Moon Martin born 31 October 1945

John David "Moon" Martin (October 31, 1945 – May 11, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and one of the more curious characters of the new wave movement. Moon Martin issued several critically acclaimed yet commercially underappreciated releases from the late 1970s through the early '80s before reappearing in the mid-'90s. 

Born John Martin in Altus, Oklahoma, he played in local bands, including a rockabilly group, the Disciples, while attending the University of Oklahoma. Martin relocated to Los Angeles in the late '60s and paid the rent as a session musician, playing on albums by Del Shannon and Jackie DeShannon. Soon, however, his former Disciples band-mates followed him to the land of surf and sun, changing their name to Southwind  whose style shifted towards country rock. They issued a total of three underappreciated country-rock albums on the Blue Thumb label between 1969 and 1973: a self-titled debut, Ready to Ride, and What a Place to Land. 

Upon the group's split, Martin returned to session work, contributing to Jesse Ed Davis' Ululu, Linda Ronstadt's Silk Purse, and a few Gram Parsons songs. Martin also began to focus on a solo career at this time, adopting the nickname "Moon" from friends after it became an inside joke because of the songwriter's penchant for mentioning the word in his compositions. 

                                    

Initial plans to record a solo album in 1974 with noted producer/arranger Jack Nitzsche failed to pan out, but several of Martin's original compositions were used by other recording artists, including the Nitzsche-produced Mink DeVille (the track "Cadillac Walk" subsequently became a moderate hit), as well as Michelle Phillips and Lisa Burns. By 1978, Martin (who by this time was known simply as Moon Martin) was finally ready to launch his solo career, with his look and music often compared to such new wave hitmakers as Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe. 

A total of five albums in a five-year span followed, including Shots From A Cold Nightmare (1978), Escape From Domination (1979) which featured the Top 30 hit Rolene and Street Fever (1980) which featured the hit Bad News which reached the Top 10 in France, and Mystery Ticket (1982)  all of which were issued on the Capitol label. His Victim Of Romance EP from 1978 included "Bad Case of Lovin' You" which would become a hit when covered by Robert Palmer. Martin also had some minor singles hits in Australia with “Signal For Help”, Aces With You” and “X-Ray Vision” which also became an MTV hit music video in 1982. 

He was also featured on guitars and vocals with rock legends Linda Ronstadt, Del Shannon, Glenn Frey, Don Henley and Michelle Phillips among others, while also gaining recognition both in the United States and France as a solo artist and composer. Martin then dropped out of the music scene for the rest of the '80s and the early part of the '90s, before resurfacing in 1995 with a pair of releases, Cement Monkey and Lunar Samples. The same year, the British label Edsel reissued Martin's first four full-length releases as two-for-one CDs (Shots from a Cold Nightmare was paired with Escape from Domination, while Street Fever was combined with Mystery Ticket). 

Producer Craig Leon, who had worked with Moon Martin, confirmed that the rocker died on May 11, 2020 of natural causes in Encino, California, at the age of 74. On October 31, 2022, Midnight Moon, a posthumous album, was released, only available on several music streaming services. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & LA Times) 

 

Dave Myers born 30 October 1926

Dave Myers (October 30, 1926 - September 3, 2001) was an American blues guitarist and (electric) bassist, who with his brother Louis (September 18, 1929 - September 4, 1994) formed the Chicago blues band The Aces. 

The Myers brothers Dave, Louis, Bob and Curtis were born into a musical family in the country near Byhalia, Mississippi. Dave and  Louis played the guitar, Curtis played the piano, and Bob played the harmonica.

Their parents Mary and Amos Myers were musical, but Mary played the guitar only at home, while Amos played the guitar at parties in private homes. Dave grew up as a child listening to Lonnie Johnson, a pioneering blues and jazz guitarist and banjoist who lived in the basement of Myers’ family home. Dave along with his brother Louis, sang in the local Baptist church choir. They moved to Chicago 1941. Louis had started playing guitar in Mississippi and took it up again in Chicago, followed by Dave, who later switched to electric bass. They played with other blues artists on the South Side and on their own, without a drummer until their longtime friend Fred Below (pronounced BEE-low) joined forces as the Three Aces. 

Below, (September 6, 1926 - August 13, 1988) who was born in Chicago, brought experience from playing in high school and U.S. Army bands and studying at a percussion school. Trained in jazz, he found the blues difficult at first but before long he had developed his own backbeat style, which set the standard for generations of blues drummers to come.

