doctorate. An active jazz educator, Heath has taught many of today’s successful, up-and-coming jazz musicians. He spent 11 years as Professor of Music at Queens College and currently presents workshops and clinics around the world. His most recent release is a Heath Brothers recording titled Endurance.
Jimmy Heath plays the Jazz Showcase with his brother, Albert "Tootie" Heath, in 2010.
http://www.sent-trib.com/arts_and_entertainment/jimmy-little-bird-heath-brings-big-sound-to-bgsu/article_72ae5f3a-a244-11e4-a107-4bd778f54072.html
Jimmy ‘Little Bird’ Heath brings big sound to BGSU
January 22, 2015
The phone rings at the number listed on the website for booking and general info.
A woman answers, friendly, not like a receptionist, but a woman answering the phone in her own home.
“I’m trying to reach Jimmy Heath?” explaining that I’m calling from Bowling Green, Ohio.
She knows the score, and calls out.
Momentarily, Jimmy Heath picks up the receiver.
Jazz history is on the line.
Heath, is a saxophonist, composer and arranger. He’s famously short of stature and still welterweight fighting trim.
His current nickname for himself is Keyboard Shorty, because a piano has 88 keys, and he’s 88.
Still the musician who called one project the Little Man Big Band cast a long shadow over jazz.
He broke through in the early
1950s known as Little Bird, a tribute to his size and love of the music
of Charlie “Bird” Parker, and has forged a career ever since, as a
soloist, sideman and member of the band The Heath Brothers with brother
Percy Heath, the late bass player who made his mark with the Modern Jazz
Quartet, and at times younger brother Albert “Tootie” Heath, a widely
recorded drummer.
Heath has played and written for
Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, just the tip of a list that reads like
the index of a jazz history.
Now well into his ninth decade, Heath is still actively performing and as important spreading the legacy of the music he loves.
“We’ve got to keep it going,” Heath said. “It’s American classical music.”
So this jazz elder spends much of
his time working with the new generation of musicians on college
campuses, and next week he’ll be here at Bowling Green State University.
Being invited is “always an honor and privilege,” he said. He appreciates the work of the “great teachers” who perpetuate jazz.
Heath includes David Bixler,
director of jazz studies at BGSU. He said he first heard Bixler at a
tribute to one of the founders of jazz education, David Baker. The
performers were all former students of Baker, who teaches at the Jacobs
School of Music at Indiana University.
“Each one was so strong individually and as a group,” Heath said.
That “as a group,” part is important to Heath.
“I like to organize the music and have the ensemble and then the freedom of improvisation,” he said.
While he spent much of his career working with small groups, those often featured tight, distinctive ensemble sections.
It may be one of his tunes such
as “Gingerbread Boy,” “C.T.A.” or “Gemini,” that have become jazz
standards. Or it may be the traditional Christmas carol “O Little Town
of Bethlehem” which he reworked for a Columbia holiday album as “Our
Little Town” into a hip swing tune played by The Heath Brothers.
He is devoted to the big band.
Jazz composers will on occasion get to write for choirs and strings, but the big band is the orchestra for jazz, he said.
“There’s a certain sound you get out of that instrumentation,” he said.
BGSU students will get an ample
sampling of his approach during his time on campus. He’s sent Bixler
about a half dozen charts from the about 60 he’s written.
The Jazz Lab Band I, led by
Bixler, will perform the music at a concert Jan. 29 at 8 p.m. in
Kobacker Hall. A few hours before, Heath will help them hone their
performance during a rehearsal.
While on campus he also will lead
an improvisation master class on Jan. 28 and jam later that night with
the jazz faculty at One 49 North in downtown Bowling Green. On Jan. 29
he’ll give a talk on his career.
In all of this he will promote
the importance of individuality. “Everybody has their time and place
within a composition to tell their life story or whatever they’ve
learned musically,” Heath said. “It’s democracy at its best.”
https://jazztimes.com/reviews/books/i-walked-with-giants-the-autobiography-of-jimmy-heath/
I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath
Memoir of saxophonist Jimmy Heath is the story of a true survivor
Jimmy Heath, the master sax player, was born one month after the late, and legendary John Coltrane, and a few months after the late Miles Davis. The year was 1926. To a certain degree considering that in one year those three jazz greats were born, you have to conclude that 1926 was a very good year.
