A Week Away

Seven days of business travel, ending on Sunday, did not allow time for composing a new blog post. So this week I take a week off from the blog.

But we are entering jazz festival season, and next week I'll offer what has become my annual overview of who is coming to festivals elsewhere.

Experience and Wounds

There were more organizations back then, and more division. Some groups, understandably, were interested only in their core mission. Others came to meetings with an agenda. There were members who took their appointment to a city commission as designating superiority over others in the jazz community. That sure didn’t help. Other members sincerely wanted to draw people together.

In the 1980s, Kansas City created the nation’s first city commission on jazz. The Kansas City Jazz Commission was founded, ostensibly, to unite a multitude of Kansas City jazz organizations, each running its own unique direction.

Over here was a group staging a big jazz festival in Volker Park. Over there was an organization staging a small one at 18th and Vine. Here was a group educating youth. There’s another. UMKC staged a festival for high school jazz bands. One group organized a jazz music series, eventually placing it at the Folly Theater. Here’s an organization wanting to build an International Jazz Hall of Fame, but not at 18th and Vine. There’s one wanting it only at 18th and Vine. Neither has any money. The Mutual Musicians Foundation owned the Armory building at 18th and Highland. A foundation funded a study which declared people were afraid to go there after dark. Oh, and there’s another group interested in developing a Jazz Hall of Fame. They say it belongs in Union Station.

A city commission, the theory went, would carry the authority to drive cohesiveness and consensus, and a more unified direction which would benefit everybody.

The reality was that leaders of other organizations found little time to devote to a new organization, and had little desire to sublimate their goals to another group.

I was appointed chairman in 1987, in the midst of a front page scandal. A former treasurer stole over $6000 in city funds. With the help of a wonderful board of directors, we turned the Jazz Commission around. But we effectively redefined it as another jazz organization producing its own programs.

Twenty five years later.

KC Jazz A.L.I.V.E describes itself as a jazz catalyst organization, intended to “facilitate dialogue and design methods to help the greater Kansas City jazz community connect and collaborate to meet their collective missions.” Stakeholders include performing and visual jazz artists, club and venue owners, education leaders, jazz patrons, faith based community leaders and civic leaders. A.L.I.V.E. represents the five pillars of the organization’s mission:

A for building awareness of the needs of the jazz community; L for serving as a listening body; I for providing a platform for the integration of ideas; V for functioning as a voice for the jazz community; E for providing exposure to applicable resources for the Kansas City jazz community.

The organization has secured 501(C)3 not-for-profit status in record time. It is developing a web site at www.kcjazzalive.org. It is partnering with Jazz Near You to provide comprehensive local jazz listings (something the Plastic Sax Kansas City Jazz Calendar has done for years, here). They are establishing a speaker’s bureau to reach out into the community.

Long after the Jazz Commission dissolved, there remains a need to bring Kansas City’s disparate jazz organizations together.

The slogan repeated at KC Jazz A.L.I.V.E. meetings: A rising tide raises all boats.

But only if all boats are included.

KC Jazz A.L.I.V.E. is organizing a Kansas City Charlie Parker Celebration / Festival. Mostly, this collects existing performances under one umbrella, adding a few presentations and reviving the Sax Salute at Parker’s gravesite. A jointly marketed collection of jazz events is essentially what the Kansas City Jazz Festival was in 1983 and 1984. This is a concept which has succeeded here before.

(However, completely ignoring that the birthday of an equally important Kansas City jazz icon – Count Basie – also falls during these two weeks feels odd.)

A list of performances has been compiled. And what stands out most on it is the venue it doesn’t include.

Legend says that Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie first met on the top floor of the union building at 1823 Highland. In the historic heart of the 18th and Vine district, the Mutual Musicians Foundation today hosts jam sessions every weekend night.

There is discussion of holding a “chicken feed” at the Foundation following the Sax Salute. Good. But how can two weeks celebrating Bird include Zona Rosa twice but not include even one already-scheduled jam in the room where Bird and Diz met?

