This 'n That 'n Saturday Night Blues

Saturday night is prime time for jazz in jazz clubs. Except where it’s not.

I’ve previously quoted others questioning whether The Phoenix is really a jazz club. Now, by their own admission, on Saturday nights, they’re not. From their October email newsletter:

“On Saturday nights we got the BLUES 

“Saturdays are trending towards more blues bands, such as the Rick Bacus Trio, Mark Montgomery & the Sofa Kings, Brody Buster Band, and Shannon and the Rhythm Kings to name a few. The Phoenix will always have great jazz, but that’s not the only trick in our bag… ”

I wonder what time on Saturdays they’ll shut off the “Live Jazz” neon window sign?

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But there is good live jazz to be found downtown on Saturday nights. The Majestic’s October schedule shows the Bram Wijnands Trio there each weekend with top-tier names like Rod Fleeman, Hal Melia and Tommy Ruskin joining him. And the last couple Saturdays of the month you can catch singer Megan Birdsall at the Drum Room.

Newly booking jazz is The Marquee Lounge inside the AMC Theaters in the Power and Light District. The club just opened on October 2nd, so we’ll momentarily forgive them for offering no place online to find out who’s there. But an email submitted via their web site (here) asking about the lineup elicited a very nice response, received yesterday (Wednesday):

“There is a rotation in place, let me know what dates you're thinking of stopping in and I can let you know who is playing. We book some of our acts through Beena at Jardine’s so it depends. Tonight we have the Jazz Disciples, Friday The Warner Project is playing and Saturday Stan Kessler is playing. Hopefully we'll see you in!!”

Shay Estes’ web site shows her and Mark Lowrey there each Wednesday next week through the end of the month, from 7 to 10 p.m.

That’s a nice lineup indeed. Good enough, even, to make up for another downtown club which has succumbed to the Saturday night blues.

Open less than two weeks, The Marquee Lounge is no doubt addressing a plethora of priorities. But I sincerely hope they’ll soon make publicizing that talent one of those priorities. How about starting with a daily talent tweet (which, so far, they’ve done once; their Twitter feed is here)?

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Many thanks to the blog KC Stage, which you can find here. They not only linked to The Magic Jazz Fairy post, but included a drawing of the jazz fairy which I absolutely adore and share here (without permission…I hope the artist doesn’t mind).

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Hearty congratulations to Bill Brownlee, who has been named by The Pitch as Kansas City’s 2010 Best Blogger. It's an honor hard earned and well deserved.

(Next time I see you in a jazz club, Bill, I'm buying you a celebratory drink.)

This 'n That 'n New Metheny (Not That One)

1987, and we were looking for headliners for the Kansas City Jazz Festival. We needed at least two, one to cap each night of the event. I was an organizer back then. I don’t remember who we signed first, but we found a pair of outstanding trumpet players were available: Wynton Marsalis and Mike Metheny.

I do remember we were thrilled to grab both. Wynton’s celebrated group included pianist Marcus Roberts. And Mike hadn’t lived in the KC area for over a decade, had released a new CD the year prior, and around here was plenty well known.

On the festival stage, Wynton’s performance was clinical. A friend later told me that his wife turned to him during the show and asked, “When does this get fun?”

Nobody asked that during Mike’s performance. His EVI (Electronic Valve Instrument) was new to us, the first time most at the fest had heard it live. We were enthralled. And trumpet and flugelhorn kept the crowd equally captivated.

I’m remembering this now because now we have the delight of a new Mike Metheny CD, the just-released 60.1.

Some of the album’s music trends a bit more electronic than my personal old-fashioned taste. But there’s variety here. Old-fashioned me gravitates first towards the lively blues, C.C. and Water. Then Mike’s haunting EVI draws me into and leads me through the film-noire-ish Blue Smoke. And I’m entranced by both piano and horn on the lyrical ballad Laurie.

Besides, with sidemen like pianists Roger Wilder and Paul Smith, bassist Bob Bowman, guitarist Danny Embry and drummer Brandon Draper, this is a collection of KC talent I treasure.

I understand Mike’s little brother has a new CD out, too. I hear it’s some fancy thing that he’s doing shows all over the world to support. Mike’s CD, on the other hand, was recorded right here with some of Kansas City’s best musicians.

If I could only afford one, I know which I’d choose.

60.1 can be ordered from Mike’s web site, here.

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At last, a way to find out who’s playing at The Majestic each night! And the lineup is better than I thought.

Their apparently abandoned Twitter account is again active with tweets, including a few each day announcing that night’s talent. On my one weekend visit, several months back, the jazz club music was a rather sorry lounge sound. But the tweets are listing combos well worth a new look (Bram Wijnands and Steve Lambert last week, for instance, I’m sorry I missed).

