The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra Rhapsodizes

The personality of The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra (KCJO) has evolved under each of its three artistic directors.

Listen to its first CD from a decade ago without anyone telling you who it is, and you could be excused if you guessed this was some of the best of the 1980s-vintage Basie band. Under artistic director and co-founder Jim Mair, the breezy swing, with classy brass and sterling solos barreling over hard-driving rhythm, showed us what the music born in Kansas City had grown up to be. And, heck, I’ll take Lisa Henry’s vocals on that CD over the Basie band’s Carmen Bradford any day.

Kerry Strayer’s time leading the band was, tragically, far too brief. While under Jim the orchestra would venture beyond classic swing, with Kerry it stretched a bit further while never ignoring its roots. I briefly served as KCJO’s business manager when Kerry took over. His plans to perform Bobby Watson’s Gates BBQ Suite in concert concerned some of the orchestra’s board members. That, they felt (without ever actually hearing the suite, but that’s another story), was not the kind of big band music this orchestra performed. Kerry and I reassured them it would be an amazing show. Of course, it was.

The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra’s new CD, Rhapsody, under the direction of artistic director Clint Ashlock, captures an orchestra continuing to grow. Here’s a band of extraordinary talent, many of whom have played together now for a dozen years, emphasizing fresh arrangements performed with crisp precision and a modern elegance.

A somber yet playful Prelude #2 (Blue Lullabye) opens Rhapsody. You hear an exact performance in this music. This isn’t the devil-may-care whimsy of KCJO’s first Basie-induced CD. This isn’t what the Orchestra would have recorded a decade ago.

Next is the album’s centerpiece, Clint Ashlock’s arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue. Joe Cartwright takes over the keyboards, and his piano is our guide through this 27-minute Gershwin classic. There’s an exactly-played joyousness to the ensemble sections, which contrasts with the glib looseness of Clint’s trumpet and David Chael’s alto solos. Then contrast that further with the wicked sultriness of Brad Gregory’s tenor turn. This composition is a journey of wonderful twists performed with refined, never trite, vigor by Kansas City jazz masters.

The CD is filled out with fresh arrangements of big band standards. David Aaberg’s voicing on Swinging on a Star and Brad Gregory’s take on Emily – featuring Jeff Hamer’s loose and light trombone – return the orchestra to its beginnings. We have a selection from each of the band’s two most-often heard vocalists, Kathleen Holeman on Embraceable You and Ron Guiterrez on Alfie. Two of Clint’s arrangements close the CD: Every Time We Say Goodbye, starring Mark Cohick on baritone sax, and the controlled raucousness of I Got Rhythm.

This band takes a category that was new more than eighty years ago – big band jazz – and performs it so a listener in 2015 is intrigued. They grow the music with refinement. You hear it in their Kauffman Center performances – which now regularly draw over 1000 fans to each show – and it’s documented here.

That’s how a jazz orchestra approaching its teen years can thrive.

Rhapsody is available on The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra website, here.

The 2015 Prairie Village Jazz Festival, Part 2

A previous post covered how the headline act of the 2015 Prairie Village Jazz Festival came to be the McFadden Brothers with The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra. But the simple fact is, no matter who else may have been considered in the course of developing this year’s festival, nobody, absolutely nobody, could have delighted the young and old, the kids and the parents packing the hill in Harmon Park more completely than the McFaddens with KCJO.

Certain acts just turn out to be a perfect match for a particular setting, a stage, an audience. Sometimes, 5000 people, ideal weather, an orchestra and a couple of tap dancers gel perfectly. That’s what happened in Prairie Village on September 10th.

Angela Hagenbach preceded them with the magnificent vocals that have made her a favorite of Kansas City and worldwide audiences for over two decades. Don’t miss her production of Alice in Wonderland set to the music of John Coltrane – Jazz Alice – on the stage in the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Library on October 28th. It’s previewed in the latest issue of Jam.

And preceding Angela in the festival, playing to a beautiful setting sun, Matt Kane and the Kansas City Generations Sextet matched drummer Kane – now based in New York but originally from Hannibal, Missouri and a graduate of UMKC’s Conservatory – with five of the best of Kansas City’s amazing new jazz generation.

Below are photos from the evening. As always, clicking on one should open a larger version of it.