The Aces were one of Chicago’s premier blues combos, in the early 1950s. Also known as the Three Dukes, the Four Aces (when they hooked up with Junior Wells), the Jukes (when they teamed with Little Walter), or more often just the Aces, the band was in demand to play behind various singers, but also could deliver top-notch blues with Louis Myers taking a lead role. 

                                   

The group first recorded in 1952, backing Little Walter on “Mean Old World” and other numbers for Checker, a subsidiary of Chess Records in Chicago. Other sessions, club dates, and tours with Little Walter followed. The foursome toured widely as one of the country’s most popular and energetic young blues acts. Although Dave and Louis played with Junior Wells before Walter, they recorded with Wells only in 1953. Louis and Below also recorded with him 1954. All three Aces later backed Wells on a live recording in Boston. Dave was also hired by Fender Guitarist during the 1950’s to promote and demonstrate the electric bass around Chicago. His percussive style earned him the nickname Thumper. 

As a unit the Aces were not a constant presence on the blues scene, although the individual members stayed busy in town or on the road. In testament to their prowess as an all-purpose band, the Aces backed Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, Koko Taylor, Lightnin’ Slim, Jimmy Dawkins, and others at the 1972 Montreux Jazz Festival, in addition to doing their own set, and all the proceedings were recorded, resulting in several albums. They also recorded behind Jimmy Reed, Roosevelt Sykes, Billy Boy Arnold, Louis Jordan, Jimmy Rogers, Robert Lockwood Jr., Eddie Taylor, and numerous others in the U.S., Europe, or Japan. 

As the Aces, they recorded albums of their own for three French labels and a few tracks on various compilations. Louis Myers, heralded primarily for his skills on guitar, also possessed a potent harmonica attack and was featured on an instrumental single for the Abco label in Chicago in 1956. He later recorded albums on Advent, JSP, and Earwig. Both Dave and Louis also recorded a few songs for the Wolf label. 

Dave concluded his recording career with the album “You Can’t Do That” for Black Top in 1996. He later performed at the 1999 Chicago Blues Festival and was the last living member of the Aces until his death. In March of 2000, Myers’s left leg had been amputated due to diabetes. Then his right leg was amputated on August 29, 2000. He never fully recovered from the surgery and retired from the profession. 

On September 3, 2001, Myers died at the Waterfront Terrace Nursing Home in Chicago at the age of 74. His funeral was held on Chicago’s south side at the Rayner Funeral Home” 

(Edited from The Blues Foundation & article by Latisha Cherrelle Tucker)

 

Lee Clayton born 29 October 1942

Lee Clayton (October 29, 1942 – June 12, 2023) was an American songwriter and musician. He notably wrote Waylon Jennings' 1972 outlaw country song "Ladies Love Outlaws". 

Born Billy Hugh Shatz in Russelville, Alabama, he grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He first started to play harmonica and guitar at age of 7, encouraged by his father (a country music fan), and received his first steel guitar at age of 9. He also took guitar lessons. After just one year of playing the guitar, he got to play a radio gig on “Saturday Night Radio Show”, where he played “Steel Guitar Rag” by Leon McAuliffe. Not long after this, young Lee took a break of playing the guitar until he was 16 years old. 

Just before he graduated from college, he got married, and it was time to put guitar down again. Clayton got a regular job, and was ready to settle down. Shortly after he felt that his life was boring, so he decided to get some flight lessons to fill the gap in his life. Within a year he had divorced from his wife and joined the US Air Force as a trainee pilot in 1965, and after working three years as a pilot it was time to get back to music again. He moved to Nashville in 1969 and began his career as a songwriter. In 1972 he wrote "Ladies Love Outlaws" for Waylon Jennings. In 1973 he released his debut album for MCA simply titled Lee Clayton, with which, as Clayton would later say, he was very dissatisfied. 

Clayton left Nashville for Joshua Springs, California, but continued to pen songs for other artists; among his most notable contributions were Jerry Jeff Walker's "Lone Wolf" and Willie Nelson's "If You Could Touch Her at All." His success as a songwriter encouraged him to return to Nashville, and he signed a solo deal with Capitol in 1977. His first album with the label was 1978's Border Affair but his most successful album was 1979's Naked Child. The songs' style was reminiscent of Bob Dylan and the single, "I Ride Alone", became very notable. In 1979, he went on a big world tour, which became a huge success. In 1981 he released his fourth studio album, The Dream Goes On, which had a harder sound than his previous work.