The dividends brought forth by 1926 come later: In 1959, Davis and Coltrane shine on Davis’ Kind of Blue. Coltrane gives us his modal classic, “Giant Steps” that year as well. Heath, as he notes in I Walked with Giants (with Joseph McLaren writing), got out of prison from a drug charge, May 21, 1959 and vowed to never touch drugs again when released.
Heath did re-focus that year on the music and not its sideshow. He was fast friends with all the major cats: Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, Cannonball Adderly, and, of course, Miles, who summoned Heath to Los Angeles to play in his band in 1959. Heath admits he had trouble with the new “modal” style (unlike Trane) but eventually mastered it, a movement he calls “unique.”
There is something magical about most of these stories that Heath strings together in I Walked with Giants. They are simply timeless and captivating. They take the reader behind the music, into the lives and aesthetic choices of the players.
What other musicians are around now who knew and played with Coltrane, were at his funeral, and remember intimately the new sounds he tried in the 1960’s after the success of Giant Steps and A Love Supreme? Very few, of course, but that states the most important trait of Heath, the accomplished musician and composer: he is a survivor.
Heath plays with everyone along the way but the special portions of this book are his forays in the 1970’s with his brothers. Albert and Percy. Ken Burns forgot about the group in his film, Jazz but they are a missing link that must be noted.
“The albums with the Heath Brothers marked the peak of my recording success,” Heath states, though he states later that despite good sales, their label, CBS dropped them eventually (just as Burns drops this entire period from his film).
Most of all, I Walked with Giants, is a back and forth, call and response kind of book. Heath talks (McLaren writes it), and then someone else talks about Heath. Trumpet player, Art Farmer. Percy Heath, his brother. People and musicians who grew up with Jimmy on the streets of Philadelphia, and watched him grow up in the world. This swinging tale of one of jazz’s true survivors is a fine piece of history. It begins on the edge of the swing era, and is still going today, as Heath, now a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, continues to add to his legacy and remarkable body of work.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/i-walked-with-giants-jimmy-heath-by-russ-musto.php
I Walked With Giants
Review by
I Walked with Giants
Jimmy Heath/Joseph McLaren
Softcover; 344 pages
ISBN: 1439901988
Temple University Press
2010
The title alone of Jimmy Heath's marvelous memoir speaks volumes about the man. The NEA Jazz Master is himself an acknowledged giant among his peers and his choice to name the book as he did is an indication of both his great humility and self-effacing humor (in this case regarding his height). Heath is a clever wordsmith (the book contains an appendix listing the numerous nicknames he has bestowed upon his colleagues) and an astute chronicler of the events within and surrounding his life, making his entertainingly told story as much social history as autobiography.
Beginning with the affectionate foreword by fellow Philadelphian Bill Cosby, we are made aware of the important role family played in the musical development of the saxophonist and his two equally accomplished siblings, Percy Heath and Albert "Tootie" Heath, world renowned as the Heath Bothers. Wynton Marsalis' introduction is only the first of the volume's numerous testimonials heaping praise upon a man possessed with too much humility to blow his own horn with the unmitigated passion with which his many colleagues speak of him.
Benny Carter, Curtis Fuller, Benny Golson, Roy Haynes, Milt Jackson, Billy Mitchell, James Moody and Clark Terry are just some other giants whose words help tell the important story that stretches from the tailend of the big band era up to today. Heath's own recounting of life on the road with the Nat Towles Big Band and its many trials with difficult travels in the days of Jim Crow racism is in itself historically important. The stories of his own development as an early bebopper known as "Little Bird" with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and John Coltrane add further insight into that most important period of jazz history.
Heath doesn't mince words when speaking of his drug addiction, incarceration or the unpleasant aspects of the music business and it is his unabashed honesty that is a great part of the book's refreshing charm. Yet overall this is a tome of a life full of great joy and few regrets.
Jimmy Heath/Joseph McLaren
Softcover; 344 pages
ISBN: 1439901988
Temple University Press
2010
The title alone of Jimmy Heath's marvelous memoir speaks volumes about the man. The NEA Jazz Master is himself an acknowledged giant among his peers and his choice to name the book as he did is an indication of both his great humility and self-effacing humor (in this case regarding his height). Heath is a clever wordsmith (the book contains an appendix listing the numerous nicknames he has bestowed upon his colleagues) and an astute chronicler of the events within and surrounding his life, making his entertainingly told story as much social history as autobiography.