As the sun set in Prairie Village on September 10th, a growing crowd packed the hill in Harmon Park.

Matt Kane and the Generations Sextet. Left to right: Ben Leifer on bass, Andrew Ouellette on piano, Matt Kane on drums, Steve Lambert on tenor sax, Hermon Mehari on trumpet, Michael Shults on alto sax.

The stage, with Matt Kane and the Generations Sextet, bathed in the setting sun.

Angela Hagenbach sings

Danny Embry with Angela's group

Angela in the spotlight

The McFadden Brothers and The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra

 

The McFadden Brothers dance to an audience standing and applauding with joy.

Clint Ashlock directs The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra

Ronnie McFadden

Lonnie McFadden

The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra

The Orchestra's On Top

The band was founded in large part to present jazz with unaccustomed professionalism.

This music was born in buildings housing bars and brothels. It grew up to be recognized – by many of us – as America’s classical music. But it never quite shook the image of grungy bars.

Many of us hold nothing against grungy bars. Their ambiance can be enticing. But in Kansas City, jazz has been performed by some of the finest musicians you’ll hear anywhere for ninety years. And the best of the music deserves the same respect as is bestowed on non-American classical music.

A dozen years back, Jim Mair and Gene Hall assembled a big band to play concert halls, modeled after similar efforts in a few other cities. Its members dressed in black suits with matching blue neckties. They performed the jazz compositions of Duke Ellington and George Gershwin and countless others with the same professional presentation that the Kansas City Symphony brings to the works of Bach and Brahms.

The biggest difference between this band and the Symphony is that this band swings.

In November, 2003, The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra (KCJO) played its first concert, with guest Marilyn Maye, at Unity on the Plaza.

*****

Over the past five years, KCJO has seen transitions. Jim Mair stepped aside as Artistic Director and Kerry Strayer took over. Tragically, Kerry succumbed to cancer. With Kerry’s encouragement, Clint Ashlock stepped in. The orchestra office has been run by four different business managers over that period (including me for a few months).

More significantly, performances moved from Unity to the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The orchestra had struggled to attract 600 people to its fall concerts before the move. Yet they had the audacity to claim 1600 seat Helzberg Hall. An attempt to shift its concerts downtown once before, to The Folly Theater, cost KCJO aging fans who cherished the Country Club Plaza convenience of parking once for dinner and a show. And they raised the ticket price so that, with a service charge and garage parking, the cost of the cheapest seat nearly doubled (except for same day student sales).

But when you strive to position yourself as the jazz equivalent of the Symphony, this is the league you need to play in.

*****

Friday night, The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra concluded its third season in the Kauffman Center with a concert of music from the book of bandleader Stan Kenton.

The center section of Helzberg Hall was almost entirely filled. Yes, empty seats were scattered about the side sections. But, especially with no big name guest artist to attract attention, the size of this crowd was impressive. The audience, clearly, has grown since the orchestra’s Unity days.

The age of the crowd was equally impressive. KCJO, and traditional big band music in general, has generally attracted older fans. But this night, plenty of twenty-, thirty- and forty-somethings spiced the hall. Thanks to a donation from the Tony DiPardo Music Foundation, a large contingent of students also filled seats. The orchestra is no longer attracting an audience that looks like it’s going to mostly disappear over the next ten years.

One pre-teen patron near me bent over in his seat and covered his ears from the night’s abundance of musical brass. He may not be back soon, but plenty of others in Helzberg Hall last Friday night are going to return.

The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra is crisp. Here’s some of KC’s best musicians who have rehearsed and performed together for, in many cases, a dozen years. They know each other. Kansas City enjoys an abundance of big bands today, most playing ensemble parts smoothly. But KCJO hits a different level. Their instruments speak as one tight and sophisticated voice, riding the rhythm of Charles Williams’s piano, James Albright’s bass, Rod Fleeman’s guitar and Tim Cambron’s drums.

Solos stood out. Brad Gregory on tenor sax, David Chael on alto sax and Mark Cohick on some really weird instruments have long been among my personal favorites in any number of ensembles. Bob Long on alto, Doug Talley on tenor and Jay Sollenberger on trumpet shined.