                                    

Then he abruptly quit the music business, instead devoting his energies to writing; the '80s produced two autobiographical books and a play, Little Boy Blue. Clayton did eventually return to recording with Another Night, a live album recorded on September 9, 1988, at the Cruise Cafe, Oslo, Norway. In 1990 The Highwaymen, an outlaw country supergroup comprising Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, had a minor hit with a song of his, "Silver Stallion", which had previously appeared on Border Affair (1978). In 1994, he released the album Spirit of the Twilight. Cat Power also covered "Silver Stallion" on the 2008 cover album Jukebox. 

In 2008 a new acoustic song "We The People" was 'released' on YouTube, after which little was heard from him until according to Josie Kuhn, Nashville singer and friend, he took  his own life at a motel room in White House, Tennessee on June 12, 2023. Kuhn is the only source who published his death on her Facebook page. A sad picture emerges of a man who died at the age of 80 in complete anonymity and loneliness. 

The fact that no significant media has paid attention to his death is somewhat understandable. Clayton had fallen completely into oblivion. Aside from performing at local bars in Nashville, he had not been a part of the music industry for years. A few weeks after Kuhn's message, the administrators of his website confirmed his death, although a cause of death was not mentioned. 

(Eited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & Heaven Magazine.nl)

 

Ted Hawkins born 28 October 1936

Ted Hawkins (October 28, 1936 – January 1, 1995) was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist born in Mississippi. He split his time between his adopted hometown of Venice Beach, California, where he was a mostly anonymous street performer, and Europe and Australia, where he and his songs were better known and well received in clubs and small concert halls. 

Hawkins' existence was no day in the park. He was born into abject poverty in Lakeshore, a small town not far from Biloxi, Mississippi. An abused and illiterate child, Hawkins was sent to reform school when he was 12 years old for some early misdemeanor. He encountered his first musical inspiration there, from New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair, whose visit to the school moved the lad to perform in a talent show. But it wasn't enough to keep him out of trouble. At age 15, he stole a leather jacket and spent three years at Mississippi's infamous state penitentiary, Parchman Farm. 

On release from jail he heard the latest records by the up-and-coming soul singer Sam Cooke, who proved an inspiration. Hawkins spent the next few years working as a travelling musician, roaming from Chicago to Philadelphia and to Buffalo. He left the frigid weather behind in 1966, purchasing a one-way ticket to L.A. Suddenly, music beckoned; he bought a guitar and set out to locate the ex-manager of Sam Cooke. No such luck, but he did manage to cut his debut 45, the soul-steeped "Baby"/"Whole Lot of Women," for Money Records. When he learned no royalties were forthcoming from its sales, Hawkins despaired of ever making a living at his music and took to playing on the streets.

He was heard performing in the black ghetto by Bill Harris, a radio DJ, who brought him to the attention of the record producer Bruce Bromberg. Fortunately he was interested in Hawkins' welfare, recording his delightfully original material in 1971, both with guitarist Phillip Walker's band ("Sweet Baby" was issued as a single on the Joliet label), and in a solo acoustic format (with Ted's wife Elizabeth occasionally adding harmonies). The producer lost touch with Hawkins for a while after recording him, Hawkins falling afoul of the law once again and spent much of the next decade in prison addicted to heroin. Eventually Bromberg contacted Hawkins and was able to get him to agree to release the previously recorded songs as an album, Watch Your Step, which was released by Rounder Records in 1982. 

                                   

This debut album was a commercial failure but received rave reviews (notably a rare five-star rating in Rolling Stone) and Hawkins began to receive some acclaim. But the ladder of success was not in his reach as he had to serve 18 months of a three-year sentence due to indecent exposure in the midst of suffering nervous breakdowns. Yet, Hawkins reunited with Bromberg in 1985 for a second album, Happy Hour, which contained the touching "Cold & Bitter Tears."  This album featured more original songs by Hawkins and was again ignored in the U.S.; however, it won acclaim and sales in Europe. 

Throughout most of the Eighties Hawkins sang on the ocean-front boardwalk in Venice, California, where he entertained the tourists, few of whom realized he was a celebrated recording artist. He was tracked down by Andy Kershaw, who visited him at his home and encouraged him to come to Britain, where he showed up in 1986 and was treated like a star for four years. He frequently played at the Mean Fiddler, Harlesden, visited Ireland and even performed at the Montreux Festival, Switzerland. Despite the recognition and fame he received in Europe, Hawkins was restless and moved back to California in the early 1990s. 