Sadly, their web site as yet offers no calendar, so there’s little way to plan in advance. If you added one, Majestic, I’d gladly link to it. Because your tweets show that many nights you’re featuring more legit jazz than is sometimes found in a certain other downtown jazz spot.

The Majestic’s tweets can be found here.

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Speaking of online calendars, why, when I go to R Bar’s, do I first find reviews from 2009? Am I the only one looking at an entertainment calendar for a current listing of entertainment? Why make us scroll past praise and last week’s schedule for the info we seek? Why not put it front and center on the page where it’s promised?

And maybe the listing could be complete? This week I can see who’s playing Thursday and Saturday but not Friday. Why?

R Bar doesn't feature jazz every night, but often enough that it's worth checking who's there. I know I’d enjoy drinks and a meal while hearing David Basse, then Millie Edwards (next week) or Shay Estes (the week after). In fact, I see on Shay’s web site she’s booked there each month through July. It’d be nice to be able to find that out on the venue’s site, too.

I feel another post ranting about marketing coming on.

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For a couple of our sterling young jazz musicians, a scraggly look seems to be in vogue. That doesn’t work for me, guys. I don’t expect coat or tie, but a respectable appearance is merely showing respect for the audience. I’m not naming names – I have no desire to embarrass anyone – but I’ll bet they know who they are.

If I left a bigger tip, would you guys consider a haircut?

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So how do I remember who played the jazz festival 23 years ago? Well, there may not be many other jazz fans with a fest poster autographed by both Wynton Marsalis and Mike Metheny on their wall.

(Mike’s new CD, 60.1…it's at his web site, here.)

This 'n That 'n Jazz Winterlude

This holiday week, a couple of unrelated thoughts.

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I write often of the terrific young jazz talent populating Kansas City today. After all, their music inspired the start of this blog. But that means I haven’t raved nearly enough of the outstanding musicians who preceded those young’uns and who still perform some of the best jazz heard anywhere. Now is my chance, thanks to, as far as I know, KC’s first January jazz fest.

Johnson County Community College turns juke joint January 8th through 10th for Jazz Winterlude. And what a chance it is to catch a sampling of KC’s jazz best.

For instance, for decades one of my favorite saxophonists has been Charles Perkins (Eddie Baker first pointed me his way when I chaired the Jazz Commission). He joins Rich Hill on Friday. Same day, the Danny Embry/Rod Fleeman performance doesn’t just pair two magnificent guitarists, but adds most of what was singer Karrin Allyson’s regular group when she lived here. I just pulled out a 1988 LP with Mike Ning and Sherry Jones and put it on the turntable to play while I write. Man, that’s good. Hear them on Saturday. Or at the same time you might choose Stan Kessler and Sons of Brazil. Then later that night, if you’ve ever heard Jim Mair’s Kansas City Jazz Orchestra you already know that here is a big band you do not want to miss.

And that’s just scratching the surface.

The festival web site is here. The complete list of musicians is here. Or, if you want to just take my word for it and head straight to the tickets, go here. And I’m told that students (any area school or college) with a valid student ID can get tickets at the door for just $5.

(A side note: Should you ever see the 1984 Kansas City Jazz Festival poster, you’ll see a shot looking down on a pianist in a Count Basie-style captain’s hat, hands poised over piano keys. The pianist in that photo is Luqman Hamza. Hear him in a group with KC native and current Basie guitarist Will Matthews on Friday.)

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So what’s going on with The Majestic?

They talked of Friday and Saturday night jazz downstairs when they reopened. But if there’s an easy way to find who’s playing, I can’t figure out what it is. Their newly redesigned web site (here) doesn’t tell. And they stopped maintaining their Twitter feed.

So I stopped by on a Saturday night a couple weeks back to see. What I saw (and heard): A jazz trio mostly providing what I’d call background lounge music.

When I was hoping to open a jazz club recently, I looked at The Majestic space. The consultants I engaged felt it would work best with a pianist upstairs weeknights and the downstairs club open weekends. Interestingly, that’s exactly what the new owner is doing. A reason I didn’t pursue that spot was that I want a rollicking jazz club every night.

But when I visited, rollicking it was not. Everyone there was extremely friendly and welcoming, and for that part of the experience I’d return. But not for the jazz club, at least based on what I saw that one night.

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I really don’t understand what will work there. But I still think that space, especially downstairs, could be a jazz club renowned for nightly fun if properly programmed and promoted. I remember when the building was Fitzpatrick’s bar, before it became The Majestic. Fitzpatrick’s was on the Pub Crawl one of the years that I chaired the Jazz Commission. I went in and it was a blast. I’d love to have the chance to experience that, or something like it, driven by jazz, again and again.