Jimmy Heath, legendary saxophonist, composer and jazz educator, dies at 93

Jimmy Heath, a saxophonist, composer, arranger, educator and 2003 NEA Jazz Master who came of age in the bebop era, and did much to sway the course of jazz history in the ensuing decades, died on Sunday. He was 93.

Miles Davis described Heath as “one of the thoroughbreds.” He was not only a doggedly individual talent - but also the middle brother in one of jazz’s most storied families, the Heath Brothers with the late Percy Heath (1923-2005).

Heath’s especially close friendship with John Coltrane and life-changing early tenures with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis inspired the title of his 2010 memoir I Walked with Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath (Temple University Press), co-authored with Joseph McLaren.

At: https://www.wbgo.org/post/jimmy-heath-legendary-saxophonist-composer-and-jazz-educator-dies-93

Jazz great Jimmy Heath (1926-2020)