But when he came home, he was faced with the same old situation. Once again, he set up his tip jar on the beach, donned the black leather glove he wore on his fretting hand, and played for passersby, until DGC ever so briefly propelled him into the major leagues. The subsequent album, The Next 100 Years, was a surprise Top Twenty hit in Australia, where Hawkins was invited to tour. He was planning another trip to Australia at the time of his death and had been expected to play at several leading American jazz and blues festivals. His career had finally seemed set to blossom, and for a year or so, he was even a star in his own country but he suffered a  diabetes-related stroke on 29 December, 1994, from which he never recovered. He died in Los Angeles 1 January 1995, just a few months after the release of his breakthrough recording. 

Ted Hawkins was a unique talent, unclassifiable and eminently soulful. Love You Most of All: More Songs from Venice Beach was issued posthumously in 1998. In 2014, in cooperation with his family, the Killer Blues Headstone Project placed a headstone for Ted Hawkins at Ingelwood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. 

(Edited from Chris Welch obit @ The Independent, AllMusic  & Wikipedia)  

Pepe Jaramillo born 27 October 1921

Pepe Jaramillo (October 27, 1921 - April 30, 2001) was a notable Mexican pianist, composer, arranger, and recording artist. He was most active in London as an EMI recording artist in the 1960s and 1970s.

Born José Jaramillo García in Lerdo, Durango, Mexico, both of Jaramillo's parents were originally from the state of Chihuahua. Pepe's father was Vicente Baca Jaramillo and his mother was Doña Enriqueta García. He also had a sister and three brothers. Jaramillo's sister's piano-playing inspired the then-four-year-old to teach himself to play the instrument, largely by ear. His family soon arranged for private lessons with a local teacher, and Jaramillo later continued his private lessons with the director of the Mexican Conservatory of Music. 

In spite of his musical gifts, his family urged him to still have a back-up plan within a more stable profession. Thus, after studying dentistry for a frustrating two years, Jaramillo completed his higher education at the Academia de Negocios de Milton (Milton Business Academy), México City; he also devoted himself to learning English, French, Italian and Portuguese. 

Jaramillo was employed for several years under a British mining company operating in the state of Chihuahua. One evening, while visiting the bar of the fashionable Ritz-Carlton in Mexico City, Jaramillo casually began "tinkering" on the grand piano in the hotel lobby for the entertainment of his friends; upon hearing his playing, hotel management promptly offered him a job playing in the Ritz-Carlton's night club. This marked the beginning of Jaramillo's lifelong musical career, during which he focused on the composition, arrangement and performance of various Latin American and Spanish musical styles, including Cuban cha-cha and rumba, boleros, and Brazilian samba, among others. 

After a successful three-year term at the Ritz, Jaramillo was subsequently employed by friends who had opened the Quid Grill, a restaurant and bar. In turn, it was these friends' Hollywood actor friends who proved to be instrumental in introducing Jaramillo to the mainstream media, beginning in Mexico City; he also became highly sought-after as an accompanist for visiting and touring vocalists and other musicians. 

After a 1957 visit to Paris with his cousin, Jaramillo fell in love with Europe, ultimately deciding to relocate to London. He appeared on a radio series with the BBC called Stairway to the Stars. After answering a call on TV for musicians, Jaramillo sent a recording of some of his earlier Mexican releases to Norman Newell; soon thereafter, his 20-year recording career (spanning 1959–1979) as an EMI artist began. 

                             Here's "Pepe" from above album.

                                    

As a seasoned professional performer in Mexico, at age 38 Pepe Jaramillo was well prepared to move to the international stage. Through his nightclub and theater performances in some of the world's major cities, he became known as the "Ambassador of México." His performance venues in the Americas included Los Angeles, Harlem, New York City, Miami, Colombia, and Buenos Aires. European performances included London, Paris, Madrid, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Yugoslavia. 

During a world tour he performed in many theaters across Japan, and also performed in Tangier, Hong Kong, Thailand, and China. During his concert tour in Australia and New Zealand, he also performed with The Seekers. By popular demand, Pepe visited Durban and Johannesburg for three tours of South Africa. In London, Pepe played at the reception hosted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family. 

When he was not working or staying in London, Pepe Jaramillo spent his free time at his villa Las higueras (The Fig Trees) on the Costa del Sol in Spain. He enjoyed swimming, tennis, and painting. Pepe's generous charitable benefits and sponsorships included organizations in his homeland like the Red Cross and the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

José Jaramillo García was recognized in September 1991 by Lerdo as "Distinguished Citizen." In November 1996, Pepe made another return visit to his hometown, gave several concerts, and donated a piano to the local Casa de la Cultura.

