Percy Heath

Did You Know?

• Percy Heath trained with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II and graduated as a 2nd Lieutenant pilot, though he saw no combat.
• He started playing violin at age eight and sang locally before switching to stand-up bass after the war.
• He was an avid striped bass fisherman and surfcaster who kept his boat, named 'The Fiddler,' in Montauk.
• A memorial plaque was set into a 5,000-pound stone at Turtle Cove, Montauk Point, on May 27, 2006.

Biography

Percy Heath was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on April 30, 1923, and spent his childhood in Philadelphia. His father played the clarinet and his mother sang in the church choir. He started playing violin at eight and also sang locally. Drafted into the Army in 1944, he trained with the Tuskegee Airmen, graduating as a 2nd Lieutenant pilot, but saw no combat.

After the war, he bought a stand-up bass and enrolled in the Granoff School of Music in Philadelphia, soon playing in the city's jazz clubs with leading artists. In Chicago in 1948, he recorded with his brother on a Milt Jackson album as a member of the Howard McGhee Sextet. Moving to New York in the late 1940s, Percy and Jimmy Heath found work with Dizzy Gillespie's groups. Around this time, Percy was also a member of Joe Morris's band with Johnny Griffin.

Other members of the Gillespie big band—pianist John Lewis, drummer Kenny Clarke, Milt Jackson, and bassist Ray Brown—decided to form a permanent group, known for interludes during Gillespie performances that gave the rest of the band set breaks. This became the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ). When Brown left to join his wife Ella Fitzgerald's band, Heath joined, and the group officially began in 1952. Connie Kay replaced Clarke in January 1955.

The MJQ played regularly until disbanding in 1974, reformed in 1981, and last recorded in 1993. In 1975, Percy Heath and his brothers formed the Heath Brothers with pianist Stanley Cowell. Percy would sometimes play the cello instead of the bass in these later performances. In 1989, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.

At age 80 in 2003, Heath released his first album as a leader, A Love Song, on the Daddy Jazz label, featuring brother Albert Heath on drums, bassist Peter Washington, and pianist Jeb Patton. Percy Heath died two days short of his 82nd birthday in Southampton, New York, after a second bout with bone cancer. The month after his death, bassist William Parker recorded the tribute album For Percy Heath.