© Howard A. Gitelson

When former MJQ bassist Percy Heath passed away in April, the jazz world lost one of its premiere bop artists, and Jimmy and Albert (Tootie) Heath lost the elder third of their family ensemble. Well before his passing, Jessica Felix, Artistic Director of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, was working on an appearance of the three Heath Brothers for the 2006 event. Without Percy, Jimmy and Tootie agreed to an evening tribute to their brother, which would include not only a memorial quartet but also the first public showing of a documentary film, Brotherly Love. Not entirely completed until the morning of the show, the film fortunately included extensive footage and interviews with all three Heath brothers. It provided the perfect historical context to the evening’s music on June 9^th, kicking off the final weekend of the 8^th Annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival, held each June in the heart of California’s Sonoma Wine Country.

The Heath Brothers

The three Heaths grew up in one of America’s most gifted jazz families. Born in Wilmington, NC but raised in Philadelphia, the eldest, Percy, first studied violin. One of the famed Tuskegee Airmen in the Air Force during World War II, Percy took up the bass after the war, studying at the Granoff School of Music and influenced by Jimmy Blanton, Oscar Pettiford and Ray Brown. Around Philadelphia, he developed his reputation playing an early gig with Red Garland and becoming the house bassist at the Down Beat Club. Percy’s timing was great in more ways than one, as his emergence in the late 1940s coincided with the new-found importance of the bass in the jazz ensembles of the developing bop style. Noted John Fordham in The Guardian, he was “precise in his intonation, buoyant and springy in feel and capable of spontaneous counter-melodies that enhanced the frontline's playing. He always sounded as if he was pushing the beat, rather than sitting contentedly on top of it.” By 1950, Percy Heath had moved to New York and was playing regularly with such bop innovators as Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Fats Navarro, Sonny Rollins, and Dizzy Gillespie, and particularly was Dizzy’s bassist for two years. But most significant in Heath’s career at this time was the opportunity to replace his muse, Ray Brown, in a quartet with pianist John Lewis, vibist Milt Jackson, and drummer Kenny Clarke. Eventually Connie Kay replaced Clarke in what became the long-standing Modern Jazz Quartet. Percy remained with the MJQ throughout its active lifespan.

The younger Heath brothers were, and continue to be, members of the jazz elite. Middle brother, tenor saxophonist Jimmy played at the first International Jazz Festival in Paris in 1948, where he shared the stage with Coleman Hawkins, Slam Stewart and Errol Garner. One of his first big bands included John Coltrane and Benny Golson, with Charlie Parker and Max Roach sitting in at times. Throughout his career, Jimmy has appeared on over 100 recordings, including 12 as leader and 7 with his brothers’ ensemble. He’s composed over 100 compositions, many of which have become jazz standards, and has had an extensive career as an educator, particularly a long tenure at the Aaron Copeland School for Music at Queens College. Youngest brother, hard bop drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath made his recording debut in 1957 with John Coltrane. In the U.S. he worked with J. J. Johnson, Cedar Walton, and Bobby Timmons, and then lived a few years in Europe touring with Dexter Gordon and Kenny Drew. He eventually settled in Los Angeles and recorded extensively for Riverside.

Both Percy and Jimmy have received the NEA Jazz Masters Award, Percy in 2002 and Jimmy in 2003.

Screening of Brotherly Love

Brotherly Love not only references the ties among the three musical Heath brothers but also explores the context of their native Philadelphia, which in the 30s and 40s was a fertile breeding ground for the artists who would modernize American jazz—including John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner. In assembling a vast amount of information garnered from interviews, interspersed with concert footage from a Heath Brothers performance, producer Danny Scher and director Jesse Block give viewers not only a family history of three phenomenal musicians but more generally a history of the birth of bop and its modern extensions. The film details each brother’s journey from childhood to jazz elder, journeys that included significant detours (such as Jimmy’s battle with heroin addiction and incarceration) as well as good fortune (Percy’s tenure with the Modern Jazz Quartet).

While the details and the juxtopositioning of interviews with the brothers and such dignitaries as Herbie Hancock, Marian McPartland, Sonny Rollins, and George Wein are lovingly and logically presented, there is an overabundance of riches here such that the film begins to drag; editing out about 20 minutes of the 90-minute documentary would do wonders for keeping the story flowing at a pace in keeping with the music.

Musical Tribute

And the music itself was well paced, masterful, and engaging through the 80-minute set that followed intermission. If he had not become a top tenor saxophonist, Jimmy Heath might have made a living as a stand up comic or talk show host, introducing the musicians and each tune with more than a touch of humor. Joining Jimmy and Tootie Heath on the Raven Theater stage were two young monsters, pianist Jeb Patton and bassist Joe Sanders. Patton has performed with the Heath Brothers before, appearing in the live footage of Brotherly Love. In fact, Patton studied with both Jimmy Heath and the late Sir Roland Hanna at the Aaron Copeland School of Music (Queens College) in New York, where he earned a Master’s Degree in 1997 as well as the Louis Armstrong Award for composition from the ASCAP Foundation. Bassist Joe Sanders went straight from the Milwaukee High School of the Arts in 2002 to the inaugural class of the Brubeck Institute where he studied with Christian McBride. Now engaged in graduate studies at the Monk Institute, young Sanders’ work with the Heath Brothers will be cut short when he goes on tour with Roy Hargrove this summer.

The quartet swung hard throughout the set, which featured several of Jimmy Heath’s compositions, including “A Sound for Sore Ears,” “Winter Sleeves” (a take-off on “Autumn Leaves” featuring a dandy tambourine intro from Tootie), “Gingerbread Boy” (written for Miles Davis), and the elegiac “From a Lonely Bass,” written in memory of Percy and performed here as a stunning duet with Patton. Other tunes included Mal Waldron’s “Soul Eyes,” the rhythm section’s rendition of Ray Bryant’s “Reflection” (an eloquent tour de force for young Patton and Sanders), and two featuring Jimmy’s melodic soprano, Strayhorn’s “Day Dream” and Monk’s “Round Midnight.”

As straight-ahead performances go, this was a winner, both as a tribute to a fallen legend and as evidence that the line from early bop to modern post bop is strengthened by cross-generational collaborations. And as my brother whispered to me between tunes, “I can’t believe a guy can blow a sax like that at eighty.”

Percy was undoubtedly smiling, not only at the chops of his younger brothers, but also at the promise of the “little brothers,” Jeb and Joe. I never saw Percy. But I know he was there.