Jazz Articles about Percy Heath

Percy Heath: A Love Song

by Russ Musto
March 18, 2004

As remarkable as it may seem that this Love Song is the debut release as a leader by 80 year-old elder statesman bassman Percy Heath, it was certainly well worth the wait. Heath, who has been the quintessential supportive sideman on more than 300 recordings, most notably as a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet, steps into the spotlight here, ably assisted by his regular rhythm section mates from the Heath Brothers band, pianist Jeb Patton and drummer, brother Albert ...

Percy Heath: A Love Song

by Michael P. Gladstone
March 15, 2004

Being a little late to hop on the bandwagon about last month's release of this first album from Percy Heath, I would like to avoid giving you more of the plaudits of Heath's magnificent career and accomplishments that you've already read, and simply offer my congratulations upon this effort.

The music on A Love Song can stand by itself. Heath has contributed four of the seven tracks, with one from the late Roland Hanna, one from John Lewis, ...

Percy Heath: A Love Song

by Jerry D'Souza
March 1, 2004

What would life be without its little surprises? Did bassist Percy Heath ever conceive the notion that he would get his first recording as leader 50 years into his career? Ah, the vagaries of fate! But this is a moment to savour and to enjoy. Heath got to choose the songs, and the band at hand has an uncanny understanding. The music is sublime; there is no over heated ardour at work, just a quiet fire which kindles the flame ...

Percy Heath: A Love Song

by John Kelman
February 25, 2004

It’s an encouraging sign for all octogenarians when one of their own, a man who has a musical career that spans more than six decades, finally releases an album under his own name at the age of eighty. That man is Percy Heath, and with A Love Song he finally gets to play things exactly as he hears them, which is with a quartet alongside another bassist, allowing Heath plenty of room to solo, on both bass and cello.

A ...

Percy Heath: A Love Song

by Dan McClenaghan
February 19, 2004

On the photos included with A Love Song, Percy Heath shows off the greatest grin in jazz since Louis Armstrong. And he has good reason to flash that smile; at eighty years young, he's just issued his first recording as a leader (can that be true, after fifty plus years in the business?), where he displays his transcendent gifts as a bass and cello player and tunesmith on a simply beautiful quartet outing.Percy Heath is the eldest of ...

Percy Heath: A Love Song

by Norman Weinstein
February 5, 2004

This 80 year old bassist from one of the great jazz families, the Heaths, has finally recorded his first session as a leader, and it is a touchingly atmospheric affair. Only one really catchy melody graces the album, “Django," from Percy Heath's Modern Jazz Quartet days of a half century ago, but this album is less about tunes with hooks than about establishing a graceful air, tunes blending into one long session of delicate jazz impressionism.

Aided ...

The Modern Jazz Quartet: The Music Inn

by Elliott Simon
November 5, 2003

...in our desire for beauty in all things we are open, and one in our search for that little city of gold where the flute-player never wearies, and the spring never fades, and the oracle is not silent, that little city which is the house of art, and where, with all the Music of the Spheres, and the laughter of the gods, Art waits for her worshippers-Oscar Wilde In 1950, while Senator McCarthy spearheaded his anti-artistic witch hunts, ...