Jimmy Heath Blog Transcript

Jimmy Heath: Duke Ellington. Count Basie. I've been on the stage and played before Basie came up but not in his organization. I wish I could have played in that band. If I could go back further than that, I wish I had been around to play in Jimmy Lunsford’s band. I found that Jimmy Lunsford’s band had so many talented arrangers at the time when Gerald Wilson was in there as a young kid writing music. He had so many arrangers and there was such a variety of good music coming out of that band. Of every big band I used to go see, the one that fascinated me was Glenn Miller. I went to see Glenn Miller at the Earl Theater in Philadelphia and, when they put the blue lights on the saxophone section and they were playing “Serenade in Blue,” I could have cried. I said, "Oh my god, I want to be up there like those people." That music sounds so -- it captured me. I got the record. I still got it, “Serenade in Blue” by Glenn Miller. I'm in love with music in all of its phases. I really love music.