Credit the excellence of these musicians first. But also credit the cohesiveness of Clint Ashlock’s musical direction. What he’s done with the New Jazz Order Big Band each Tuesday in uber-grungy Harling’s is wildly enjoyable. But in Kansas City’s still sparkling fresh palace to the arts, The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra has gelled with uncompromised quality and presentation.

The goals set at KCJO’s founding continue to be met. The orchestra continues to prove that Kenton – and Ellington and Basie and Gershwin and others – deserve to be heard on the same stage as Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. And with an audience growing and growing younger, they’re likely to to be heard there for a long time to come.

Where Did the Audience Go?

Last year, The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra (KCJO) rode a peak.

An orchestra which struggled to draw an audience of 600 fans for its fall concert at its previous home, attracted more than 1000 to their September premiere in the Kauffman Center. The Christmas concert filled 1200 seats, maybe a KCJO record. Season ticket sales approached historic highs. A first-ever gala reportedly raised $120,000.

But this season opened, I am told, with less than 260 season ticket renewals, an inauspicious base for filling 1600 seat Helzberg Hall. For the fall opener, fewer than a third of those seats were filled. The Christmas show filled less than half the hall, KCJO’s first Christmas concert in at least four years to fail to reach at least 1000 fans.

Where did the audience go?

A few years ago, when founders Jim and Mary Mair stepped aside, I managed KCJO for a few months, and I’ve maintained contacts since. So my interest is more than cursory.

Start with where the problem decidedly is not: The orchestra’s artistic quality. Losing artistic director Kerry Strayer, who succumbed to cancer last year, was a blow to KCJO and to the Kansas City jazz community. But Clint Ashlock stepped in to lead this outstanding collection jazz musicians to continued performance highs.

Next, identify the most obvious issue for one of the concerts: The Christmas show was performed not on its traditional weekend night but on a Tuesday early in December. Apparently, if you want to perform in the Kauffman Center in December and your organization’s name isn’t Kansas City Symphony or Lyric Opera, you’re relegated to trying to promote a night of the week when few people go out. That’s especially tough when the Christmas concert is traditionally your biggest show.

Other reasons require more guessing. But I’d look to guest artists.

When I managed KCJO, members of the board of directors as a whole were rightly excited about the quality of the orchestra. But some were dubious of the importance of guest artists. One contingent felt guests were allotted entirely too much time during some shows and that the audience would be better served by more attention to the orchestra. This contingent was mostly older and saw KCJO as the modern day equivalent of the Count Basie Orchestra, or the Duke Ellington Orchestra, or the orchestras of Benny Goodman or Tommy Dorsey, or any of the others they courted to in their youth. And those orchestras didn’t tour with an outsider dominating the show.

That argument assumes KCJO has built an audience that will follow it no matter who guests. It has, but the following is minimal. In its previous home at Unity on the Plaza, for many, KCJO was the highlight of an evening which included free covered parking and a stroll to a nearby restaurant. Previous attempts to move the orchestra downtown cost it a significant number of subscribers. Downtown is still a different experience.

Last season’s guest artists included Karrin Allyson and Kevin Mahogany. These jazz stars, who built their careers in Kansas City, remain exceptionally popular in their former hometown. This season’s guests – Deborah Brown, Kelley Hunt and Wycliffe Gordon – have maintained an extraordinary artistic level. But they don’t bring the commercial draw of Karrin or Kevin.

Despite how some board member prefer to view KCJO, this orchestra cannot fill Helzberg Hall like the symphony playing Mahler. This orchestra’s appeal is closer to a symphony pops concert. The guest star matters.

I’ll argue that the local popularity of Karrin and Kevin skewed last season’s ticket sales. More season ticket holders wanted to hear them in Helzberg Hall. This year, The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra is reeling from the lack of a similar commercial draw.

I’ll also argue price matters. In moving to the Kauffman Center last year, KCJO’s board raised ticket prices and ended the $25 seat. I wonder if they first looked at the preponderance of $25 seats among season ticket holders. Add $7 to use the Kauffman Center’s garage, and what was a night of convenient parking and jazz for as little as $25 nearly doubled to at least $47. For their last show, KCJO reinstated the $25 ticket, though it wasn’t well promoted.

