Jimmy Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020) – Angel Man (1972)
Written in tribute to Yusef Lateef, this beautiful flute-led track featured Kenny Barron and Heath's son James Mtume.
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Jimmy Heath was a prolific jazz composer, saxophonist, and band leader who lived to be 93 years old. His older brother was Modern Jazz Quartet bassist Percy Heath and his youngest brother was drummer Al “Tootie” Heath. His son was legendary producer James Mtume.
Born in Philadelphia, he was raised in a musical family. He formed his own jazz band in the 1940s, with members at various times including Benny Golson and John Coltrane. Max Roach and Charlie Parker played with the band on one memorable occasion. It broke up in 1949 when Heath joined Dizzy Gillespie’s band.
Heath replace Coltrane in Miles Davis’ group for a brief period in 1959. During the sixties he also played with Gil Evans, Milt Jackson, and Kenny Dorham.
One of Heath's best albums, The Gap Sealer, was recorded at Bell Studios in New York City on March 1, 1972. It was released later that year on Cobblestone Records, a Buddah subsidiary, and subsequently re-titled Jimmy and re-released on Muse Records. Both labels were co-founded by former Prestige executive Joe Fields.
All tracks on the LP were written by Heath, except for one, a cover of “Invitation,” the theme song to the 1952 film of the same name that became a jazz standard. The Gap Sealer featured Heath on flute, sporano and tenor sax; Kenny Barron on piano and electric piano; Bob Cranshaw on fender bass; Jimmy's youngest brother Al "Tootie" Heath on drums and tambourine, and Heath's son James Mtume on congas and miscellaneous percussion.
Mtume had already played on albums with McCoy Tyner and Miles Davis before appearing on The Gap Sealer. The album's closing cut, “Alkebu-Lan: Land of the Blacks” would shortly afterwards become the title track to Mtume's debut as leader, released on Strata-East in 1972 with his own Mtume Umoja Ensemble.
Heath wrote the song "Angel Man" in tribute to jazz great Yusef Lateef, described by the liner notes on The Gap Sealer as someone who had been "expressing love for his fellow man since long before it became fashionably cool."
The beautiful, flute-led jam captures the spirit of Lateef's music and sounds like something he himself would have composed. "This reveals my feelings about a man who leads that kind of life...still taking lessons and studying...someone who's alive," said Heath about his admiration for Lateef and the song itself.
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