Percy Heath: Smilin’ Billy Suite part I

Remembering bassist/cellist Percy Heath on the day of his passing in 2005.

Heath was past 80 when he released his first album as a leader, but he never procrastinated. Rather, he spent the bulk of his career with the Modern Jazz Quartet, or playing with brothers Jimmy (saxophone) and Albert (drummer) in the Heath Brothers Band. Few families have contributed so much to the genre of jazz as have the Heaths.

Born in 1923, Heath served with and was trained as a Tuskegee airman during World War II, but saw no combat.

When not carrying his instrument, he carried another non-musical one: the fishing rod. From Peter Keepnews’ New York Times obit: ”I made a living,” he once said, ”to go fishing.”

From John Fordham’s obit of Percy Heath in the Guardian (at guardian.co.uk): “Though his compositions for (the Heath Brothers) band were largely unremarkable, his solo playing was the diametric opposite . . . his improvisations became miniature masterpieces of low-register lyricism.”

And that first album (A Love Song) as a leader? It received rave reviews.  From John Kelman at allaboutjazz.com: “A Love Song finally places Heath, a performer who has literally influenced generations of bassists, front-and-centre.”

Heath was 81 when he died of cancer.

Sources: Percyheath.com, guardian.co.uk, nytimes.com, allaboutjazz.com

Count Basie: One O’Clock Jump

The Essential Count Basie Volume I

Remembering William Basie, better known as Count, on the day of his death in 1984.

One name says it all for Basie, as it does for Dizzy or Duke or Bird or Trane. Count Basie said he was Bill Basie until one night in the 1930s.

From John S. Wilson’s New York Times obit on Basie’s death at nytimes.com: “One night the announcer called me to the microphone for those usual few words of introduction,” Mr. Basie once recalled. “He commented that Bill Basie was a rather ordinary name and that there were a couple of well-known bandleaders named Earl Hines and Duke Ellington. Then he said, ‘Bill, I think I’ll call you Count Basie from now on. Is that all right with you?’ I thought he was kidding, shrugged my shoulders and replied, ‘O.K.’ Well, that was the last time I was ever introduced as Bill Basie. From then on, it was Count Basie.”

Born in New Jersey in 1904, Basie started playing piano with his mother, and virtually never stopped performing, despite whatever hardships — financial or physical — came his way. He disbanded his band in 1950 only to form another; at the end of his life he often performed from a wheelchair.

In 1959, he and Ella Fitzgerald were the first African-Americans to win Grammy Awards.

Basie was 79 when he died of pancreatic cancer.

Fellow pianist George Shearing, from Wilson’s New York Times obit: “Can you imagine a man who kind of romps around the piano,” Mr. Shearing said, “and those tiny tinkling things. You never got tired of that business at the end.”

Sources: ntyimes.org, pbs.org, swingmusic.net

Around the World: Norway’s Tord Gustavsen

Tord Gustavsen Trio's 2004 album The Ground

There may be few more scholarly pianists than Norway’s Tord Gustavsen – he graduated from the University of Oslo with a degree in humanist and social studies and his thesis was titled “The Dialectical Erotism of Improvisation.” It’s available in the original Norwegian from his website, if you’re so inclined.

His music is just as impressive and easier to enjoy; it’s a beautiful sound which draws on his religious and spiritual background, although Gustavsen is quick to point out its Carribean and early jazz roots, too. One of his very first CDs was putting the words of the poet John Donne to music, which he did with vocalist Siri Gjaere on Aire and Angels.

He then formed his own trio, and has now expanded it to an ensemble on his most recent album.

Gustavsen from his website tordgo.no: “Taken together, the bands and projects represent my quest for a deepening of my own playing, in a dual movement that goes towards getting more and more intimate with the history of jazz  . . . This dual task is extremely challenging. It is one that can never be accomplished with completion. But it offers a constant flow of possibilities for emotional-intellectual fulfillment in grooves, phrasing, melodies and timbre. And when the music is really happening, I feel privileged to be able to contribute something.”

Listen to the link below to Being There off his 2004 album The Ground, and you’ll likely feel just as privileged to listen.

Next Monday: Sweden

Sources: tordgustavsen.com, tordgo.com, pbs.org, wbur.org