Promotion is where KCJO can also improve. A few ads in The Star and post cards to tell people who bought tickets before that they can buy a ticket again is insufficient. Direct mail isn’t cheap, but business studies will tell you that well executed and well targeted direct mail is among the more effective ways to build an audience. The few months I managed KCJO’s office, I carried on the Mair’s efforts to trade for mailing lists and possibly purchase new ones. It’s tough for a board to approve the cost of a mailing where, by industry standards, a two to three percent response rate is considered good. And, through business contacts, during my time there I arranged for printing and mailhouse services to be donated, which made a big difference in cost.

But as tough as the marketing expense is to swallow, isn’t it tougher to swallow a season ticket base below 260?

Some will argue a jazz orchestra in 2014 is an anachronism and why should it surprise anybody they play to more seats empty than filled.

Baloney. Thousands of people loved hearing Bobby Watson’s big band with Jon Faddis at last year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival. Kansas City will turn out for an outstanding big band.

When I managed KCJO, it was hindered by a mostly older board of directors who wanted to program and market to their demographic. That may still be part of the problem. Program and market an orchestra as magnificent as The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra to a broader audience, and they will come.

This 'n That 'n Two Big Bands

It's true, the majority of the audience is of a certain age when they collectively gasp at the announcement that the next number will be Tiger Rag.

But put it in perspective. This was a special performance. Every seat sold was an individual ticket, not sales built on top of a season ticket base, and cost $40 or $50. The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra (KCJO) sold 800 of those seats for their April 4th show, A Tribute to Benny Goodman’s Historic 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert, in the Muriel Kauffman Theatre at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

That’s a hundred more seats than were built into the brand new concert hall in the acclaimed SFJazz Center. That San Francisco auditorium couldn’t have seated KCJO’s crowd.

Some will hold their nose skywards at a concert full of music that was new 75 years ago. But they wouldn’t be the ones who heard a big band full of outstanding musicians, a couple of whom are also at home with the completely contemporary People’s Liberation Big Band. They wouldn’t be the ones who heard Doug Talley’s wonderful solo on Don’t Be That Way, sparked with phrasing foreign to 1938. And that was just the opening number.

They also wouldn’t be the ones who heard visiting guest Jerry Dodgion join the band for a couple of solos. Or who smiled when ailing artistic director Kerry Strayer took the stage to an accompaniment of cheers (and proceeded to solo wonderfully).

They also wouldn’t be the ones counting the cash on what was, from all appearances, a highly successful fundraising event for KCJO’s 10th anniversary year.

There is an audience for this music, an audience which will pay for a night where the goal is fun. And where the goal is met.

*****

Two nights later, it was The Blue Room’s turn to swing. Last week’s post pictured Bobby Watson’s 18th and Vine Big Band. This was a group originally assembled to join the Kansas City Symphony for a Pops concert. But this Saturday night, tuxes were traded for untucked shirts.

The opening number, Satin Doll, was an arrangement by KCJO’s artistic director. Solos by trombonist Jason Godeau, trumpeter Hermon Mehari, saxophonist Steve Lambert, pianist Roger Wilder, bassist Bob Bowman and leader Bobby Watson established this big band as second to nobody.

Only one member of Bobby’s band also claimed KCJO’s stage. The two nights offered a chance to hear a broad sampling of Kansas City jazz talent swing. The two nights offered the chance to hear two bands excel.

Even so, maybe it was looseness unencumbered by black suits and spit-shined shoes. Maybe it was playing in a genuine jazz club rather than a plushly seated shrine to the arts. Maybe it was playing right on top of the audience, tripping over the front row tables, rather than seeing an orchestra pit of space separating the audience from the stage. Maybe it was the interactions with a younger crowd. Maybe it was just having a drink in hand.

But while Thursday night was unquestionably fun, Saturday night was a blast.

*****

Two weeks ago, I wrote about young musicians who, beyond the Mutual Musicians Foundation, have never known the connections to Kansas City’s jazz past. Many play a more progressive, contemporary music, and draw an audience to jazz clubs.

A week and a day after Bobby Watson’s 18th and Vine Big Band performed, the insanely progressive People’s Liberation Big Band of Greater Kansas City premiered new compositions at The Record Bar.

The range of jazz which can draw a respectable audience in Kansas City today, including more people than they built seats for in San Francisco, speaks broadly to its vitality in this city. Sure, it’s a niche. No jazz artist is going to fill The Sprint Center. But Kansas City can boast an active and diverse jazz community.