On April 30, 2001, Pepe Jaramillo died of anemia during sleep at his residence located near the town of Mijas, Malaga province in Andalusia, Spain. His ashes were returned to his family in Mexico. 

(Edited from Wikipedia) (Online, and within other sources, Jaramillo has often been confused with an Ecuadorean singer of the same name.) 

 

Ranee Lee born 26 October 1942

Ranee Lee, CM (born October 26, 1942) is an American jazz singer and musician who resides in Montreal, Quebec. She is also an actor, author, educator and television host. Referred as “Montreal's Queen of Jazz,” Lee is a Juno Award winner, two-times Top Canadian Female Jazz Vocalist by Jazz Report Magazine and was honored with the International Association of Jazz Educators Awards for her outstanding contribution to jazz music. 

Born in Brooklyn, Lee performed as a singer while in high school and in the mid-60s, she was invited to join a dance troupe and tour various parts of the U.S. and then Canada. As one of the company members who sang, the dance performance was extended with added vocals generally provided by Lee. After a few years of performing throughout Ontario and the U.S. and, eventually, discovering Montreal, then falling in love with one of her native sons, Montreal became her home. She subsequently landed a starring role playing Billie Holiday in Lady Day, and won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her performance. After which she began recording as a vocalist, releasing her first album All Grown Up in 1980 which contained disco oriented songs. 

It was an energetic time on the music scene in Canada and Lee has fond memories of the era. Thankfully, she came to realize that the music of Billie Holiday, and others of the jazz genre, continue and remain. Disco wass a distant memory as she began to sing Jazz songs in the night clubs, leading to her next release Live at the Bijou in 1984, was the first of many albums with the Justin Time label. Lee’s actual understanding of jazz phrasing and the development of a song gradually set in the more she became aware of the style of the music and its requirements. 

She wrote and starred in Dark Divas, The Musical, a tribute to the lives and careers of seven of the most popular female jazz singers of the 20th century: Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday, Pearl Bailey, Lena Horne, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan. She is also a children's book writer (author of Nana, What Do You Say?); an educator, long associated with the University of Laval in Quebec City and the Schulich School of Music of McGill University; and she hosted the television series The Performers. 

                         Here’s a 2022 digital single of “I’m Alive”

                                     

Ranee’s impressive discography is filled with masterworks: “The Musical, Jazz on Broadway”, being one of them, was a successful marriage of jazz standards and the music of Broadway. In 1994 and again in1995, Ranee received the Top Canadian Female Jazz Vocalist Award presented by Jazz Report magazine. Her album “I Thought About You” was the first nominated recording for a Juno Award in the Best Mainstream Jazz category in 1995. In March 2003 Ranee received her third Juno nomination for “Maple Groove: Songs From The Great Canadian Songbook,” featuring selections from some of Canada’s greatest songwriters. 

Throughout her career Ranee has performed with many jazz notables, including Clark Terry, Bill Mayes, Herbie Ellis, Red Mitchell, Milt Hinton, Oliver Jones, Terry Clarke, John Bunch, George Arvanitas, to name a few. Lee is no stranger to the road; she has toured with her own group throughout America and has played at many prestigious jazz festivals, most recently the Montreal International Jazz Festival and the Canada Capital festival in Sao Paulo. Ranee has toured throughout all of Spain and France, and other Scandinavian countries, as well as England. 

As an educator, Ranee has been part of the University of Laval faculty in Quebec City for twelve years, and The Schulich School of Music of McGill University faculty for over twenty years. She won the Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award in 1988 for her musical and actorial achievements. Her music appears in the animated short film Black Soul (2000). Lee was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2006. She received the International Association of Jazz Educators award in 2004 and 2008. 

In 2007 Ranee was given the award in the category for Arts and Culture and an award for appreciation and contribution to the development of the McGill Jazz Program by the McGill Schulich School of Music. In April 2010, Ranee won the Juno Vocal Jazz Album of the year for the recording of “Ranee Lee Lives Upstairs. 

Ranee Lee is now celebrating thirty-five years in Montreal where she enjoys a successful, multi faceted career as one of Canada’s most popular jazz vocalists, an award-winning actress, a songwriter, and a proud author of children’s books. 

She has performed regularly this year at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal and in November will be performing with her quintet at the Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill in Montreal. 

