Jazz Articles about Skip Heller

About Skip Heller

Radio & Podcasts

Skip Heller on Dizzy, Joy, and Never Taking a Music Lesson

by Mike Jones
September 21, 2026

This week Mike Jones sits down with the great Skip Heller: composer, guitarist, bandleader, arranger, and one of the most restlessly curious musicians you will ever meet. Skip grew up in Philadelphia a few blocks from Dizzy Gillespie's old house, never took a real music lesson, and built a life in music that runs from bebop to rockabilly to exotica.They get into his new Dizzy Gillespie project with his band Voodoo 5, why joy is the fuel in ...

Album Review

The Reckless Night Ensemble: Pan Americanos: The Songs of Raymond Scott & Lalo Guerrero

Read "Pan Americanos: The Songs of Raymond Scott & Lalo Guerrero" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
June 29, 2021

Led by guitarist Skip Heller and bassist Nick Ornelas, The Reckless Night Ensemble on Pan Americanos feature the music of composers Raymond Scott and Lalo Guerrero and simultaneously captures two of Los Angeles' historic sounds in musical daguerreotype. A chameleonic jazz-blues guitarist and small ensemble roots music master, Heller ties several different musical threads together into Pan Americanos. In the early 2000s, he teamed up in Los Angeles with Lalo Guerrero, often called the Father of Chicano music, ...

Album Review

Skip Heller: Beyond These Hills: The Skip Heller Anthology 2017-20

Read "Beyond These Hills: The Skip Heller Anthology 2017-20" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 20, 2020

In terms of national exposure, Fred “Skip" Heller has always hidden in plain sight. Predominantly known in his native Philadelphia and adopted-native Los Angeles, Heller is a musician / composer / producer of note and has been for twenty years. He deserves wider notice if for no other reason than he shares much in common with Randy Newman—he captures the indelible American Spirit in song, warts and all, using the melodic vehicles struck from the heart of America. Heller has ...

Bailey's Bundles

Skip Heller, Birdie Jones, and Carnival of Soul

by C. Michael Bailey
June 30, 2018

“I have a bluegrass gig tomorrow am. Playing a Link Wray Tribute tomorrow night...seeing the Dead Milkmen tonight." --My most recent text message from Fred “Skip" Heller. For all of the recently revealed foibles of Social Media, perhaps the best thing about it is how it makes a really big world smaller. I do not remember how I originally met Skip Heller (well, I do, it was reviewing his album Homegoing (Innova Records, 2002), but that ...

Bailey's Bundles

Notable and Nearly Missed 2017

by C. Michael Bailey
December 24, 2017

I am winding down the twentieth year contributing to All About Jazz. I have never had a year where there wasn't too much good music to review (or it got to me too late). This is my attempt to make good before '17 becomes '18. Skip Heller That was Then: Collected Recordings 2008- 2017 Self Produced 2017 In addition to his being a restless music provocateur surveying the landscape of Americana, Skip Heller ...

Extended Analysis

Skip Heller: For EP Fans Only

by C. Michael Bailey
March 20, 2016

Fred “Skip" Heller is, in my estimate, a most undervalued cultural mind. Musically restless by nature, Heller is a two-million candle light, illuminating whatever musical style is intriguing him at the moment. This restlessness has led to Heller's exploration of the organ trio on It's Like That: The organ Trio Anthology 1998--2004 (Jewbilee, 2004) and Fakebook (Hyena, 2004) and a deep descent into the Heart of America. Heller began to sharpen his focus with specialized projects like 2012's ...

Bailey's Bundles

Skip Heller: San Fernando Valley Blues and The Hollywood Blues Destroyers

by C. Michael Bailey
September 28, 2015

Fred “Skip" Heller. Now there is a rara avis. A musical omnivore as drawn to Glenn Gould as to Roger Miller, Heller's talent and dedication to music and its history deserves so much more than local notoriety in the Los Angeles and Philadelphia areas it enjoys. Then, if I were LA, I would not share him either...he is that special of a person and musician. Heller's personal sound has matured and quickened over his most recent releases, ...