*****

Several tidbits:

•  This Saturday night, Beyond the Blues is a fundraiser for Mental Health America of the Heartland. It features performances by the Blues Notions, Todd Wilkinson and Mille Edwards. More information is available here.

•  Kansas City Kansas Community College and The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra team up for the 12th annual Jazz Camp, June 3rd through 7th. Among the faculty:  Doug Talley, Steve Molloy, Everett DeVan, Rod Fleeman, Mike Ning and James Albright. Students can sign up now. More information is available here.

•  Johnson County Community College has announced the lineup for their 2013-14 Performing Arts Series. Among the notable dates: Saturday, January 25th, 2014, when Arturo Sandoval plays Yardley Hall at 8 p.m. as part of Jazz Winterlude.

Traditional Jazz Lives

Congratulations to The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra.

Their inaugural show in the Kauffman Center’s Helzbergs Hall could have been a flop.

Not artistically. Not with Kerry Strayer leading an orchestra of some of the finest musicians playing jazz in 2012. Not just in Kansas City. Anywhere.

But – and I say this as someone who managed the orchestra’s business affairs for a few months early last year – it could have been a financial flop, or an audience flop.

Because traditionally, this orchestra has drawn barely more than 600 fans to its fall concert. And they had the audacity to play a 1600 seat hall? Traditionally, this orchestra has lost money, oodles of money, on their performances, and they dared to take on the additional expenses of the Kauffman Center? Traditionally, this orchestra shed fans by the dozens, sometimes by the hundreds, when moving a concert away from The Plaza. Plenty of free, covered parking, a nice dinner and a pleasant stroll to Unity on the Plaza for some outstanding traditional jazz was the experience the orchestra’s aging audience craved.

The cheap seats at the Plaza locale cost just $25 at the door. At the Kauffman Center, $40 is the lowest price (same day student sales excepted). Add on a service charge and fee for that covered parking, and here the cost to walk in the door more than doubled. More than that, when the orchestra did fill Unity’s thousand-plus seats last year, they did it largely with half price social media promotions. Discount success suggested that outside of a 600 body core, the public found this experience overpriced. And they raised the price?

The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra (KCJO) moving into the Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall? From a business perspective, this looked to me like a dive off the high board into KC jazz’s belly flop of the year. Enjoy hobnobbing with the big boys while you can, KCJO. Arts audiences and bank accounts are mighty tough to refill.

I could not have been proven any more mistaken.

The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra drew more than 1000 fans to their inaugural concert at the Kauffman Center. Comp and student tickets aside, the orchestra sold more than 900 seats at $40 or $50 each. To the best of my knowledge, none were filled through social media near-giveaways.

I’m not privy to the orchestra’s financials. But an audience that size, paying that much money for a ticket, should have more than covered any additional cost of performing on Kansas City’s premiere concert stage. In fact, it should have closed a large chunk of the orchestra’s traditional gap between ticket sales income and concert cost.

And how did they do this? Did they draw a substantial crowd by playing modern jazz? Did they merge jazz and hip-hop? Did they hire a rapper?

Nope. They swung the Kauffman.

They played a tribute to Count Basie. They featured Kevin Mahogany singing the songs of little Jimmy Rushing. They expertly performed a night of jazz as traditional as it gets.

And an audience of over a thousand fans loved it.

You can call it an older audience. Fifty-plusers dominate the crowd. You can argue this group proves big band’s dead end, with sparse youth support in sight. You can say enjoy the moment, because this audience isn’t going to live forever. Some may not make it to the next concert, you can snark.

Or you can look at more than 900 people, right here in little ol’ Kansas City, who paid $40 and $50 a ticket, and a service fee, and who probably paid for parking, and say, Here is an audience who will part with good money for jazz. They can afford it. They appreciate a night of traditional sounds. They will pay to hear an outstanding performance of jazz music they enjoy. They exist.

They’re not, mostly, our youth. But maybe as our youth ages, and can more easily buy a $50 ticket, and not need that ticket to be something that will bestow more credence Monday morning among their friends, maybe an audience of fifty-plusers will still be here to spend good money on jazz.

Because traditional jazz may be a niche but it’s not going away. It’s a niche being constantly rediscovered and freshly performed.

