Albert Heath, a virtuoso jazz drummer who worked with luminaries such as John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Nina Simone and Herbie Hancock; performed and recorded with his older brothers Percy and Jimmy; and for several years played with Percy in one of the great jazz ensembles, the Modern Jazz Quartet, died Wednesday in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 88 years old.
The cause of his death, which is a hospital, was leukemia, his stepson Curt Flood Jr. said.
Mr. Heath, who was known as Tootie, was primarily a bebop and hard bop drummer, but was proficient in a variety of styles. In 2020, the National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master, an honor his brothers previously received.
He took the news with a mixture of humility and self-assurance.
“I’m honored to be recognized,” he told The Santa Fe New Mexican, “but it doesn’t mean anything because I’ve always thought I was a craftsman.”
Mr. Heath’s career began with his family in Philadelphia, where his father played clarinet in an Elks marching band, his mother sang in a church choir, and his brother Jimmy, a saxophonist, brought members of his big band — including his fellow saxophonist John Coltrane—to the Heaths’ house.
“They would rehearse a section at our parents’ house because it wasn’t big enough to fit the whole band in there, about 18 pieces,” Mr. Heath said in an interview with the website All About Jazz in 2015. “So the trumpets would come one day, the reeds the next. The drummers and bass players would be there on the third day.”
His career started early. As a teenager, Tootie—nicknamed by his paternal grandfather because of his fondness for tutti-frutti ice cream—played a week-long gig as part of a pickup ensemble backing Thelonious Monk at the Blue Note in Philadelphia. Monk did not tell the musicians what he wanted them to play.
“He never turned around and said hello,” Mr. Heath said in an NEA interview in 2021. “He never turned around and said, ‘Thank you,’ ‘Goodbye,’ ‘I hated you guys,’ or ‘ I was like you guys,” or whatever, and I never heard him say a word into anybody’s microphone.”
In 1957, when Coltrane was working with Mr. Heath, the pianist Red Garland and the bassist Paul Chambers in a Philadelphia club, he hired them for what became the Coltrane album, his first as a leader.
Over the next two years, Mr. Heath began a prolific career as a session musician, appearing on albums by Mr. Garland (“Groovy”), the saxophonist Cannonball Adderley (“Cannonball Takes Charge”), Coltrane (“Bad Life”) and Mrs. Simone (“Little Girl Blue”).
He went on to play with trombonist JJ Johnson’s band and briefly with the Jazztet, a sextet led by trumpeter Art Farmer and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson.
Reviewing a Jazztet performance in San Francisco in 1961, Russ Wilson of The Oakland Tribune described Mr. Heath’s drumming as “extraordinary.” He added: “Besides quick hands and excellent rhythm, he is adorned with the good taste that distinguishes great drummers and is evidenced by their willingness to subordinate their sound to that of the band.”
Mr. Heath went to Europe in 1965 and remained there for a decade, living in Sweden and Denmark. He found more opportunities to perform there and in Western Europe than he had in the United States, where he had to deal with racism, Mr. Flood said in a telephone interview. In Europe, Mr Flood said: “He was treated like a rock star.”
He returned often enough to become part of Mr. Hancock’s sextet in the late 1960s and record two albums with him, “The Prisoner” and “Fat Albert Rotunda.”
In 1970, Mr. Heath released his first album as a leader, “Kawaida” (Mr. Hancock and Jimmy Heath were among the musicians who accompanied him). Three years later, he released another, “Kwanza (The First).” His other albums include “Tootie’s Tempo” (2013) and “Philadelphia Beat” (2014), with Ethan Iverson on piano and Ben Street on bass.
Albert William Heath was born on May 31, 1935 in Philadelphia. His father, Percy Sr., was a car mechanic. His mother, Arletia (Wall) Heath, was a hairdresser. His brother Jimmy, who was eight years older, was his first music teacher, but he also took lessons from Space Wright, the drummer in Jimmy’s band.
Albert, Jimmy and Percy played together occasionally, but in 1975 they formalized their partnership when they formed the Heath Brothers, initially with Stanley Cowell on piano.
Their free-form jazz is captured on several albums, including Marchin’ On (1975), Passin’ Thru (1978) and Straight Ahead (2009), which was released after Percy’s death in 2005.
In a review of the brothers’ performance, with Jeb Patton on piano, at the Village Vanguard in 2003, Ben Ratliff of The New York Times wrote, “Albert cultivates a solo from the barest strum, starting with just a tambourine and bass drum; he was the antithesis of most drumming showcases, never getting loud.”
Albert joined the Modern Jazz Quartet, founded by Percy, in 1994, following the death of the quartet’s long-time drummer, Connie Kaye. He remained until the quartet broke up in 1997.
In addition to Mr. Flood, Mr. Heath, who lived in Santa Fe, is survived by his wife, Beverly (Collins) Johnson Heath, whom he married in 1976, following her divorce from baseball player Kurt Flood, and Richard Johnson; two sons, Jens Heath, from his marriage to Anita Petersson, which ended in divorce in 1974, and Jonas Lidberg, from his relationship with Margaretha Lidberg; two stepdaughters, Shelly and Debbie Flood; another stepson, Scott Flood; a sister, Elizabeth Heath, nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
For the past 25 years, Mr. Heath has led a trio with Mr. Iverson and Mr. Street and Whole Drum Truth, an all-drums ensemble with a rotating member.
“You have to pay attention to music from all over the world that uses different drums,” Mr. Heath told The New Mexican in 2020. “There are many different types of folk music and music from different countries that drummers they must be discerning.”
