Jimmy Heath's Final Big Band Recording, Unreleased Since 2018, Set for Centennial Release

The Newest One, the final recording by saxophonist, composer and bandleader Jimmy Heath, will be released on Nov. 20, 2026, by BCM+D Records, the label launched by Temple University's Boyer College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia. The label announced the release on Oct. 6, tying it to the 100th anniversary of Heath's birth, on Oct. 25, 1926.

According to the announcement, the album was recorded with the Jimmy Heath Big Band at Sear Sound in New York in late 2018, when Heath was 92, and remained unreleased when he died in January 2020. Bass trombonist Douglas Purviance, alto saxophonist Antonio Hart and the Heath family worked to bring the recording to listeners, the label says, in keeping with the bandleader's wishes.

"It warms my heart that people are finally going to be able to hear this music," Purviance said in the label's announcement. Hart called Heath "one of the greatest composers and arrangers in the history of jazz."

The program spans Heath's career, from early compositions to some of his newest, the label says. The album opens with "For Minors Only," which Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers first recorded in 1957, followed by "Longravity," a term Heath credited to Sun Ra Arkestra saxophonist Pat Patrick. "Mona's Mood," dedicated to Heath's wife, Mona Brown Heath, features Heath as the only soloist, on soprano saxophone. According to the label, Mona Brown Heath died as the finishing touches were being put on the recording.

Vocalist Roberta Gambarini sings two songs she first recorded with the Heath Brothers on her 2015 album Connecting Spirits: "Life in the City" and "Without Song." The track list also includes "Changes," the title track, "New Picture" and the closer, "Silver Threads," which the label says ends with brief statements from members of the band, including Jeb Patton and David Wong.

The announcement traces Heath's history as a big band leader back to late 1946. The label says that his first band rehearsed in his mother's living room and included future giants such as John Coltrane and Benny Golson, citing Heath's 2010 memoir, I Walked With Giants. By the 2010s, it says, his large ensemble included alumni of Dizzy Gillespie's big band and members of the Heath Brothers band.

Purviance and Hart continue to lead the Jimmy Heath Big Band. "The legacy goes on," Hart said in the announcement.

Separately, the UK radio program JazzTastic (Humber Wave Radio and Vixen 101) announced that its Oct. 13 broadcast would include previously unreleased recordings by Heath; the post did not specify which tracks.