A goal of The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra is to be recognized as the jazz equivalent of the Kansas City Symphony. A few weeks ago, they took a major step forward. A few weeks ago, The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra proved it belongs on that same stage.

Congratulations.

 

Know Thy Audience

I've actually never been to one of them, these jazz and hip-hop shows. Others proclaim them the future of jazz, a way to engage a younger audience, an audience which knows hip-hop, in a music which evolved, in Kansas City anyway, some ninety years ago.

I don't dismiss their popularity. I applaud their exposing a broader range of enthusiasts to the spectacular young jazz talent dominating Kansas City's jazz scene today. I find the excitement those young jazz musicians bring to the shows to be contagious.

But I don't see them as a future path for jazz. They're a curiosity of the moment. Like Allison Krause with Robert Plant. Like Betty Carter with Ray Charles. Hip-hop with jazz.

Part of the jazz audience will embrace a degree of experimentation and outrageousness (evidenced in KC by the growing popularity of the People's Liberation Big Band). But too many who will pay more than a nominal cover charge attend a show, in part, for familiarity. That's a point which struck me as I watched the one concert of the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra which I managed.

I wrote several months ago that I was taking over as manager of The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra. I have since moved on to another job which was too good an offer to pass up. But before moving on, I managed the business end of the orchestra's April 30th concert.

Don’t get me wrong. The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra is incorporating no hip-hop. But the latest concert took a left turn into a preponderance of more modern big band compositions than the regular crowd expected. Incorporating music by Lennie Tristano and Toshiko Akiyoshi hardly brings the selections into the 21st century. But they bring the music further into the 20th century than many regulars in the $35 seats expected when they walked through the doors.

Is pulling the audience a few decades forward from what they have come to expect such a bad thing? The music was still performed with exceptional precision by some of Kansas City’s finest jazz musicians. The orchestra still presented itself with impeccable professionalism. A repositioning of musicians on stage balanced the sound in the auditorium more evenly than previous shows. The guest artist, Gary Foster, was a superb soloist.

So was it a distraction to present to the staid audience The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra attracts, a greater abundance of music more modern than they’ve heard here before?

Yes, it was.

There are places in town where musicians can pander to their tastes. When they’re playing a club for proverbial pennies, when they’re promoted as a group trying something new (like the young musicians of The Sound Collective at Jardine’s last week), when the expectation is properly set for something new(er), few will complain if musicians indulge.

If promotion proclaims a show is jazz and hip-hop, for example, I’m staying away. There’s nothing wrong with that combo. It draws an enviable audience. But there’s some music I don’t enjoy, and that includes hip-hop, so I will not be there. And that’s okay, because in that situation I know what to expect.

But when an orchestra has spent eight seasons playing a particular kind of music, largely swing, largely traditional big band, peppered with a few more modern compositions, it has set an expectation. It has established what returning patrons anticipate. And when that orchestra turns the type of music which previously peppered a set list into the music which dominates the second set, musicians are indulged at the expense of an audience paying up to $35 a seat.

The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra presents itself as the jazz equivalent of the symphony. They succeed through a completely professional presence and presentation – every male musician is dressed in black coat and blue tie – and a well-rehearsed repertoire performed by extraordinary musicians. They attract a mostly older, largely well-heeled audience. And that audience comes for the familiarity of music they know, and a set list which mostly swings them in their comfortable seats.

There’s nothing wrong with that scenario. The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra has established itself as one of this city’s premiere arts organizations, artistically outstanding and supremely deserving of the community financial support it receives. I’m proud to have been its manager, if only for a few months.

But it must recognize the proclivities of the audience which has grown with it, an audience looking for the familiar and just a few surprises. Of course, the orchestra needs to grow that audience. That happens by expanding the selections to those familiar to a younger crowd. Not the hip-hop crowd, obviously, but initially to Kansas Citians who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. Hey, that includes me. And I didn’t grow up knowing who the heck was Lennie Tristano or Toshiko Akiyoshi. Their tunes may please the musicians, and in a more eclectic circumstance would fit perfectly well. But musicians comprise little of this audience. For this audience, the music needs to go easy on the eclectic.

Know the audience. Know their expectations. Know why they came to your show. That’s how this orchestra needs to be performing.