Beginning with the affectionate foreword by fellow Philadelphian Bill Cosby, we are made aware of the important role family played in the musical development of the saxophonist and his two equally accomplished siblings, Percy Heath and Albert "Tootie" Heath, world renowned as the Heath Bothers. Wynton Marsalis' introduction is only the first of the volume's numerous testimonials heaping praise upon a man possessed with too much humility to blow his own horn with the unmitigated passion with which his many colleagues speak of him.
Benny Carter, Curtis Fuller, Benny Golson, Roy Haynes, Milt Jackson, Billy Mitchell, James Moody and Clark Terry are just some other giants whose words help tell the important story that stretches from the tailend of the big band era up to today. Heath's own recounting of life on the road with the Nat Towles Big Band and its many trials with difficult travels in the days of Jim Crow racism is in itself historically important. The stories of his own development as an early bebopper known as "Little Bird" with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and John Coltrane add further insight into that most important period of jazz history.
Heath doesn't mince words when speaking of his drug addiction, incarceration or the unpleasant aspects of the music business and it is his unabashed honesty that is a great part of the book's refreshing charm. Yet overall this is a tome of a life full of great joy and few regrets.
http://news.theurbanmusicscene.com/2016/10/jimmy-heath-to-receive-the-satchmo-award/
NEA Jazz Master Jimmy Heath to Receive The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation’s Satchmo™ Award October 28, 2016
Stanley Crouch To Present The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation’s Satchmo™ Award To NEA Jazz Master Jimmy Heath
At the Organization’s Celebration in Harlem at the Historic Alhambra Ballroom on October 28th
New York, NY (October 4, 2016) – The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation presents the SATCHMO™ Award to saxophonist and National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, MR. JIMMY HEATH. This is the 6th conferring of the award; and the 2nd Annual Satchmo™ Awards Celebration. On October 28th we are returning to the historic Alhambra Ballroom in Harlem, where big bands, swing dancers, and jazz vocalists once reigned supreme; and that night the dancers will swing to The Jimmy Heath Big Band!
The Satchmo™ Award represents a tribute to the life and legacy of LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S passion for jazz and excellence matched only by his joyous love of life and children. The recipients of The Satchmo™ Award are selected for their important and lasting contributions in the world of music and jazz education. The recipients reflect the spirit of Louis Armstrong and his inspiring belief in the power of the language of music, essential in making a wonderful world.
In making this announcement Stanley Crouch, President LAEF and David Chevan, Chairperson LAEF SATCHMO Award released this joint statement:
“Jimmy Heath has been a leader in the presentation, preservation, promotion and propagation of jazz his entire adult life. Throughout his musical career, he has entertained and inspired hundreds of thousands of jazz enthusiasts; and two of his performing students went on to place first and second in the prestigious Thelonius Monk Competition. We are proud to pay tribute to Jimmy Heath for his life-time commitment to America’s classical music jazz as a performer, composer, arranger, band leader and, as an educator — with the 2016 SATCHMO™ Award.”
On Friday October 28th 8:00-10:00PM at the Alhambra Ballroom, 2116 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Blvd. LAEF will present the Satchmo™ Award to Mr. Heath. Admission is free with refreshments and beverages available for purchase; however tickets are SOLD OUT. The Press is invited to attend and must RSVP by October 26th to: jha1270@gmail.com
THE MUSIC OF JIMMY HEATH: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH JIMMY HEATH:
Jimmy Heath - Gemini
Jimmy Heath, Mulgrew Miller, David Wong and Tootie Heath
Jimmy Heath The Jazz Tradition
Jimmy Heath Answers Student Questions
Jimmy Heath - Jazz Saxophonist, Composer & Arranger
Jimmy Heath On The Trail 05 Gingerbread Boy
Jimmy Heath - Picture of Heath (Full Album)
Jimmy Heath: The Derivatives of Bebop
Bassists and Drummers - JIMMY HEATH
Jimmy Heath Interview
"Nice People" by The Jimmy Heath Sextet
Jimmy Heath / Mona's Mood
Jimmy Heath Go to the Territories
"Coltrane, Miles, and Me"--Jimmy Heath
Jazz Great Jimmy Heath, 90, Still Going Strong
John Coltrane's Work Ethic
RECOLLECT featuring JIMMY HEATH
Jimmy Heath feat. by WDR BIG BAND - Bruh Slim
Composing and Arranging - JIMMY HEATH
Jimmy Heath Quintet
WDR Big Band & Jimmy Heath "Forever Sonny"
The Heath Brothers Quartet
The Heath Brothers - The Watergate Blues
The Heath Brothers - Smilin' Billy Suite
The Heath Brothers Ft. Stanley Cowell – Marchin' On! LP
Jimmy Heath Big Band at Blue Note pt1
My Friend Jimmy Heath - Sonny Rollins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Heath
Jimmy Heath
| Jimmy Heath | |
|---|---|
Percy Heath and Jimmy (1977)
|
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | James Edward Heath |
| Also known as | Little Bird |
| Born | October 25, 1926 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Genres | Jazz, bebop, hard bop |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, educator, composer, arranger |
| Instruments | Tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute |
| Years active | 1940s–present |
| Labels | Riverside, Limelight, Impulse, Atlantic, Verve, Xanadu, Landmark, SteepleChase |
| Associated acts | Heath Brothers, Howard McGhee, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, Art Farmer, Kenny Dorham, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Curtis Fuller, Julius Watkins, Nat Adderley, Freddie Hubbard, Cedar Walton, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Kenny Burrell |
| Website | Official website |
James Edward Heath (born October 25, 1926),[1] nicknamed Little Bird, is an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger and big band leader. He is the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.