One more recollection:

Towards the end of my time as chairman of the Jazz Commission, we prepared a fundraising proposal encompassing the entire jazz community. Donors at the time told us they were tired of being peppered with requests from over a dozen jazz organizations. They also told us that the request would be considered more favorably if it excluded the festival at 18th and Vine, which they saw as a small and problematic event.

I prepared a fundraising proposal which excluded the 18th and Vine Jazz and Heritage festival.

I sat down with an organizer of the event, who was also on the Jazz Commission’s board, to explain what was being written and why. I never, until that time or since, have seen a friend more deeply hurt.

What the foundations told me was immaterial. Excluding the 18th and Vine event was wrong. It was part of the jazz community and needed to be part of the request.

There will always be pain in bringing the entire Kansas City jazz community together. Experiences and wounds leave me certain of that.

It doesn’t matter.

Coming together can only work when it prominently showcases all of the boats.

The Smart Museum

Tables and people filled every nook and cranny of the lobby. I’m sure if one more person had said they would come, space for them would have been found, but I don’t know where.

Normally, the American Jazz Museum is closed on Mondays. However, on this Monday, early in April, board members and friends of the museum had invited friends and associates to a free lunch, to hear presentations on how the museum and its programs are reaching out into and benefiting the community, and to ask for financial support.

We knew why we were invited. I walked in determined that I would not give a donation, it was just not in my budget at this time.

But when you’re sitting at a large table, and you’ve just eaten a good lunch that your hosts didn’t have to feed you, and donation cards are handed out, and pens are handed out, and you’re asked to make a donation, and you look around the table, and you see everyone else at the table, including the friend who invited you, filling out the cards and making donations, and you’re the only one at your table not using the pen you’ve been handed, and everyone else is using theirs, not just at your table but everywhere you look in that packed room, including people you know, some of whom might be looking at you not using your pen, and the lunch was good, and, well….

Don’t underestimate the peer pressure. I caved and made a donation.

This was for the American Jazz Museum’s PEER Into the Future initiative. PEER is an acronym for the museum’s mission: Performance, Exhibition, Education and Research.

I don’t know if the luncheon was the culmination of a campaign or the entire initiative. But a thank you letter noted that PEER Into the Future 2014 reached its goal of raising $120,000 for general museum operations.

That is impressive. Other jazz organizations could learn from the American Jazz Museum.

*****

Part of its battle, from the start, is that this was never the museum that advocates of a jazz museum envisioned. In 1989, a complex was announced by the city with two grand halls and a theater embracing historical study, education and performance. In 1997, a smaller building opened, sharing space with the Negro Leagues Museum. Its collection was limited by funds, showcased relatively few musicians, and was derided in The New York Times by the Executive Director of The Count Basie Orchestra. To many who had pursued a dream since the 1960s, this was not the American Jazz Museum. This was the American Jazz Museum Compromise.

*****

A feature in the 913 and 816 sections of last Wednesday’s Kansas City Star highlighted jazz education opportunities for the young. The article opened with the American Jazz Museum’s monthly Jazz Storytelling program, aimed at introducing children to jazz. The program has been entertaining and educating children for a dozen years.

Just last month, the museum co-hosted, with Penn Valley Community College, the 18th and Vine Jazz Festival, giving middle school, high school and college music students the opportunity to learn from professional musicians and perform in the Gem Theater.

Educational outreach is critical to the survival of jazz. The American Jazz Museum’s efforts are under-recognized and under-appreciated.

The museum also reaches out to the community with its annual Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival. Never mind that the event desperately needs a more succinct name. And overlook for the moment that this is a self-proclaimed jazz and blues festival that seems afraid to book much jazz or blues. The last two years the event was stung by misfortune beyond its control (rain and the death of a headliner). But for the two years prior, museum officials showed the wisdom and foresight of taking an event that had covered Parade Park, then couldn’t sustain its weight through the recession, and downsizing it to where it turned a profit. If both the weather and headliners’ health hold out this year, the festival should again turn a profit.

