Jimmy Edward Heath by Alvin Carter Bey

Jimmy Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 - January 19, 2020) A saxophonist known as “Little Bird”, a nickname that young Jimmy Heath acquired on the local Philadelphia scene at the end of the 1940s.

Jimmy Edward Heath Radio Interview by Alvin Carter-Bey on WHPK in Chicago, IL, on August 30, 2011.

ACB: Hey, you know, here’s a cat we’ve been trying to reach. I’m dialing the wrong number and he’s waiting for me to give him a call. A great composer and saxophonist, the legendary, the one and only, Jimmy Heath. Good afternoon! JH: Al Carter-Bey, how you doing, man? ACB: Well, listen, I’m doing fine now, man. I thought I was going to have to run, leave up outta here, man, with a rope around my neck or something. JH: 1t’s not my fault, listeners. It’s not my fault. ACB: Of course. JH: I was waiting. ACB: Listen, we’ve got about ten good minutes with you. So, dig, let me ask you this, man. JH: Okay. ACB: Back in the 1940s, they were calling you “Little Bird”. Why? JH: Because I was playing alto saxophone and I was nuts about Charlie Parker. ACB: So, what was so great about Charlie Parker that you wanted to sound and be like Charlie Parker? Everybody wanted to sound like Charlie Parker, man. He was the hippest cat out there at that particular moment. JH: Well, no. People went generational like they do now. Bird came along and blew everybody’s mind. After hearing Johnny Hodges, Benny Carter, and people like that on alto saxophone, here comes Charlie Parker with a new sound. ACB: So, how long did you play the alto saxophone? JH: Until 1952, when I started playing tenor. ACB: Okay. You played tenor saxophone with Art Farmer? That was your main guy, right? JH: Oh, he wasn’t my main guy. I played with Kenny Dorham. I played with Dizzy. I played with Miles, in 1953. ACB: Let me ask you about some of the cats that you grew up with in Philadelphia, Benny Golson and John Coltrane. Lee Morgan was much younger than you, right? JH: Yeah, Lee Morgan was with my brother Tootie and Bobby Timmons and them. Bill Barron was with me. Kenny Barron’s older brother was a tenor player. There were other cats around at that time, until Trane came out of the Navy to Philadelphia. But there were cats around there who could really play. Benny Golson was there. Then, there was a cat we called “The Little Bad Man”- Jimmy Oliver, The Satin Doll. A little black brother who could play the tenor really good. In fact, he could wipe me and Trane and Golson out. They call him Satin Doll. But he couldn’t read music. A lot of people wanted him but he couldn’t read, you know, he’d just played, man. He just had God’s gift. ACB: Let’s talk about some of your compositions, The Big Thumper, C.TA, Gemini, Sassy Samba. I’m interested in C.TA. When I was young, I thought that song was about Chicago Transit Authority. What does it mean? JH: Somebody put that on the record, it was wrong. It was my girlfriend. She happened to be a mixed lady. Her father was Chinese, her mother was African-American. Her name was Connie Teresa Ang. But somebody put “Chicago Transit Authority” on the record and that’s how that started. ACB: So, how did you deal with that? JH: Well, how could I deal with something in print. People liked the song and they didn’t care. “Play C.TA,” you know. They didn’t care where it came from. ACB: I like Gingerbread Boy. JH: Oh, Gingerbread Boy was written and that’s ironic, I was

just telling you about Jimmy Oliver. Jimmy Oliver named that song because my wife happens to be a white lady, beautiful, we’ve been married 55 years. When she was pregnant, Jimmy Oliver said, “You’re going to have a Gingerbread Boy.” That’s why I named the song Gingerbread Boy from the mix, cross cultures. ACB: Jimmy, You have been around this music for how many years? JH: Well, I started playing alto saxophone when I was about 13 or 14, in high school. Last night, my son, Mtume, he came to see me at the Vanguard in New York. I said, “Mtume, I’m keyboard shorty, 88.” ACB: Listen, I Sonny Rollins’ quote, “America, where Jazz originated, was too blended by its opinion of black people to give the music jazz and the ACB: Oh, yeah. JH: That’s right, man. See that’s what we’ve got, creativity. Boy, that goes all over the world. ACB: Right. JH: It started here in this country. ACB: True. JH: And we don’t get the respect that we should. That’s what Sonny is talking about and I agree, wholeheartedly. ACB: Is it because it’s black culture or

I go around the world. People in other countries respect this stuff as being very unique from the USA. I’ve been to Japan, Australia, and South America.