Contents
Biography
Heath originally played alto saxophone, but, after the influence of Charlie Parker on his work for Howard McGhee and Dizzy Gillespie in the late 1940s, he earned the nickname "Little Bird" (Parker's nickname was "Bird") and he switched to tenor saxophone.[1]
During World War II, Heath was rejected for the draft for being under the weight limit. From late 1945 through most of 1946 he performed with the Nat Towles band. In 1946 he formed his own band, which was a fixture on the Philly jazz scene until 1949. John Coltrane was one of four saxophonists in this band, which played gigs with Charlie Parker and also at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Although Heath recalls that the band recorded a few demos on acetate, it never released any recordings, and its arrangements were lost at a Chicago train station. The band dissolved in 1949 so that Heath could join Dizzy Gillespie's band.[2]
One of Heath's earliest big bands (1947-1948) in Philadelphia included John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Specs Wright, Cal Massey, Johnny Coles, Ray Bryant, and Nelson Boyd. Charlie Parker and Max Roach sat in on one occasion. Received Grammy nomination for box set liner notes of The Heavyweight Champion, John Coltrane, the Complete Atlantic Recordings (Rhino), 1995, Grammy nomination for Little Man Big Band (Verve), 1994 and for Live at the Public Theatre (Columbia), with The Heath Brothers, 1980.
He briefly joined Miles Davis's group in 1959, replacing Coltrane, and also worked with Kenny Dorham and Gil Evans.[1][3] Heath recorded extensively as leader and sideman. During the 1960s, he frequently worked with Milt Jackson and Art Farmer.[1]
In 1975, he and his brothers formed the Heath Brothers, also featuring pianist Stanley Cowell.[1]
Heath composed most of the 1956 Chet Baker and Art Pepper album Playboys.[1]
Composed C.T.A., Gingerbread Boy among others.
In the 1980s, Heath joined the faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College in the City University of New York. With the rank of Professor, he led the creation of the Jazz Program at Queens College and attracted prominent musicians such as Donald Byrd to the campus. He also served on the Board of the Louis Armstrong Archives on campus, and the restoration and management of the Louis and Lucille Armstrong Residence in Corona, Queens, near his own home.[4] In addition to teaching at Queens College for over twenty years, he has also taught at Jazzmobile.[3] Heath was a recipient of the 2003 NEA Jazz Masters Award.[3] In 2004, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Human Letters.[5]
Heath is the father of R&B songwriter/musician James Mtume.[6]
Discography
As leader
- 1959: The Thumper (Riverside)
- 1960: Really Big! (Riverside)
- 1961: The Quota (Riverside)
- 1962: Triple Threat (Riverside)
- 1963: Swamp Seed (Riverside)
- 1964: On the Trail (Riverside)
- 1965: Jam Gems: Live at the Left Bank (Label M – released 2001) – with Freddie Hubbard
- 1972: The Gap Sealer (Cobblestone) – also released as Jimmy (Muse)
- 1973: Love and Understanding (Muse)
- 1974: The Time and the Place (Landmark – released 1994)
- 1975: Picture of Heath (Xanadu)
- 1985: New Picture (Landmark)
- 1987: Peer Pleasure (Landmark)
- 1991: You've Changed (SteepleChase)
- 1992: Little Man Big Band (Verve)
- 1995: You or Me (SteepleChase)
