AARON BING: Friday, July 24

Smooth jazz saxophonist Aaron Bing will celebrate his new CD, "Secret Place," with a release party tonight at the Omni Jacksonville Hotel. It's his third full CD, following "Always" in 2005 and "Christmas Dream" in 2007.

The Jacksonville native drew national attention two years ago when he went on "The Late Show With David Letterman" to attempt the Guinness world record of 47 minutes, 5.5 seconds for longest continual note on a saxophone. He stood on the sidewalk outside the Ed Sullivan Theatre and using a technique called circular breathing, Bing blew a low G on his soprano sax for 39 minutes and 40 seconds before the damp New York weather got to him and his reed.

Bing alternates his time between Jacksonville and Washington, D.C., and played the Jacksonville Jazz Festival in May.

His newest CD is on Century Records. The VIP meet and greet starts at 7 p.m., the music at 8 p.m. General admission tickets are $30, VIP $60 through www.brownpapertickets.com, (800) 838-3006.


Two Jacksonville bands, Fit for Rivals and Marion Crane, will be releasing their debut CDs at Jack Rabbits Saturday night. Marion Crane is Thomas Hill on vocals/guitar, Jasper Judge on guitar, Henry McMillan on bass and Adam Tillis on drums.

Fit for Rivals: Renee Phoenix on vocals, Thomas Amason and Jesse Carroll on guitar, Ben Nelson on drums and John Hartman on bass.

Also playing: Last Chance Standing and Swansinger. Admission is $8 in advance, $10 at the door.

GRANT PEEPLES: Thursday, July 30

If you head west on U.S. 98 toward the Panhandle, just before you have a choice of going through Sopchoppy or Panacea on your way to Apalachicola, you're in Grant Peeples' part of the state. He lives in Crawfordville, up close to Tallahassee. But sometimes he tells people he's from Sopchoppy, just because it sounds cooler.

Here's a bit of his story: He tried to make it as a songwriter in Nashville a long time ago, but that didn't last. He opened the Moon, a Tallahassee club specializing in live music, in the 1980s. A whole lot of big names came through there, and Peeples said he lost a whole lot of money there, too.

And then he spent 11 years running a hotel and dive shop on an island off Nicaragua. When he was there, he said, he had an epiphany about getting back into music.

He came back home to Florida (he's seventh generation, by the way) and went to work.

"I just wanted to be a songwriter," he said. "I never thought about performing. But I couldn't get any traction, I couldn't get anyone to play my songs. Finally, someone said I ought to just play them my damn self."

He'd gone to high school with Liz Williamson, who runs Gatorbone Studios in Keystone Heights, and he was in business. His first album, "It's Later Than You Think," came out last year. His second, "Pawnshop," came out two months ago. They're him and his songs about empty shelves in pawn shops, why poets drink and what's wrong with this country, anyway?

He plays mostly around North Florida, but he's up into Georgia and North Carolina next month before coming back to Tallahassee to open for Robert Earl Keen at the same Moon that Peeples opened more than 20 years ago. (Quick and painful question: How is Keen in this part of the country and nobody booked him for Jacksonville?)

On Thursday, he's at European Street in San Marco. Admission is $10, call (904) 399-1740 for reservations.