John William Heard (July 3, 1938 – December 10, 2021)[1] was an American bass player and artist. His recording credits include albums with Pharoah Sanders, George Duke, Oscar Peterson, Count Basie, Zoot Sims, Ahmad Jamal, Frank Morgan, George Cables. His professional jazz performance career lasted from the 1960s to the early 2010s, during which he also worked as a visual artist, producing drawings, paintings, and sculptures.
He also played saxophone in his early years.[2][3] He began playing bass at the age of 14. His professional career began in a band that included sax player Booker Ervin, drummer J.C. Moses, pianist Horace Parlan and trumpet player Tommy Turrentine. While in high school, he attended special classes at the Carnegie Museum of Art.
In 1958, he joined the United States Air Force and was sent to Germany. Because of his art experience he was given a job of designing posters for events. He also did some art teaching, teaching the wives of officers. He left the Air Force in 1961 and enrolled at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. He returned to music and went to Buffalo and later to California.[4]
On December 10, 2021, Heard died at the age of 83.[5]
Art
In the 1980s, he had converted a North Hollywood garage into a studio and was spending much time there painting. He said that he was hanging out with Santa Monica-based sculptor Jim Casey, who was teaching him the way he wanted to learn. 18 months prior to his being interviewed for the article he had taken up sculpting. His first one was a bust of Duke Ellington, then one of Billy Eckstine. At the time he was working on one of Louis Armstrong.[6]
Examples of his work are held in the Oakland Museum of California. They include drawings of Bud Powell and Milt Jackson.[7][8]
In 1981, he played bass on the Blue Balkan album by pianist Larry Vuckovich. Other musicians to play on the album were vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and drummer Eddie More.[10] Heard also played with Vuckovich's band on their first "Club Date" show on PBS, which was picked up by at least 120 cities in the U.S. In addition to Heard and Vuckovitch, the band included Tom Harrell on trumpet, and Sherman Ferguson on drums. As an unexpected bonus, the group was joined by saxophonist Charles McPherson for their last piece. The show's producer Paul Marshall spotted him in the audience, and asked him if he had his saxophone which he did and asked him to join them.[11]
In 1983, he joined Tom Ranier and Sherman Ferguson to create the group Heard, Ranier, Ferguson, which released an eponymous album on the ITI Records label in 1983. The album art included a lithograph of Count Basie that was drawn by John Heard.[12][13] An article in Billboard's October 1983 issue, indicated that he was going to be used as a graphic artist for the label. He was to be marketed as both an artist and a musician.[14]
In an article in the Los Angeles Times dated 31 May 1987, he said that he had always wanted to paint, and planned to leave music.[15] Before his retirement he had managed to record with musicians such as Spanish pianist Tete Montoliu, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Art Pepper, Clark Terry, Pharoah Sanders, Zoot Sims and Joe Williams.[16]
1990s
After taking time out from music to do painting, he returned to the scene and played with Benny Carter, Jamal and others.[9]
2000s
In 2005, he had his album The Jazz Composer's Songbook released on Straight Ahead Records and produced by Stewart Levine and mastered by Bernie Grundman.[17]
Around the mid-2000s onwards, his group The John Heard Trio played at Charlie O's club in Van Nuys. In 2005, the group consisted of John Heard on bass, Tom Garvin on piano and Roy McCurdy on drums. At the club they played with Justo Almario and Rickey Woodard.[18] Around 2010, the group consisted of Heard on bass, Andy Langham on piano and Roy McCurdy on drums and later around 2011, Lorca Hart instead of McCurdy was on drums. They would play Fridays and Saturdays there. Some of the musicians they would appear with were trumpet player Scotty Barnhart, trumpet player Ron King, saxophonists Chuck Manning, Don Menza, Lanny Morgan and guitarist Thom Rotella.[19][20]
