Verve Announces Posthumous Jimmy Heath Album, ‘Love Letter’

  I  
Image

Jimmy Heath’s final recording, Love Letter, is set for release July 17.

(Photo: Carol Friedman)

Verve recently announced the release of Jimmy Heath’s final recording, an album completed just one month prior to the saxophonist’s death on Jan. 19 at the age of 93.

Love Letter, a collection of ballads that spans covers like “Con Alma” and Heath originals, counts contributions by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, pianist Kenny Barron, guitarist Russell Malone, drummer Lewis Nash and vocalists Gregory Porter and Cécile McLorin Salvant. For the album, the bandleader mainly stuck to alto saxophone, picking up the soprano for “Inside Your Heart,” a piece originating in a 2010 suite Heath recorded with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra.

In Heath’s obituary, DownBeat contributor Ted Panken wrote of the late saxophonist’s enthusiasm for mentoring young musicians: “Like his lodestar, Dizzy Gillespie, to whom he dedicated the song ‘Without You, No Me,’ Heath also excelled as a communicator, conveying information he’d accrued as a performer, composer and public figure. He did this both formally—helping found the master’s degree in jazz studies program at Queens College—and informally, in off-the-cuff conversations with dozens of acolytes.”

Despite Love Letter being the final work of a performer who started leading recording dates about 60 years ago, there’s no indication that Heath’s powers were at all diminished; the recording depicts a musician keenly engaged with his material, aiming to explore the nuances of each and every composition.

“Jimmy always wanted to know the lyrics of a song before playing it,” said Carol Friedman, co-producer of Love Letter. “That particular sensitivity no doubt contributes to the intimacy of his sound and is the reason he loved playing ballads—whether a tune had lyrics or not, he was singing with that horn.” DB



  • Coltrane_John_008_copy_2.jpg

    “This is one of the great gifts that Coltrane gave us — he gave us a key to the cosmos in this recording,” says John McLaughlin.

  • 2tx3p_BNJF2025LineupApr11080x1350--1_copy.jpg

    The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.

  • Ethan_Iverson_by_David_Moressi_2024_copy.jpg

    “I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.

  • Isaiah_Collier_by_Michael_Jackson_2025.jpg

    “At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”

  • Andy_Bey_NYC_2014_by_Steven_Sussman_copy.jpg

    “It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”

    Vocalist Andy Bey Dies at 85

    Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…


On Sale Now
June 2025
Theo Croker
Look Inside
Subscribe
Print | Digital | iPad