Heath, Albert “Tootie”

Heath, Albert “Tootie”, bebop drummer; brother of Jimmy Heath and Percy Heath; b. Philadelphia, Pa., May 31, 1935. He began working locally in the 1950s with Bill Carney, a singer, percussionist, and impresario active in Philadelphia since the late 1940s. In 1954, “Mister C,” as he is known, put together a trio called the Hi- Tones with Shirley Scott (later it was Trudy Pitts, who became Carney’s wife), Heath, and John Coltrane. Coltrane felt that this was a real serious jazz group, telling Gitler, “We were too musical for certain rooms.” They played in and around Philadelphia on and off for at least a year, including N.J., and to Buffalo a couple of times. They played bebop (including “Half Nelson” and “Groovin’ High”); they rehearsed Coltrane’s arrangements of standards. In the late 1950s, Heath moved to N.Y. where he worked with J. J. Johnson from 1958-60; he also freelanced and recorded prolifically through the mid-1960s. In 1965, he moved to Stockholm, and worked in Europe for the next three years. In 1968, he was back in the U.S. He joined Herbie Hancock’s sextet a year later, and then played with Yusef Lateef from 1970-74. From 1975-78, he played in the Heath Brothers band; during this period, he settled in L.A. Heath turned his attention to education, but also continued to work on and off with his brothers through the 1980s and 1990s. Heath also worked with the Modern Jazz Quartet in the 1995 after Connie Kay’s death.

Discography

Kawaida (1969); Kwanza (The First) (1973).

—Lewis Porter