Scrooge Harris Quartet to perform benefit concert on July 24

Drummer Jerome "Scrooge" Harris and his quartet will perform a benefit concert for the Institute for the Advancement of Jazz Study and Performance on Sunday, July 24 at Jazz at the Bistro. The event begins with a buffet meal at 2 p.m. and the music starts at 3 p.m.

Harris is an underappreciated treasure of St. Louis' jazz scene, an old-school bebopper whose playing shows the influence of Max Roach, Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey and who can swing smoothly at impossibly high speeds or drop a fusillade of bombs with equal facility. Joining Harris on the bandstand will be saxophonist Freddie Washington, bassist Jeff Anderson, and young piano phenom Lawrence Fields, back in St. Louis for the summer after his first year at Boston's Berklee College of Music. Vocalist Anita Jackson, who often fronts the Jazz Edge big band, also will perform a few numbers with the Quartet.

Tickets are $75 for reserved VIP seating or $50 for regular admission. All proceeds benefit the IAJSP, a program of the Community Women Against Hardship that publicist Dawn DeBlaze calls "a dream in progress that mentors and supports the art of creative jazz music, and gives direction to our youth. The Institute hopes to see and hear underserved musicians grow through its cultural heritage program to become mature and disciplined artists." For more information or to make a reservation, call (314) 289-7523.