Album Notes

"A brilliant, feeling almost-pre-emptive player in the annals of Philadelphia music." -- ad amorosi, New York Press

"Genius" -- C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz

"Skip Heller goes beyond!" -- Bill Milkowski, Jazz Times



Philly expatriate Skip Heller is back with Out Of Time, a live standards date cut in his hometown at Tritone during a sold out performance this past winter.

Heller, who has worked with artists ranging from jazz great Uri Caine to roots rock icon Dave Alvin, exotica diva Yma Sumac, rhythm'n'blues sax god Big Jay McNeely, the protean NRBQ and more, has always stuck close to his hometown roots, and Out Of Time goes back to the core of the Philly organ tradition. Its smoldering, swinging club sound is Philly Jazz 101. The disc was produced by legendary Philly go-to guy Craig Baylor.

"Back before funk and boogaloo became the stereotype sound of organ combos," Skip explains. "The organ group was rooted in Basie. It was about clean arrangements and no-nonsense swinging. When you listen to Richard 'Groove' Holmes or Hank Marr, you can hear the big band reduced to a smaller, more versatile group. And the guys who were active in Philly's organ scene when I was coming up played that way."

"I never heard a record out of Philly of that kind of playing, like it was in the neighborhood bars, and that's my favorite music in the world. So I called John F. Kennedy, a drummer I used to go to the jam sessions with, who can still play that way. Then I called Lucas Brown, who is a real rising star organ player in Philly. He plays with a lot of the older cats in town, so he's had that education. We rehearsed, recorded the set, end of story. This is the kind of neighborhood bar stuff we all grew up on."