100 Posts and Feet to the Fire

This, to my amazement, is this blog’s 100th post. And now is your chance to get even.

If you’re a subject I’ve criticized in one of the previous 99 missives, or if you’ve long thought my occasional jazz marketing and management rants rank me as all blowhard, now you can claim that pound of flesh. If you’re right.

Because starting on January 1st, I’m the new Orchestra Manager of the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra (or, KCJO).

Husband and wife Jim and Mary Mair, with others, birthed the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra 8 years ago and have built it into one of this city’s most respected jazz organizations. But after 8 years of dedicating body and soul, and producing the finest series of big band jazz you will hear anywhere, they have decided to step aside.

The board has wisely hired Kerry Strayer as the new artistic director. I can tell you that Kerry is bringing exciting ideas for the orchestra’s future (though I can’t tell you, yet, what they are).

And in a more dubious decision, the board hired me as the new manager.

So after 100 blog posts on Kansas City and jazz, after posts criticizing other KC jazz presenters for their management and marketing of this city’s heritage, after being handed management and marketing of one of Kansas City’s premiere jazz organizations….

I’d better not screw this up.

The position is part time. This will not become a KCJO blog (in fact, I may start another, albeit less frequent, KCJO-dedicated blog). This blog will continue.

Though how much of the next 100 posts are bombast or contrition may be determined, in part, by whether I’m pulling a foot well-wedged from mouth or, from many of the last 99 posts, successfully practicing the practices I’ve preached.

I will be opening the orchestra’s new office doors fully expecting the latter.

(…the blogger wrote, with shameless bombast….)

*****

But to determine, definitively, how I do, you first need a standard of comparison. Which means you need to go out this Friday, December 10th, to Unity on the Plaza, at 8 p.m., and hear the final Kansas City Jazz Orchestra concert expertly produced by the Mairs. It’s A Big Band Christmas. Midway though, Jim hands off the conductor's baton to Kerry. General admission tickets start at $25. Student tickets are available at the door for just $5 (with student ID). Hear how good this music and presentation can be.

(And I’m not promising you will not see more plugs here. Actually, you will.)

In Lieu of 1000 Words: The Prairie Village Jazz Festival

As far as I can tell, the organizers of the first Prairie Village Jazz Festival last Saturday made only one error.

A friend asked if I’d volunteer the day of the event, and I agreed. Then I found they put me on security.

Security? Me?

But if any other mistake was made, I didn't see it.

The inaugural Prairie Village Jazz Festival was a magnificent success. The community where I grew up (just a few blocks from the festival grounds, actually) assembled a perfect day of jazz. The park was ideal. The organization seemed flawless. The weather could not have been better (okay, that one’s thanks to someone other than festival organizers). More of the crowd even seemed to be listening to the music than on a typical night at Jardine’s.

The music they heard, start to finish, was Kansas City at its best. I was at my volunteer post during the first two sets, but what wafted there of Killer Strayhorn and Sons of Brazil proved ideal openers. David Basse’s group, a superb mix of KC veterans and youth, swung his vocals hard. Eldar’s return is always welcome, though I wondered going in if a piano trio would play well to a large outdoor setting. He knew what would work here and engaged the crowd in his mastery. The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra, which struck me as a a bit tepid when I heard them last January, this night brought the figurative house down, partly with the help of guest Miguel DeLeon. And Grammy nominee Karrin Allyson, another returning KC jazz hero, joined the Jazz Orchestra, never sounding better.

Below are photos of how it looked, mostly of the headliners. As always, clicking on a shot should open a larger version of it.

By the way, turns out security just meant making sure nobody entered with a cooler. So, my official security report: Prevented three people from bringing in a banned cooler (the Prairie Village police officer behind me may have helped).

Karrin Allyson sings

Eldar Djangirov on piano

 

The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra

Left to right: Zach Beeson, Joe Cartwright, David Basse, David Basse's signature hat, Brian Steever

Karrin Allyson

Miguel DeLeon

Eldar

 

In the mid-1990s, I went to The Phoenix nearly every Tuesday night for Karrin Allyson on piano and vocals and Rod Fleeman on guitar. It's still some of the best jazz I've heard. The musical chemistry they share is just as delightful to see and hear today.

The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra and two (maybe three) new fans