Passings

PERCY HEATH
New York Times

PETER KEEPNEWS, NY TIMES - Percy Heath, whose forceful and buoyant bass playing anchored the Modern Jazz Quartet for its entire four-decade existence, died yesterday in Southampton, N.Y. He was 81 and lived in Montauk, on Long Island. . . Mr. Heath recorded with most of the leading musicians in modern jazz, including Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. But from the early 1950's through the middle 1970's, most of his recording activity and all of his live erformances were devoted to the group known to its fans around the world as the M. J .Q.

He had been playing bass for only about four years when he became a charter member of the quartet, whose musical director was the pianist and composer John Lewis. "John told me, 'Percy, you don't know enough about what we're going to do, so you better get yourself lessons,' " Mr. Heath told the jazz critic Gary Giddins.

More than half a century after he first entered a recording studio, Mr. Heath - who by his own count had played on more than 300 records - did something he had never done before. In 2004, shortly before his 81st birthday, the small Daddy Jazz label released an album by Mr. Heath, "A Love Song." It was his first recording as a leader.