Jimmy Heath, 93, Jazz Saxophonist and Composer, Is Dead

Jimmy Heath, a tenor saxophonist whose sharp and lively compositions became part of the midcentury jazz canon — and who found new prominence in middle age as a co-leader of a popular band with his two brothers — died on Sunday at his home in Loganville, Ga. He was 93.

His grandson Fa Mtume confirmed his death.

Mr. Heath’s saxophone sound was spare but playful, with a beaming tone that exuded both joy and command. But his reputation rested equally on his abilities as a composer and arranger for large ensembles, interpolating bebop’s crosshatched rhythms and extended improvisations into lush tapestries.

He was a teenager touring the Midwestern dance circuit with the Nat Towles Orchestra in the 1940s when he became enamored with arranging. At first he could hardly read music, but he proved a quick study.

When a particular harmony struck him, he hounded his fellow horn players to tell him what notes they were playing, then pieced together the chords on sheet music. Before long he was writing for a 16-piece band of his own, whose lineup included the future saxophone luminaries John Coltrane and Benny Golson.

In the mid-1970s, when R&B and rock had eclipsed jazz’s popularity, he founded the Heath Brothers with his older brother, Percy, a bassist, and his younger brother, Albert, known as Tootie, a drummer. That band welcomed the electric instruments and strutting rhythms of a younger generation into its own distinctive style, which hopscotched between straight-ahead jazz and soulful fusion.

And when jazz began its ascent into the academy, Mr. Heath was among the veterans who shepherded the transition. In 1964 he became a founding faculty member at Jazzmobile, an organization that presented concerts and classes to young people in Harlem. Decades later he helped forge Queens College’s jazz studies program.

An avid communicator, Mr. Heath was particularly wily with wordplay. He called the trumpeter Roy Hargrove “Roy Hardgroove.” The drummer Grady Tate became “Gravy Taker” because he snatched up so many good-paying gigs.