Jazz composer and saxophone player Jimmy Heath dies at 93
Source: AP
NEW YORK (AP) — Jimmy Heath, a Grammy-nominated jazz saxophonist and composer who performed with such greats as Miles Davis and John Coltrane before forming the popular family group the Heath Brothers in middle age, has died. He was 93.
Heath’s grandson Fa Mtume told The New York Times that he died Sunday at his home in Loganville, Georgia. The cause of death was not immediately given.
Heath, a native of Philadelphia, had been playing jazz since the 1940s, in the early days of bebop. He was mentored by Dizzy Gillespie, idolized Charlie Parker, whose nickname was “Bird,” and would become known as “Little Bird” for how well he emulated Parker’s fluid style.
Heath overcame his battles with heroin addiction, which landed him in prison in the mid-1950s, and had a long and productive career. He wrote most of the material for the Chet Baker-Art Pepper album “Playboys,” recorded with everyone from Davis and Coltrane to Milt Jackson and Gil Evans, worked on charts for Ray Charles, and released several of his own albums.
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