The middle Heath brother has been on the scene since the late-1940s, starting out with trumpeter Howard McGhee (their group appeared at the Paris Jazz Festival a year before Miles' legendary gig – they went by plane, quite an experience at the time) before joining the legendary, groundbreaking Dizzy Gillespie Big Band. The sax section then contained Jimmy and Coltrane, both on altos at that stage, with Ellington's Paul Gonsalves on tenor. It was Dizzy who taught him the rudiments of arranging and composition and these two excellent value, long overlooked hard bop Riverside albums include nine of Jimmy's tunes, the best-known being ‘For Minors Only’. The Thumper was his first session as a leader and Heath emerges as a fine hard-hitting tenor soloist sounding a lot like Dexter Gordon (there's a moving version of the standard ‘Don't You Know I Care?’, which began its life in Duke's orchestra), with a fine band including the often underrated Nat Adderley, Curtis Fuller who was in great demand around this time and a wonderfully swinging rhythm section comprising Kelly and Chambers from the Davis Quintet plus the youngest of the Heath brothers, ‘Tootie’ who is surprisingly good on both albums. The Quota, recorded 18-months later, is equally impressive with more confident tenor and originals plus covers of ‘When Sunny Gets Blue’ and Milt Jackson's ‘Bells and Horns’. This time with both his brothers on board plus a young Freddie Hubbard, with Watkins' French horn adding extra warmth to the ensembles and taking agile solos. The remastering is first rate.