*****

Part of it is animosity from the remaining dreamers. Part of it could be jealousy in seeing a professional staff while other jazz organizations run on the hopes of a few. I suspect some of it is simply leaders with conflicting ambitions who don’t like each other. But there are still pockets of the jazz community that look derisively on the American Jazz Museum. In doing so, they hurt themselves. This is an institution accepted by the community as a whole – I saw that in the packed lobby – which benefits Kansas City.

*****

Last Saturday night, I drove through sparse traffic in the Crossroads district. It was a holiday weekend. Kansas City goes out of town for holidays. I probably wouldn’t have any trouble finding a table at The Blue Room.

The Blue Room, a part of the museum, was packed. Students from Omaha lined the seats along the edge of the upper level. Other guests hailed from other cities and towns. I shared a table with a couple who spoke Russian (I don’t think they they were visiting from overseas, but I can't be certain; I don’t speak Russian).

The Blue Room is more than a jazz club. Standing at Kansas City’s most historic corner, it is a destination for visitors.

And let’s not forget that just a couple years ago, after Jardine’s expired, The Blue Room, solidly, reliably, stood as this city’s principal location for jazz and a drink, until new club owners had the opportunity to help fill the void.

For the record, on Saturday night, the Jazz Disciples delighted everyone in that room.

*****

The American Jazz Museum isn't ideal. When I walk through, I crave more space and more exhibits. But sixteen years after its opening, nobody else has built a monument to jazz more grand, or more smartly operated. It’s past time to recognize that.

Forward

I hated it.

Back in the 1980s, I was part of a group of volunteers who staged an annual jazz festival each summer in Volker Park, between the south lawn of the Nelson Museum and the Midwest Research Institute. With artists like Wynton Marsalis and Stan Getz, we claimed 100,000 patrons over the two day event, and in good years probably actually drew around 35,000.

In Septembers, another group staged a street festival in the 18th and Vine district. In the days before museums, stages were erected in grassy lots at 18th and The Paseo and at 18th and Woodland, and sometimes one on Vine towards 19th Street. 18th Street was closed for the weekend between The Paseo and Woodland. Craft booths lined 18th Street while jazz and blues, and on Sunday some gospel, filled the stages.

In time, within the jazz community, the festivals grew nicknames. The Volker Park event was the white jazz festival, while 18th and Vine hosted the black jazz festival.

I hated that.

That was thirty years ago.

Two weeks ago, I was speaking with a musician on the possibility of performing in this year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival. The musician was Black. Another musician of equal stature, who was White, might precede this act. I wondered whether some might view the two as the White headliner and the Black headliner. The musician I was speaking with was incredulous and asked, “Do people still think that way?”

Kansas City’s jazz community has evolved beyond sensitivities ingrained in me, beyond cautions that attitudes of past decades taught me to mind.

Jazz ensembles in Kansas City today are built on talent and friendships with blind indifference towards race. Some were built similarly thirty years ago, but others kept an eye towards the subtleties of a not always integrated marketplace.

Decades ago, some clubs booked jazz expecting more support than really existed. They booked the music not because they cared for jazz but because they expected it to draw crowds of people who would buy food and drinks.

There’s nothing wrong with that. After all, in the 1930s, didn’t Kansas City clubs book one jazz band over another in order to differentiate themselves from the juke joint next door?

Today, we understand that jazz is a niche music. But it’s a niche with a sufficient fan base to still support several clubs. The difference today is that in Kansas City, we can boast of jazz club owners and managers who are in this business in large part because they genuinely love jazz.

Talk to any of them – John Scott at Green Lady Lounge, Neil or Pat at Broadway Jazz Club, Lori or Doug at Take Five, Gerald Dunn at The Blue Room – and you’re talking to one of this city’s greatest jazz enthusiasts.

But you’re also talking to a jazz fan with a business to run, with a need to draw customers. That means offering music those customers want to hear, which translates into accessible jazz. In 2014, more esoteric styles of the music appear to have lost a home, except perhaps for The Record Bar on a couple of Sundays each month.

