“I Just Came to Hang with You Guys”: Instructional Storytelling with the Storied Jimmy Heath

Abstract

In April 2016, a then 89-year-old Jimmy Heath (1926–2020) accepted an invitation to headline the 50th annual Eau Claire Jazz Festival in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  This article captures the essence of Heath’s career-long instructional style and contributions to the festival culture at large by spotlighting his involvement with one in particular.  Framed by the dichotomy of his mentorship onstage and off, it presents a case study of unique engagement with younger players and provides a rare opportunity to pore over and contextualize these interactions across a concentrated two-day period.  Citing his words, this treatment showcases the impact of Heath’s dual approach as a jazz legend directing performance on the one hand contrasted with a more informal function as storyteller behind-the-scenes on the other.  But there proved considerably more at work when Heath told his stories than a simple recounting of history alone.  He was in fact teaching.  Telling these stories served as a bona fide instructional method—a pattern borne out by close scrutiny of Heath’s rhetoric that consciously adapted his recollections for the shifting benefits of his various audiences.  Three basic storytelling modes may be grafted on to the typical jazz festival: stories one shares with a general audience in concert, with specialists in a technical masterclass discussion, and with younger musicians in rehearsal or hanging out.  As a result, Heath developed more than one way of telling a story—occasionally the same story—to realize comparable instructional moments in different situations.  This study makes these comparisons explicit.