Percy Heath

The American jazz musician and bassist with the Modern Jazz Quartet, Percy Heath, began his musical apprenticeship in 1946, after Air Force service. It was just the right time. Though the double bass had always been used sporadically in jazz, performers capable of advancing both its rhythmic and harmonic role into a distinctive jazz-bass language were arriving on the scene more slowly than trumpeters, saxophonists or pianists.
But by the 1940s, the place of the bass had significantly changed. Swing specialists like Pops Foster, John Kirby and Walter Page had brought animation, drive and swing - as well as harmonic breadth - to bass technique, and Duke Ellington's young star, Jimmy Blanton, had added a soloistic agility that rewrote the book on the instrument. This was the bass world that Heath entered. His playing became the quintessence of a style that suited the complex demands of a modern jazz ensemble. Like Blanton's successors, Ray Brown and Oscar Pettiford - contemporaries on the late-1940s American scene - Heath 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.
If Heath had an advantage in understanding how an instrument designed for a supporting role might best coexist with partners, it was because he was raised in one of the most respected of jazz families (rivaled only by the Jones brothers, Elvin, Thad and Hank). He had worked alongside his saxophone-playing brother Jimmy in trumpeter Howard McGhee's band in 1947, and when youngest brother Al caught up on drums in the 1950s, the three sometimes performed together.
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Reassessing
Interview
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- A Love Song by Russ Musto
- A Love Song by Michael P. Gladstone
- A Love Song by Jerry D'Souza
- A Love Song by John Kelman
- A Love Song by Dan McClenaghan
- A Love Song by Norman Weinstein
April 30, 2020
Jazz Musician of the Day: Percy Heath
April 30, 2019
Jazz Musician of the Day: Percy Heath
April 30, 2018
Jazz Musician of the Day: Percy Heath
April 30, 2017
Jazz Musician of the Day: Percy Heath
April 30, 2016
Jazz Musician of the Day: Percy Heath
April 30, 2015
Jazz Musician of the Day: Percy Heath
April 30, 2014
Jazz Musician of the Day: Percy Heath
April 30, 2013
Jazz Musician of the Day: Percy Heath
April 30, 2012
Jazz Musician of the Day: Percy Heath
April 30, 2011
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