- 2006: Turn Up the Heath (Planet Arts)
- 2014: Togetherness (Jazz Legacy Productions)
With the Heath Brothers
- 1975: Marchin' On (Strata-East Records)
- 1978: Passin' Thru (Columbia Records)
- 1979: Live at the Public Theatre (Columbia Records])
- 1979: In Motion (Columbia Records)
- 1980: Expressions of Life (Columbia Records)
- 1981: Brotherly Love (Antilles Records)
- 1981: Brothers and Others (Antilles Records)
- 1997: As We Were Saying (Concord Records)
- 1998: Jazz Family (Concord Records)
- 2009: Endurance (Jazz Legacy Productions)
As sideman
- 1948: Howard McGhee – Howard McGhee and Milt Jackson (Savoy)
- 1953: J. J. Johnson - All Stars (with Clifford Brown) (Blue Note) reissued as The Eminent J.J. Johnson Vol 1 (1957)
- 1953: Miles Davis - Miles Davis Volume 2 (Blue Note) reissued mostly on Miles Davis Vol 1 - 12 inch LP
- 1954: Kenny Dorham - Kenny Dorham Quintet (Debut)
- 1959: Blue Mitchell – Blue Soul (Riverside)
- 1960: Julian Priester – Keep Swingin' (Riverside)
- 1960: Sam Jones – The Soul Society (Riverside)
- 1960: Nat Adderley – That's Right! (Riverside)
- 1960: Kenny Dorham – Showboat (Time)
- 1961: Don Sleet - All Members (Jazzland)
- 1961: Sam Jones - Plus 10: The Chant (Riverside)
- 1961: Milt Jackson – Vibrations (Atlantic)
- 1961: Freddie Hubbard - Hub Cap (Blue Note)
- 1961: Elmo Hope – Homecoming! (Riverside)
- 1962: Blue Mitchell – A Sure Thing (Riverside)
- 1962: Sam Jones - Down Home (Riverside)
- 1962: Curtis Fuller – Soul Trombone (Impulse!)
- 1962: Milt Jackson – Big Bags (Riverside)
- 1962: Milt Jackson – Invitation (Riverside)
- 1962: Pony Poindexter – Pony's Express (Epic)
- 1962: Milt Jackson – Statements (Impulse!)
- 1963: Milt Jackson – Milt Jackson Quintet Live at the Village Gate (Riverside)
- 1964: Milt Jackson – Jazz 'n' Samba (Impulse!)
- 1964: Milt Jackson – In a New Setting (Limelight)
- 1965: Milt Jackson – Ray Brown / Milt Jackson with Ray Brown (Verve)
- 1965: Donald Byrd – Up with Donald Byrd (Verve)
- 1965: Carmell Jones - Jay Hawk Talk (Prestige)
- 1965: Cal Tjader – Soul Sauce (Verve)
- 1965: Herbie Mann - Latin Mann (Columbia)
- 1966: Milt Jackson – Born Free (Limelight)
- 1966: Art Farmer - The Time and the Place: The Lost Concert (Mosaic) - released 2007
- 1967: Art Farmer - The Time and the Place (Columbia)
- 1967: Art Farmer - The Art Farmer Quintet Plays the Great Jazz Hits (Columbia)
- 1970: Herbie Mann – Big Boss Mann
- 1970: Charles Earland – Black Drops (Prestige)
- 1970: Charles Tolliver - Music Inc. (Strata-East)
- 1971: Art Farmer - Homecoming (Mainstream)
- 1971: Red Garland - The Quota (MPS)
- 1972: Curtis Fuller – Smokin' (Mainstream)
- 1972: Don Patterson – These Are Soulful Days (Muse)
- 1973: Albert Heath - Kwanza (The First) (Muse)
- 1974: Red Garland – The Quota
- 1974: Milt Jackson – Olinga (CTI)
- 1976: Stanley Cowell – Regeneration (Strata-East)
- 1983: Don Sickler - The Music of Kenny Dorham (Reservoir)
- 1994: Modern Jazz Quartet – MJQ & Friends: A 40th Anniversary Celebration (Atlantic)
- 2003: Gerald Wilson - New York, New Sound (Mack Avenue)
- 2006: Nancy Wilson – Turned to Blue
- 1980: Mad About Tadd (Palo Alto Records)[7]
References
External links
- Official website
- Brotherly Jazz:The Heath Brothers - DVD Documentary
- Jimmy Heath's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
- B.S.O Chico y Rita Film.
