Jazz Articles about Jimmy Heath

About Jimmy Heath

Album Review

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 ...

Album Review

Heath Brothers: Endurance

Read "Endurance" reviewed by AAJ Italy Staff

by AAJ Italy Staff
November 20, 2009

Endurance: resistenza, durata. I fratelli Heath resistono: contro il tempo, contro la progressiva scomparsa dei corpi e, talvolta, delle idee. Resistono allo scomparire di un'epoca musicale e culturale, quella del bop, della quale sono fra gli ultimi sopravvissuti. La loro vitalità, la loro tenacia nel vivere e far vivere la loro esperienza musicale ricorda un noto aforisma di Schopenhauer: “Considera ogni giornata come una vita a sé stante". Jimmy Heath, 83 anni, Albert “Tootie" Heath, 74 anni: ambedue una gloriosa ...

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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 ...