The Skip Heller Trio is in tune to Valley living

Los Angeles based arranger-composer Skip Heller is an exceptionally well-traveled seeker, with a history of stellar creative alliances and a distinct knack for combining classic American pop genres into engrossing new permutations.

Heller, who brings his trio to Jimmy’s Place in Burbank on Friday, refuses to stay in one spot for too long. Chronically restless and strikingly ambitious, the 49-year-old, Philadelphia-born Heller is an idiosyncratic, self-propelled and self-taught musician.

“I went to the library, that’s where I studied music,” Heller said. “I barely got out of high school and while I was there I only had one music theory class, which was great, but the library is a very practical way to do it. Then I wrote a letter to [prolific Hollywood soundtrack composer and exotica innovator] Les Baxter, saying ‘I can’t find anything written about your music, may I interview you?’ We began talking and finally he just said, ‘Well, why don’t you come out here and I’ll answer any question you have. That was how I finished my schooling.”

He then met Robert Drasnin, another influential film-TV and exotica composer. “He was another fantastic teacher and musician. He looked at my tool box and showed me how to better use what I had in there,” Heller said. “But, really, the best training is firsthand: Do you want to learn about how to play rhythm & blues? Get a gig with Big Jay McNeely. Mexican music? Gig with Lalo Guerrero. Rockabilly? Gig with Ray Campi. That’s the only way to do it.”

Heller’s bandstand sojourns with those three legendary spearheads considerably broadened an already spectrum-spanning palette. His eight-piece Hollywood Blues Destroyers, a mini-orchestra boasting brass, woodwinds and occasional strings, routinely unleashes a singular blend of meticulously arranged R&B and soul-informed retro pop-country. The band’s current “Here in California” CD not only showcases this unusual stylistic approach, it also highlights Heller’s gift as a lyricist.

“I have learned that if you want to be a good songwriter, write about who you are, write what you mean and write about what you know,” he said. “My songs are all about things and people in my life, like the album’s title track, which are all real experiences — where the guy serving you coffee was in your favorite movie, the guy in the next cubicle at your day job wrote the number one most requested song on the Dr. Demento show, the guy who delivered you a pizza also played on one your all-time favorite songs.”

“I can’t write about coal mines. I’m not from the country, so what I do is sort of like singing the local folk songs, if you get what I mean. You can’t try to make yourself sound tougher. You can’t just dream stuff up to make yourself sound more interesting or make it seem like you are part of a world where you’ve never been. I’ve lived in the San Fernando Valley for years now, and that plays a big part in the new record.”

It’s a genuine sound, strongly rooted in the regional Valley experience and with Friday’s performance, Heller will explore the material with a different, looser approach.

“If the songs are good, you need to play them small as well as large,” Heller said. “I don’t want to lose the skill a trio requires. It’s a much different discipline, not like hiding behind the big arrangements of your eight-piece band. After you do that for a while, you start to feel like a wimp. With the trio, it’s flexible, you just walk in with one or two guys and you can do whatever you want.”

Who: The Skip Heller Trio

Where: Jimmy’s Place, 1623 N. San Fernando Road, Burbank

When: Friday, Sept. 25, 9 p.m.

Cost: Free

More info: (818) 588-3693
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JONNY WHITESIDE is a veteran music journalist based in Burbank and author of “Ramblin’ Rose: the Life & Career of Rose Maddox” and “Cry: the Johnnie Ray Story.”