Bird Lives! A Charlie Parker Birthday Celebration feat. The Vincent Herring & Eric Alexander Quintet

*PLEASE NOTE: All 6:30PM and 8:30PM shows at Smoke are Dinner Shows

$25.00 / $40.00 / $50.00 / $55.00 – Wed, Thu, Fri & Sun

$25.00 / $50.00 / $60.00 / $65.00 – Sat

Vincent Herring – alto saxophone

Eric Alexander – tenor saxophone

Mike LeDonne – piano

John Webber – bass

Lewis Nash – drums

“Herring fuses instrumental mastery with equal and unified parts of jazz’s holy trinity of heart, mind, and soul.” – WNPR Radio

“Eric Alexander can play the tenor saxophone—never doubt that. He has the chops, power, and passion that make him one of the most blazingly bad-assed saxophonists of his generation.” – Downbeat

For Bird Lives! A Charlie Parker Birthday Celebration, two saxophone masters, Vincent Herring and Eric Alexander—on alto and tenor respectively—join forces for Bird Lives! A Charlie Parker Birthday Celebration featuring a stellar quintet with pianist Mike LeDonne, bassist John Webber, and drummer Lewis Nash.

Alexander and Herring have a long-running and rewarding musical relationship that is frequently billed as a “saxophone battle,” a tradition of musical competition that Parker himself knew well. From their celebrated recordings The Battle: Live at Smoke (2005) to their recent acclaimed release Split Decision (2026), Alexander and Herring continue to thrill audiences with their energetic and entertaining exchanges. Every time they meet as formidable peers and longtime collaborators, there is a deep musical rapport and plenty of fireworks.

All About Jazz states, “For those who long for the time when hard bop reigned supreme... here's a sure cure for any lament that those days are lost and gone forever.” While Paris Move calls this very quintet “a dream team of seasoned musicians whose names have long been synonymous with jazz excellence.”