Jimmy Heath – Picture Of Heath (1975) https://youtu.be/4Cb0Y1vzWpg Original Liner Notes: As these words are written, Jimmy Heath, who just scraped in under the birth sign of Scorpio. is about to enter his fiftieth year A decade ago the saxophonist opined, "Life begins at forty." But as things turned out, it only started happening again for Jimmy in his late forties. Eight years drifted by without a single Fleath led the recording session. Sure, he was working steadily, as well as recording with others, and he continued composing royalty checks from his many originals recorded by some of the major figures in town, which supplemented his income. But Jimmy Heath was getting no personal exposure. The explanation was simple, as he explained to writer Valerie Wilmer. "You see, I'm not the sort of person to go uls to somebody and say. would like to record for your record company', and wrote up a whole brochure of all the things I have done for the past twenty-love years I'll never start making tapes to take along for people to hear me. I'll just continue to live like I'm living. If you come down and hear me play, you'll find the reason why I haven't been an overnight success." Heath plays his own way and rejects the idea of touting for publicity or pandering to the musical whims of the moment. Fortunately Don Schlitten needed no tapes from Jimmy to be aware of what he could do. In 1972 the producer went looking for the artist and asked him to record. The result was an album called, significantly, The Gap Sealer. Since then there have been two more Jimmy Heath sessions, and he has appeared on LPs as a sideman with brother Albert Heath, pianist Red Garland, organist Don Patterson (all incidentally produced by Don Schlinen), and singer Johnny Hartman. Now they have even started to reissue some of Jimmy's excellent sides from 15 years ago. The return of Heath to center stage in today's jazz drama has not been marked by fervid fanfares. But a lot of people who still dig good music on Planet Earth have felt happy, grateful, and rewarded by his re-emergence. The non-availability of any recordings by Jimmy in the catalogues somehow typified the mindless phase that Ian went through during the Nixon years. It is just as well that Jimmy is blessed with a philosophical outlook and an abundance of patience. His time is now, and lucky for us. he is playing better than at any period of his long and honourable career. Although he will be writing no brochures about himself, Jimmy is saying a wealth of personal things on his saxophones. I will recall, however, that his past credentials are impeccable. He worked with all the trumpet giants including Dizzy Gillespie, Moles Davis, Clark Terry, Clifford Brown. Art Farmer, Kenny Dorham, and Howard McGhee He started on alto, doubled on baritone, switched to tenor, and more recently added flute and soprano to his instrumental accomplishments. He went through the mill of problems (like legions of his contemporaries) but came out of them whole, wiser and more mature. Through the good and bad years, a steady flow of compositions was produced by this gifted man. Few individuals can compose, arrange, and play and be brilliant in all three endeavors. Mr. Heath is one of the few. He provided an interesting insight into his conception to Miss Wilmer. 'If you don't have the whole spiritual thing, I don't think jazz is complete. To me, a musician is just a transformer. It's like I receive the music from somewhere else. If I sit down to write a tune, nobody comes up and tells me what to write, it comes from somewhere else It's not really mine; I'm supposed to transform this music. In Picture of Heath, Jimmy transforms in a different way because the setting is quite unlike those of his previous records. He has played the occasional tune with only trio backing in earlier collections, but this is his first quartet date wherein Jimmy is the sole horn. He used the opportunity to approach in a new manner five of his older compositions and to tackle the high jump that every tenor player worth his salt must leap eventually—Body and Soul. To help paint this intimate portrait of Heath meant Barry Harris. Sam Jones and Billy Higgins Barry, a Xanadu regu-lar, earned Jimmy's respect long ago when they played together on a Carmell Jones recording. The empathy is
