Music: farewell to 'Lady Bird' Jimmy Heath, jazz legend

(ANSA) - NEW YORK, JANUARY 21 - Jimmy Heath, one of the legends of American jazz, died at 93 years old. The family learned that the death occurred from natural causes. Heath, nicknamed Lady Bird for the influence that Charlie 'Bird'Parker had on his transition to the tenor saxophone, was for 70 years a sought after saxophonist and a brilliant composer. Halavorato with names like Miles Davis, John Coltrane and DizzyGillespie as well as with members of his own family, he was in fact the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.
For his musical education, Heath fed on LouisArmstrong, Fats Waller and Marian Anderson in addition to the music that his father, Percy, an auto mechanic who also played the clarinet, listened to and his mother Arlethia, who sang in a church choir. At 13 he had his first saxophone and since then he has never separated from it. He also had drug problems in the 1950s and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for drug dealing. During his detention he freed himself from addiction by learning to play the flute and focusing on composition and arrangement. His first leaderrisale album to 1959, 'The Thumper'. (HANDLE).