"I have long admired Jimmy's passion heard so clearly in his music; he is a soulful musician and a consummate educator. In these pages he gives a new voice to his love of life and music. He once told Dr. Camille Cosby that ‘our history is a mystery,’ so here he pulls back the veil and sets forth a wonderful collection of reminiscences culled from a long life of accumulated wisdom."
—Nancy Wilson, song stylist
"A masterpiece that will stand out as a classic for years to come."
—Douglas Henry Daniels, University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester “Pres” Young
"Jimmy Heath is the hippest, coolest, deepest, wittiest, most in-the-pocket and on-the-money, bebop-brained, backward-absorbing, forward-looking, constantly sharing saxophonist, flutist, educator, composer, arranger, bandleader, sideman, jam-man, and now memoirist any of us will ever know. It is typical of Jimmy to call his autobiography I Walked with Giants, but make no mistake: He, too, is a giant, and all the other giants know it. This book is a treasure for jazz lovers, by a man who has been at the center of jazz for sixty years, ever since he was a Little Bird."
—Gary Giddins, author of Jazz (with Scott DeVeaux), Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, and Visions of Jazz