Bassist Gets His First Local Art Exhibition Williams, Marsalis Top List at JVC Festival

Painter-sculptor John Heard--the former Oscar Peterson, Count Basie and Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra bassist who gave up music last year to devote full-time to art--will have his first local exhibition tonight at Birdland West nightclub in Long Beach since quitting music. The exhibition features an array of portraiture and sculpture of such musical notables as Basie, Duke Ellington, Henry Mancini, Jimmy Rowles and Maxine Sullivan as well as abstract and objective paintings inspired by jazz and jazz musicians.

Heard, whose last engagement was Sept. 23 at the Manchester Craftsman Guild in Pittsburgh--”It’s located in my old neighborhood where I grew up”--is working on his art up to 14 hours a day, and is thriving. “This isn’t work,” he quips, “and it feels great.”

No, he answers the obvious question, he doesn’t miss music. “If I had to miss something, I wouldn’t have quit. I did (music then) and now I’m doing something else.”

The show at Birdland West was arranged by Helen Borges and Eric Andre of KLON-FM (88.1), a non-commercial jazz station in Long Beach. “They’re responsible for this happening,” says Heard, who adds he likes the idea of a jazz club simply because he is not interested in galleries. “The art world is pretty much like the music business, in that you have to create your own market.”

Work is coming Heard’s way. The bust of Mancini will appear on an upcoming Sue Raney LP for Discovery Records and he has just been commissioned by the Charlie Parker Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., to do life-size bronzes of Parker and Basie. Then he will serve as artist-in-residence at the Manchester Craftsman Guild next August through October.

Of his new life, Heard simply says: “I’m pleased and I’m blessed, too. There’s a lot of luck involved.”

LINEUP FOR JVC JAZZ FESTIVAL: Joe Williams, Wynton Marsalis, Art Blakey, Oscar Peterson, Cassandra Wilson, George Benson, Dr. John, Sarah Vaughan and Grover Washington Jr. are a handful of a wide spectrum of jazz artists set for the 1989 JVC Jazz Festival New York, to be held June 23-July 1 in locations in Manhattan and nearby locales. The festival--produced by George Wein and Festival Productions, who also produce the Playboy Jazz Festival--includes such special programs as “Bebop Revisited,” with Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson and Barry Harris; “An Evening of Jazz and the American Song,” with Bobby Short, Rosemary Clooney, Dave Brubeck and Marian McPartland; and “The Knitting Factory Goes Uptown,” with Geri Allen, Steve Coleman and the Microscopic Sextet.

Festival information: (212) 787-2020.

COOKING FOR THE KIDS: The sixth annual Dolo Coker Scholarship Benefit Concert, featuring such artists as Ernie Andrews, O. C. Smith, Herman Riley, Clora Bryant, Art Hillery, Kathy Griggs, Betty Bryant and the Locke High School Jazz Band, will begin at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Musician’s Union, 817 Vine St., Hollywood. Proceeds go toward scholarships--named after the local pianist and teacher who played with the likes of Dexter Gordon and Art Pepper and who died April 13, 1983--for aspiring jazz musicians in high school and college, ages 15-25.

Information: (213) 935-1374.

PROGRAMMER RETURNS: Isabel Holt, for several years the host of “Evening Becomes Eclectic” on KCRW-FM (88.9), is back on the air with a new program, “Isabel Holt: Solo,” airing Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on KPCC-FM (89.3). According to a press release, Holt’s show, which debuted last week, is based around jazz. “That will be the core, musically, of the show,” she says. “Some of the artists I expect to play are seminal people in . . . jazz . . . like Fletcher Henderson, Bud Powell, Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong.” Holt will also program soul and R&B; artists and will include interviews with musicians in her presentations.

Information: (818) 578-7231.

**** 1/2 “Superblue” (Blue Note) is an mainstream-to-modern octet offering that bristles with pulsing energy. The multitextured orchestrations on old favorites like “Open Sesame,” “I Remember Clifford” and “Summertime” and driving originals such as “Marvelous Marvin” result in a warm, chewy sound and the playing by a crew of soon-to-be-journeymen--saxman Billy Pierce and trombonist Frank Lacy among them--has a bubbling intensity. Watson’s ripe-toned alto on “Summertime” and Pierce’s romping tenor on “Sesame” are just two highlights of this excellent effort that reaffirms the lasting value of mainstream jazz.

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