MAIN CONCERT PROGRAMME - Serbian National Theatre - Wednesday, 16th November 2011.
THE HEATH BROTHERS
 JIMMY HEATH, tenor sax, soprano sax
ALBERT 'TOOTIE' HEATH, drums
JEB PATTON, piano
CORCORAN HOLT, accoustic bass
JIMMY HEATH
Jimmy Heath has long been recognized as a brilliant instrumentalist and a magnificent composer and arranger.  Jimmy is the middle brother of the legendary Heath Brothers (Percy Heath/bass and Tootie Heath/drums), and is the father of Mtume.   He has performed with nearly all the jazz greats of the last 50 years, from Howard McGhee, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis to Wynton Marsalis.  In 1948 at the age of 21, he performed in the First International Jazz Festival in Paris with McGhee, sharing the stage with Coleman Hawkins, Slam Stewart, and Erroll Garner.  One of Heath’s earliest big bands (1947-1948) in Philadelphia included John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Specs Wright, Cal Massey, Johnny Coles, Ray Bryant, and Nelson Boyd.  Charlie Parker and Max Roach sat in on one occasion.
During his career, Jimmy Heath has performed on more than 100 record albums including seven with The Heath Brothers and twelve as a leader.  Jimmy has also written more than 125 compositions, many of which have become jazz standards and have been recorded by other artists including Art Farmer, Cannonball Adderley, Clark Terry, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, James Moody, Milt Jackson, Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie J.J Johnson and Dexter Gordon.  Jimmy has also composed extended works - seven suites and two string quartets - and he premiered his first symphonic work, “Three Ears,” in 1988 at Queens College (CUNY) with Maurice Peress conducting.
After having just concluded eleven years as Professor of Music at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Heath maintains an extensive performance schedule and continues to conduct workshops and clinics throughout the United States, Europe, and Canada.  He has also taught jazz studies at Jazzmobile, Housatonic College, City College of New York, and The New School for Social Research.  In October 1997, two of his former students, trumpeters Darren Barrett and Diego Urcola, placed first and second in the Thelonious Monk Competition.
Heath’s enduring dedication to jazz as well as his musicianship prompted the following tributes:
“All I can say is, if you know Jimmy Heath, you know Bop.”   — Dizzy Gillespie
“Trane was always high on Jimmy’s playing and so was I. Plus, he was a very hip dude to be with, funny and clean and very intelligent. Jimmy is one of the thoroughbreds.”   — Miles Davis 
“My pick from the world’s talent would be Diz as leader, John Lewis or Hank Jones on piano, Ray Brown bass, Milt Jackson vibes, Jimmy Heath tenor, and Sonny Stitt alto.”    — Kenny Clarke
“I had met Jimmy Heath, who - besides being a wonderful saxophonist - understood a lot about musical construction.  I joined his group in Philadelphia in 1948.  We were very much alike in our feeling, phrasing and a whole lot of other ways.  Our musical appetites were the same.  We used to practice together, and he would write out some of the things we were interested in.  We would take things from records and digest them.  In this way, we learned about the techniques being used by writers and arrangers.”   — John Coltrane, Downbeat, 1960
www.jimmyheath.com
ALBERT 'TOOTIE' HEATH
The younger brother of Percy and Jimmy Heath, Albert 'Tootie' Heath has long been a top hard bop-based drummer with an open mind toward more commercial styles of jazz. After moving to New York (1957), he debuted on record with John Coltrane. Albert Heath was with J.J. Johnson's group (1958-1960) and the Jazztet (1960-1961), worked with the trios of Cedar Walton and Bobby Timmons in 1961, and recorded many records as a sideman for Riverside during that era. He lived in Europe in 1965-1968 (working frequently with Kenny Drew, Dexter Gordon, and backing touring Americans), and, after returning to the U.S., he played regularly with Herbie Hancock's sextet (1968-1969) and Yusef Lateef (1970-1974). After an additional year in Europe, he joined the Heath Brothers band (1975-1978) and then settled in Los Angeles, where Tootie Heath continued freelancing, recording with the Riverside Reunion Band.
www.myspace.com/tootieheath
JEB PATTON
Jeb Haynes Patton (b. Kensington, MD, August 17, 1974) Described as both a "young phenom…on piano" and an "absolute great," Jeb Patton has earned a well-regarded reputation in the international jazz community. The multi-talented Patton is known as a "player of great expression" and "not one to tread the predictable," as well as a "simpatico accompanist" for The Heath Brothers, an "innovative" arranger, and one who "cuts…[an] impressive swath on his composition, 'Hanna's Mood,'" a tribute to his late teacher, Sir Roland Hanna. Jeb Patton graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degree with a major in music from Duke University, where he studied piano with Tibor Szasz, Douglas Buys, and Jane Hawkins. As a member of the Duke Jazz Ensemble under Paul Jeffrey, he performed with and/or arranged for more than 60 professional jazz artists, including 48 musicians from New York and more than 12 international jazz musicians from Italy, Monaco, and Portugal.
Studying under Sir Roland Hanna and Jimmy Heath, Jeb earned his Master of Arts degree, summa cum laude, in 1997 from the Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College, City University of New York, where he also received the Louis Armstrong Award for composition from the ASCAP Foundation. Since graduating, Jeb has toured throughout the United States and abroad with the Heath Brothers and with Jimmy Heath's Generations Quintet, performing in theaters, festivals, concert halls, colleges, and clubs. Since moving to New York in 1996, Jeb has also played with Etta Jones, the Faddis/Hampton/Heath Sextet, Winard Harper's group, and Antonio Hart's Quintet, Paul West, Rufus Reid, Peter Washington, Lewis Nash, Steve Nelson, Ralph Peterson, John Ore, Jimmy Cobb, Lonnie Plaxico, Carl Allen, Kyoshi Kitigawa, Jackie Mclean, Frank Wess, James Moody, Terell Stafford, Sean Jones, Diego Urcola, Jeremy Pelt, Gerald Cannon, Willie Jones III, Steve Davis, Keter Betts, Eddie Locke, Marlene Verplank, among others.
Presently, when Jeb is not on the road with the Heath Brothers, he teaches musicianship and piano at Queensborough Communtiy College. Duties also include substituting for professors at Queensborough and Queens Colleges, giving lectures on jazz history, music appreciation, and coaching ensembles.
www.jebpatton.com
CORCORAN HOLT
Corcoran Holt starts a classical education at the DC youth Orchestra at the age of ten and later attends Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington DC. There he begins playing jazz, studying with renown teachers such as Carolyn Kellock, Keter Betts and Steve Novasel. While at Ellington he also tours Austria, Germany, France, London, and Jamaica. He continues his studies at the Shenandoah Conservatory in Virginia where he completes a Bachelors Degree in Jazz Studies. Holt has been a regular in the Washington DC Jazz scene for at least seven years - even throughout college. More recently Holt is working with greats such as Curtis Fuller, Wallace Roney, Javon Jackson, John Hicks, Carl Allen, Charles Davis and Jimmy Heath. He has spent the last two summers in Senegal, performing in Dakar, and - leading his own group - at the St. Louis Jazz Festival. He resides in Brooklyn, New York.
http://corcoranholt.com | www.myspace.com/corcoranholt
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