evidenced by Heath's confidence in the pianist's powers "Take as many choruses as you like on this one, Barry," was a typical instruction from the leader. That kind of remark shows Heath's regard for a peerless soloist and accompanist. Jimmy is not given to gushing praise "Sam Jones is steady," he says firmly, and you know he values highly that firm, accurate support, the big tone and bass lines that strengthen the performance and never throw the soloist. Like Sam, drummer Billy Higgins is a favorite of both Jimmy and Don. Notes Mr. Heath, "Billy is always happy and makes me happy also. He listens. "Swain Billy" was the title of a composition by Jimmy dedicated to his percussionist. He wrote it "for the love of the way Billy Higgins plays and for his love of music and of playing." So these are the four men from four cities and four states, all New Yorkers by adoption, who fuse their talents as one. Higgins and Jones pour in the sunshine from California and Flonda respectively, Harris supplies the invigorating breezes from the Michigan Lakes and stirring it all together is Heath's East Coast energy Wherever they came from originally, these artists play New York. Like the myriad aspects of that teeming metropolis they reflect multiple emotions This is life music—honest, non-flamboyant yet thrilling, as the best moments of living always are. Higgins voices Jimmy's thoughts about transforming music are in a slightly different way, but the sentiments are the same: "Music don't belong to nobody. If they could just realize that music doesn't come from you, it comes through you, and if you don't get the right vibrations, you might kill a little bit of it. You can't take music for granted." Neither can you take the playing of these four brothers for granted. It lumps out and grabs you with its sheer power and potency. While Jimmy's 50-plus compositions have been recorded by musicians as diverse as Chet Baker and Miles Davis, Groove Holmes and Milt Jackson. Eddie Harris and James Moody, Mr. Heath demonstrates live times over here that he is his own best interpreter (or transformer, if you will). The quintet of Jimmy's tunes presented in this Picture of Heath encompasses almost a decade of compositional effort. The years covered are 1953 - 1962. CTA is one of his most famous works and dates from 1953, when it was first recorded by Miles Davis for Blue Note. The initials CTA stand for the Central Trucking Agency, which happened to be situated close to the Blue Note offices. For Minors Only was waxed by Jimmy at his first date for Riverside Records in 1959. The picture of Heath is from the following year, as is All Members (first heard on a Sam Jones-led session at Riverside). "Bruh' Slim" was premiered on a 1962 Jimmy Heath Sextet album. Ira Cutler described it as a 'catchy melody' then, and so it also is 15 years later. Although Mr. Heath plays virtually the whole family of saxophones plus flute—and uses piano and guitar for composing to boot—on this album he performs on only tenor and
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Jimmy Heath – Picture Of Heath (1975)
https://youtu.be/4Cb0Y1vzWpg
Original Liner Notes:
As these words are written, Jimmy Heath, who just scraped in under the birth sign of Scorpio. is about to enter his fiftieth year A decade ago the saxophonist opined, "Life begins at forty." But as things turned out, it only started happening again for Jimmy in his late forties. Eight years drifted by without a single Fleath led the recording session. Sure, he was working steadily, as well as recording with others, and he continued composing royalty checks from his many originals recorded by some of the major figures in town, which supplemented his income. But Jimmy Heath was getting no personal exposure. The explanation was simple, as he explained to writer Valerie Wilmer. "You see, I'm not the sort of person to go uls to somebody and say. would like to record for your record company', and wrote up a whole brochure of all the things I have done for the past twenty-love years I'll never start making tapes to take along for people to hear me. I'll just continue to live like I'm living. If you come down and hear me play, you'll find the reason why I haven't been an overnight success." Heath plays his own way and rejects the idea of touting for publicity or pandering to the musical whims of the moment. Fortunately Don Schlitten needed no tapes from Jimmy to be aware of what he could do. In 1972 the producer went looking for the artist and asked him to record. The result was an album called, significantly, The Gap Sealer. Since then there have been two more Jimmy Heath sessions, and he has appeared on LPs as a sideman with brother Albert Heath, pianist Red Garland, organist Don Patterson (all incidentally produced by Don Schlinen), and singer Johnny Hartman. Now they have even started to reissue some of Jimmy's excellent sides from 15 years ago. The return of Heath to center stage in today's jazz drama has not been marked by fervid fanfares. But a lot of people who still dig good music on Planet Earth have felt happy, grateful, and rewarded by his re-emergence. The non-availability of any recordings by Jimmy in the catalogues somehow typified the mindless phase that Ian went through during the Nixon years. It is just as well that Jimmy is blessed with a philosophical outlook and an abundance of patience. His time is now, and lucky for us. he is playing better than at any period of his long and honourable career. Although he will be writing no