(Edited from articles @ Schulich School of Music, McGill University webpage, Westmount Mag, & Upstairs Jazz.com)

 

Jimmy Heath born 25 October 1926

James Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020), nicknamed Little Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band leader. He was the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath. 

Heath was born in Philadelphia, began playing the alto saxophone when he was 14, and was making his living with it five years later. His father, Percy Sr, was a car mechanic who played the clarinet in marching bands at weekends and introduced Jimmy to the instrument, and his mother, Arlethia, sang in the local church choir. Rejected for the second world war draft on account of his slightness, Heath toured with the New Orleans bassist and bandleader Nat Towles’s group in 1945-46, but then formed his own local big band in Philadelphia, modelled on the audacious swing-to-bop chemistry of Gillespie’s new orchestra. Heath’s ensemble included several Philly players who were to become stars later, including Benny Golson and Coltrane. 

L-R: Miles Davis, Kenny Drew, Art Blakey, Jimmy Heath 1953

Heath moved to New York at 22, eventually landing a spot alongside Percy Jr in Gillespie’s big band, and also in the trumpeter’s sextet. During 1947-48, the brothers also played in the bebop trumpeter Howard McGhee’s group, appearing with it at the first Festival International de Jazz in Paris. In 1950 Heath switched to tenor sax, and his musical identity quickly acquired a more distinctive strength. From 1952 to 1953 he was working with Davis’s band, and though later in the decade arranging and composing took up an increasing proportion of his time, he did co-lead a bop-oriented quintet with another trumpet star, Kenny Dorham. The Davis connection was also periodically re-established, with Heath occasionally deputising for Coltrane in the famous first Davis quintet in 1959 and 1960. 

However, Heath’s progress during the 50s was hampered, like that of a number of his jazz contemporaries at the time, by an addiction to heroin. He spent 1955-59 in the federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, following convictions for dealing. He kicked the habit during that period, learning the flute, and smuggling compositions out of the institution that would turn up on jazz recordings of the era, such as the famous Chet Baker/Art Pepper cool-bop album Playboys. Probation stipulations following Heath’s release initially stopped him returning to the road, but freelance arranging (for Ray Charles, among others) and studio recording and staff-arranging work for the Riverside label restored his profile. 

                                  

Heath was thus in his 30s before he recorded under his own name, and on his debut album The Thumper (1960), which featured Nat Adderley on trumpet, he immediately impressed the jazz world with the warm authority of his composing on such striking tracks as For Minors Only.In his own groups during the 60s, Heath often appeared with his siblings, in ensembles that were sometimes augmented by Nat and Cannonball Adderley, and also by Sun Ra’s saxophonist Pat Patrick. A signature Heath ensemble style began to evolve, built around sonorous, Gil Evans-like low-brass effects, and homages to 30s jazz-orchestral innovators including Jimmie Lunceford. 

Much of Heath’s most trenchant tenor-sax improvising on disc was also captured in this period, sounding authoritative and surefooted even up against partners including the young trumpet firebrand Freddie Hubbard and the pianist Wynton Kelly on 60s albums that included The Quota and On the Trail. In the following decade Heath worked extensively with the trumpeter Art Farmer and pianist Stanley Cowell, with his brother Al on drums – his arranging talents continuing to make small bands sound much larger than they really were. Heath’s son, the singer/percussionist James Mtume, appeared with his father’s bands from the late 70s, as did the guitarist Tony Purrone. There continued to be occasional appearances with Gillespie, and after Gillespie’s death in 1993, Heath celebrated his former employer’s music in tribute concerts at such venues as Lincoln Center in New York. 

Writing and arranging occupied Heath extensively in the 80s, but he did sporadically record for the Muse label. His saxophone playing, full of character as ever, became increasing economical and unusual, with as much being said in the pacing and spaces as any note-rammed stream of jazz virtuosity. In the mid-80s Heath also began expanding the educational work he had begun with the New York jazz-outreach organisation Jazzmobile in 1964. He pioneered a jazz course as a professor at Queens College, City University of New York, remaining in that role until 1998. 

His big band continued to perform into the 90s – his composing achievements in that field having included the fine orchestral works Afro-American Suite of Evolution (1975), Smilin’Billy (1976, written with Ornette Coleman’s drummer Billy Higgins in mind) and Praise (1994). Heath was nominated for Grammy awards three times, and was presented with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Jazz Masters award in 2003. His autobiography, I Walked With Giants, was published in 2010. Heath died on January 19, 2020, in Loganville, Georgia, of natural causes.

(Edited from John Fordham obit @ The Guardian & Wikipedia)