![]() When Brown left the group to join his wife Ella Fitzgerald's band, Heath joined and the group was officially begun in 1952, with Connie Kay replacing Clarke soon afterward. It transpired that 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 they were already becoming known for their interludes during Gillespie band performances that, as says, gave the rest of the band much-needed set breaks-that would eventually become known as the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ). Around this time, he was also a member of Joe Morris's band, together with Johnny Griffin. In Chicago in 1948, he recorded with his brother on a Milt Jackson album as members of the Howard McGhee Sextet. After moving to New York in the late 1940s, Percy and Jimmy Heath found work with Dizzy Gillespie's groups. Soon he was playing in the city's jazz clubs with leading artists. ![]() He was drafted into the Army in 1944, becoming a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, but saw no combat.ĭeciding after the war to go into music, he bought a stand-up bass and enrolled in the Granoff School of Music in Philadelphia. He started playing violin at the age of eight and also sang locally. His father played the clarinet and his mother sang in the church choir. Heath was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, and spent his childhood in Philadelphia. ![]() Heath played with the Modern Jazz Quartet throughout their long history and also worked with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Wes Montgomery, and Thelonious Monk. Percy Heath (Ap– April 28, 2005) was an American jazz bassist, brother of saxophonist Jimmy Heath and drummer Albert Heath, with whom he formed the Heath Brothers in 1975. ![]()
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