brochures about himself, Jimmy is saying a wealth of personal things on his saxophones. I will recall, however, that his past credentials are impeccable. He worked with all the trumpet giants including Dizzy Gillespie, Moles Davis, Clark Terry, Clifford Brown. Art Farmer, Kenny Dorham, and Howard McGhee He started on alto, doubled on baritone, switched to tenor, and more recently added flute and soprano to his instrumental accomplishments. He went through the mill of problems (like legions of his contemporaries) but came out of them whole, wiser and more mature. Through the good and bad years, a steady flow of compositions was produced by this gifted man. Few individuals can compose, arrange, and play and be brilliant in all three endeavors. Mr. Heath is one of the few. He provided an interesting insight into his conception to Miss Wilmer. 'If you don't have the whole spiritual thing, I don't think jazz is complete. To me, a musician is just a transformer. It's like I receive the music from somewhere else. If I sit down to write a tune, nobody comes up and tells me what to write, it comes from somewhere else It's not really mine; I'm supposed to transform this music. In Picture of Heath, Jimmy transforms in a different way because the setting is quite unlike those of his previous records. He has played the occasional tune with only trio backing in earlier collections, but this is his first quartet date wherein Jimmy is the sole horn. He used the opportunity to approach in a new manner five of his older compositions and to tackle the high jump that every tenor player worth his salt must leap eventually—Body and Soul. To help paint this intimate portrait of Heath meant Barry Harris. Sam Jones and Billy Higgins Barry, a Xanadu regu-lar, earned Jimmy's respect long ago when they played together on a Carmell Jones recording. The empathy is
evidenced by Heath's confidence in the pianist's powers "Take as many choruses as you like on this one, Barry," was a typical instruction from the leader. That kind of remark shows Heath's regard for a peerless soloist and accompanist. Jimmy is not given to gushing praise "Sam Jones is steady," he says firmly, and you know he values highly that firm, accurate support, the big tone and bass lines that strengthen the performance and never throw the soloist. Like Sam, drummer Billy Higgins is a favorite of both Jimmy and Don. Notes Mr. Heath, "Billy is always happy and makes me happy also. He listens. "Swain Billy" was the title of a composition by Jimmy dedicated to his percussionist. He wrote it "for the love of the way Billy Higgins plays and for his love of music and of playing." So these are the four men from four cities and four states, all New Yorkers by adoption, who fuse their talents as one. Higgins and Jones pour in the sunshine from California and Flonda respectively, Harris supplies the invigorating breezes from the Michigan Lakes and stirring it all together is Heath's East Coast energy Wherever they came from originally, these artists play New York. Like the myriad aspects of that teeming metropolis they reflect multiple emotions This is life music—honest, non-flamboyant yet thrilling, as the best moments of living always are. Higgins voices Jimmy's thoughts about transforming music are in a slightly different way, but the sentiments are the same: "Music don't belong to nobody. If they could just realize that music doesn't come from you, it comes through you, and if you don't get the right vibrations, you might kill a little bit of it. You can't take music for granted." Neither can you take the playing of these four brothers for granted. It lumps out and grabs you with its sheer power and potency. While Jimmy's 50-plus compositions have been recorded by musicians as diverse as Chet Baker and Miles Davis, Groove Holmes and Milt Jackson. Eddie Harris and James Moody, Mr. Heath demonstrates live times over here that he is his own best interpreter (or transformer, if you will). The quintet of Jimmy's tunes presented in this Picture of Heath encompasses almost a decade of compositional effort. The years covered are 1953 - 1962. CTA is one of his most famous works and dates from 1953, when it was first recorded by Miles Davis for Blue Note. The initials CTA stand for the Central Trucking Agency, which happened to be situated close to the Blue Note offices. For Minors Only was waxed by Jimmy at his first date for Riverside Records in 1959. The picture of Heath is from the following year, as is All Members (first heard on a Sam Jones-led session at Riverside). "Bruh' Slim" was premiered on a 1962 Jimmy Heath Sextet album. Ira Cutler described it as a 'catchy melody' then, and so it also is 15 years later. Although Mr. Heath plays virtually the whole family of saxophones plus flute—and uses piano and guitar for composing to boot—on this album he performs on only tenor and
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