Jimmy Heath

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 James 'Mtume', Roslyn and Jeffery. 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.

Jimmy Heath: Love Letter

Read "Love Letter" reviewed by Thomas Fletcher

by Thomas Fletcher
July 10, 2020

Often nicknamed “Little Bird," Jimmy Heath began on the alto saxophone acquiring this informal title by dedicating his studies to Charlie Parker and his wee stature. Although not a familiar name to many outside of the devoted jazz community, Heath would go on to pursue a remarkable 76-year career sadly passing away in January, 2020. A fabled musician to many tenor players, Heath presents us with his final testament, a collection of formative ballads. Enhancing the already prolific ...

Album Review

Jimmy Heath: Love Letter

Read "Love Letter" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
July 3, 2020

Love Letter is the final album to be made by saxophonist Jimmy Heath, who passed in January 2020 aged 93. It was completeted just a month earlier. The title is well chosen: the album is a love letter to jazz, a love letter to ballads, and a love letter to Heath's surviving family members, friends and audience. Soulful and luminous, it is everything one could hope for in the last will and testament of a jazz master. ...

One LP

Jimmy Heath: Charlie Parker with Strings

by William Ellis
August 23, 2014

Jimmy Heath: Langston Hughes Library, Flushing, New York, 30th April 2013 It was impossible to make a choice! This is Charlie Parker with Strings (Mercury Records, 1950)--a compilation of all the Charlie Parker with Strings--not just the one studio performance; there's some live performances. Someone at The Charlie Parker organisation that used to give the benefits for Charlie Parker--the Foundation that his wife started--made this compilation and they gave them out to some of the sponsors ...

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Album Review

The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra: Jimmy Heath: The Endless Search

Read "Jimmy Heath: The Endless Search" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
July 15, 2010

Tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath is highly respected by his peers and by serious listeners, but he isn't well known outside the jazz world in the way that Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane are. He played with those legends and many more. He formed The Heath Brothers in 1975 with his siblings, drummer Albert “Tootie Heath and bassist Percy Heath, and has penned numerous tunes that have become classics, including “CTA" and “Gingerbread Boy." Like Gillespie before him, he reaches ...

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Book Review

I Walked With Giants

by Russ Musto
June 13, 2010

I Walked with GiantsJimmy Heath/Joseph McLarenSoftcover; 344 pagesISBN: 1439901988Temple University Press2010 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 ...

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Album Review

Heath Brothers: Endurance

Read "Endurance" reviewed by Joel Roberts

by Joel Roberts
November 11, 2009

Endurance is a fitting word to describe Jimmy and Albert “Tootie" Heath, the veteran mainstreamers whose new release is their first since the death of their brother Percy four years ago. Jimmy Heath, who just celebrated his 83rd birthday, remains a titan on the tenor saxophone (and occasionally the soprano), playing with the relaxed confidence and hard-earned wisdom of a certified jazz master. (The NEA honored him as such in 2003, one year after Percy.) His tone is ...

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Live From New York

May 2008

by AAJ Staff
May 5, 2008

Lock 10 at Joe's Pub

Kathy Hendrickson's play Lock 10 is the story of a white guitarist in the 1930s seeking to leave the family business to go on tour with an integrated band. Staged as a period radio play, with actors playing actors voicing roles, it makes for an odd telling. The actors aren't tethered to microphones as they would be in an actual radio production, but they don't quite inhabit their meta-roles either. Strange as well was the ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jimmy Heath

Source: Michael Ricci
October 25, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Jimmy Heath's birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jimmy Heath

Source: Michael Ricci
October 25, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Jimmy Heath's birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jimmy Heath

Source: Michael Ricci
October 25, 2020

All About Jazz is celebrating Jimmy Heath's birthday today!

Video / DVD

Jimmy Heath in 10 Tracks

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 22, 2020

The late Jimmy Heath had a crisp and deliberate sound on his tenor saxophone. His solos and double-and triple timing were fluid, seemingly effortless and never short on ideas. His soprano saxophone was insistent and his flute was divine. His compositions were melodic and sophisticated, and his arrangements were engaging, always taking the listener's short attention span into consideration. Though his name isn't generally thought of in the same breath as Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley and Stan Getz, ...
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Obituary

Jimmy Heath (1926-2020)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 21, 2020

Jimmy Heath, a tenor saxophonist with exceptional gifts as a composer, arranger and player who spent critical years of the 1950s in prison for the sale of drugs but rebuilt his career in the 1960s and beyond, died on January 19. He was 93. Nicknamed “Little Bird" for his Parker-like fluidity when he played alto saxophone in the late 1940s, Jimmy didn't start recording leadership albums until 1959, when producer Orrin Keepnews signed him to Riverside Records. In 1975, he ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jimmy Heath

Source: Michael Ricci
October 25, 2019

All About Jazz is celebrating Jimmy Heath's birthday today!

Video / DVD

Jimmy Heath: Holland, 2012

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 25, 2019

A mysterious CD arrived a couple of weeks ago from a reader. The album's title is The Voice of the Saxophone, featuring the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw of the Netherlands, conducted by Henk Meutgeert and featuring solos by tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath. That's all the information that came with the CD, and the sender said that's about all he knows about it. So I had to roll up my sleeves and look around, since the album isn't listed even ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jimmy Heath

Source: Michael Ricci
October 25, 2018

All About Jazz is celebrating Jimmy Heath's birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jimmy Heath

Source: Michael Ricci
October 25, 2017

All About Jazz is celebrating Jimmy Heath's birthday today!

Event

Jazz Bridge to Present Concert Series Featuring Legendary Jazz Musicians Pat Martino, Monnette Sudler, Jimmy Heath and More in Celebration of "Philadelphia Real Book" Launch

Source: All About Jazz
November 3, 2016

Concerts held December 3, 2016; February 25, 2017; March 4, 2017; April 26, 2017 with concerts starting at 7:00 pm. Jazz Bridge will celebrate the publication of the first Philadelphia Real Book, comprised of original musical compositions of jazz and blues musicians in the Greater Philadelphia area, with an extraordinary concert series spotlighting some of Philly’s finest jazz artists. The Philadelphia Real Book concerts will take place at the University of the Arts’ Terra Hall on December 3, 2016; February ...
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“All I can say is, if you know Jimmy Heath, you know Bop.” — Dizzy Gillespie

“Trane was always high on Jimmy’s playing and so was I. Plus, he was a very hip dude to be with, funny and clean and very intelligent. Jimmy is one of the thoroughbreds.” — Miles Davis

“My pick from the world’s talent would be Diz as leader, John Lewis or Hank Jones on piano, Ray Brown bass, Milt Jackson vibes, Jimmy Heath tenor, and Sonny Stitt alto.” — Kenny Clarke

“I had met Jimmy Heath, who - besides being a wonderful saxophonist - understood a lot about musical construction