Today in Lansing: Legendary jazz bassist Ron Brooks comes to Moriarty’s Pub

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Rob Brooks at Moriarty’s Pub

7 to 10 p.m.

Moriarty's Pub 802 E. Michigan Ave., Lansing

Click here for event page

TUESDAY, DEC. 4 — Detroit bassist Ron Brooks is a living legend. He was a member of Blue Note Records’ Contemporary Jazz Quintet from 1968 to 1969, he’s toured with Duke Ellington and performed with Sarah Vaughan, Mel Tormé and Sonny Stitt.

His show in Lansing will see him play jazz standards with a a star studded cast of Michigan musicians — including Ann Arbor players Janelle Reichman and Ingrid Racine on reeds and trumpet, Lansing’s Arlene McDaniel on Piano and Detroit rhythm powerhouse Gayelynn McKinney on drums.

“Ron is just fun and he makes me smile because he looks like he is having such a good time,” McKinney said. “He is a very good musician as well. He always plays around with the music to makes it fun and fresh.”

Though she has played alongside Brooks for six years, McKinney finds working with a hodgepodge of other Michigan musicians just as exciting.

“There are basic things you learn and by the time you interpret it, it always turns out different. Foundations are the same, but the style of which they are coming from is different,” he said.

Attendees should come with an open mind, she said.

“Enjoy the conversations we have on stage with each other. These will spill out into the audience.”

Daughter of piano great Harold McKinney, Gayelynn was immersed in the jazz scene since birth. McKinney recalls when she was 10, a drummer came to her house with red drumsticks and she had to have them.

“He told me he would give me these drumsticks, but I had to listen to him first.”

Years later, she realized the drummer was Max Roach, early pioneer of Bebop jazz drumming.

“I played with them everyday until they became toothpicks on the floor.”

More events in Lansing:

December 2018 Brew Run

5:30 to 8:30 p.m., Lansing Brewing Company, 518 E. Shiawassee St., Lansing

39th Annual Holiday Glitter & Glee

6 to 9 p.m., University Club of Michigan State University, 3435 Forest Road, Lansing

Fiddler on the Roof

7:30 to 9:30 p.m., Wharton Center for Performing Arts, 750 E. Shaw Lane, East Lansing

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