ACB: So how does Jimmy Heath feel about that? JH: I have to take what I get, brother. I had a very good life in music because I went into a lot of different directions. I was a professor at colleges and still performed. I just came back from doing a program with WDR Radio in Cologne, Germany. I go around the world. People in other countries respect this stuff as being very unique from the USA. I’ve been to Japan, Australia, and South America. They love this music that we play. Over here, the critics and the television are the number one [outlets] that won’t put us. They don’t have enough jazz on the television. If they had, when the kids came up and saw it, they would have loved like they love hip hop or contemporary [music]. If they saw

artists the credit we deserve.” JH: Yeah. ACB: What do you think? JH: I think he’s right. In fact, Sonny and I are very close. Saturday, we’re going to hear Take 6, man. ACB: Okay. JH: We’re going to hear those brothers get down, man. the black experience that people are not really appreciative of the music and it’s pushed on a back burner? JH: Well, that is true. So, when someone else comes from another culture and plays our music, they get more acclaim than we do, than African Americans. And our people started the music. it, you know. That’s a very strong medium, television. ACB: There was a question that was brought up, a couple of days ago, by a Chicago columnist, asking why jazz was not as popular as other music. You just mentioned why, because it’s not as commercialized as other music. JH: Well, it’s not that it’s not

commercialized. It’s not as visible and audible. You can hear it, occasionally, on a few stations. But the television is the most important medium. That’s where its absence is obvious. ACB: We’re talking to Jimmy Heath, the fantastic composer and saxophonist. You are in New York City, now, right? JH: No, I’m in Queens. I live in Queens. I live around the comer from the Louis Armstrong house in Astoria. It’s a National Landmark. ACB: In your hometown of Philadelphia, some happenings are going on. Did you know about Jazz Appreciation Month in Philly that the mayor is planning? JH: Yeah, I know. Every year. But I’ve been here so long, I just read about that, unless they call me to come back, you know. I’ve been in New York since 1964. ACB: Okay. JH: I love New York. This is the entertainment capital of the world. You can go out tonight and hear so many different people in so many different genres. It’s incredible, man. My friend walked by Cedar Walton’s wife, she said, “oh, I didn’t know you were playing in the Vanguard. She was going to another club to hear somebody else. So, she doubled back and came by to see the Heath Brothers at the Vanguard. That club’s been there 80 years. ACB: The Village Vanguard? JH: Yeah. Joe Segal is doing a fine job. In fact, I’m going to introduce Joe at the NEA Awards. ACB: That’s the Jazz Masters Awards? JH: I met Joe in Philadelphia, before he moved to Chicago. Everybody thinks he’s from Chicago. He’s been there so long and done so much. ACB: Right. JH: He is maintaining our music in the area. I love Joe Segal, man. You know what I’m saying? ACB: Yes. JH: We have people like that in certain cities still supplying these gigs for us to come through at whatever level we can to keep this continuum of America’s most important artistic achievement, the music they called Jazz. ACB: The great Jimmy Heath. You’re so well respected and admired by a lot of us. I was raised under you. I’ve seen you so many times, each time Joe brought you to the different locations he had in the city. JH: Yeah. ACB: When Percy was alive, people followed the MJ. Was there a reason that you all didn’t stay together as a band? JH: Well, I had problems. I was off the scene for a minute. But Percy was out for 10 years. JH: Me and my brother Tootie, two out of three ain’t bad. You know what I mean? ACB: Yeah, and you guys are hitting it. So, how is the book? What is it, “Walking With Giants”? JH: “I Walked With Giants”. Oh, somebody is always coming up to me with the book to sign it for them. I’m still selling the book. It was chosen by the Jazz Journalists as one of the best books of that particular era, three or four years ago. The reason is it’s about everybody people know as Jazzmen, when I speak about a certain subject. Then, there’s an interview by that person like Art Farmer, Dizzy, and Miles. Trane is in there talking, Dave Brubeck, and Billy Taylor. You’ve got Benny Golson, everybody that I’ve played with in my life. You know, they say something. It’s like call and response, which jazz is like. So, my book is jazz history. ACB: Ahmad Jamal labeled the music that you play . . . JH: He’s in the book. ACB: As the American Classical Music. He said, “Jass.” He said it’s the second art form to that of the Native Americans here in America. JH: That’s true ACB: Jimmy Heath, I gotta thank Melvin Williams for calling me. I was hung up with your number 3688 but it was 3638. JH: I gave it to you right. You didn’t remember it right. We all make mistakes, brother, but you got me. ACB: Hey, man, thank you very much. JH: And thank you. ACB: Appreciate you. Hey, keep on swinging, will you? JH: All right. Thank you. ACB: You’re welcome. Have a great one. Bye-bye JH: All right. Bye-bye. ACB: The great Jimmy Heath here at Hyde Park Chicago, finally got him on the line.