Musicians who are playing in Kansas City jazz clubs in 2014 are determined by the audience a jazz-loving club manager expects an ensemble’s music to attract. You can argue that’s always been the case. But unlike this city in the 1930s, or pockets of the area even thirty years ago, today only the music matters.

Yet, some corners of the jazz community don’t share this view.

Jazz was born in the Black community. Many in the Black community rightfully claim the music as a key part of their cultural heritage. That claim demands the respect of all of the rest of us who also want a piece of the music.

But I hear some claims that amount to a right to divisiveness based on that heritage, an argument that the music is ours, not theirs. And the claim is often followed by a perception of prejudice, of jobs not going to the music’s heirs.

Kansas City jazz was born in a racially divided past. It grew in part because extraordinarily talented musicians were forced to live and work within perimeters imposed by others.

Jazz cannot deny its past. The Mutual Musicians Foundation, Vine Street, the museums and history of 18th Street, always need to remind us of the unique claim jazz lays on Kansas City. That past, and all its flaws, are integral to what is Kansas City.

But jazz can only survive by looking forward. It can only live with the help of jazz-loving clubs offering the music that people who enjoy jazz in 2014 want to hear.

Regardless of color.

Count Basie, Broadcasting Live From 86th and Wornall in 1935

Today, houses line both sides of the street along Wornall between 85th and 86th Streets, and a church. In 1935, this was the outskirts of Kansas City. Here is where the tower for radio station W9XBY stood. From here, Count Basie and His Barons of Rhythm were broadcast live from the Reno Club six nights a week, and Kansas City jazz was discovered.

W9XBY was one of four experimental high-fidelity stations approved by the Federal Radio Commission in December, 1933.

The Early Shortwave Stations: A Broadcasting History Through 1945 explains:

“There were two aspects to high-fidelity experimentation. One was the establishment of several ‘high-fidelity’ AM experimental broadcast stations on channels just above 1500 kc [kilocycles], the high edge of the standard broadcast band. These were 1 [kilowatt] stations and enjoyed bandwidths of 20 kc rather than the standard 10 kc. The stations were W1XBS, Warterbury, Connecticut and W9XBY, Kansas City, Missouri, both on 1530 kc, and W2XR, Long Island City, New York and W6XAI, Bakersfield, California, both on 1550. These stations could be heard on the popular all-wave receivers of the day, as well as many older sets whose tuning overshot the 1500 kc end point of the AM dial….”

W9XBY was owned by First National Television (FNT), which also ran classes for aspiring engineers. The station reportedly went on the air on December 31, 1934. However, online it’s easy to find W9XBY broadcast verification cards with earlier dates, like this one:

It reads:

“VERIFICATION—W9XBY—1000 watts, 1530 Kc. Kansas City, Mo.

“This is to thank you for your report on the reception of W9XBY on [date and time are handwritten] 12-8-34 at 3:35 AM-EST. W9XBY is one of the 4 new ‘high-fidelity’ stations in the U.S., and is operated in the interest of higher quality radio transmission. The equipment used is NEW RCA-Victor 1-D, 1000 watt ‘high fidelity’ transmitter and using new RCA-Victor amplifiers and velocity microphones. Studios are located on the 29th floor of the Power & Light Building—transmitter near 86th & Wornall Road.

“Equipment is operated entirely by student-engineers enrolled in the training division of FIRST NATIONAL TELEVISION, INC., who also own and operate Television Station W9XAL in synchronization with voice channel W9XBY. Complete details regarding our technical training will be sent on request. THANKS!”

An ad in the March, 1935 Popular Mechanics touted the school:

“EXPERIENCED MEN Get the Big Radio Jobs!

“S.Q. NOEL, Pres. First National Television, Inc.

“Every qualified man I train puts in actual hours at my 1000 Watt Commercial Radio Station! When you have completed my training course, you are a tested radio and television expert – ready to step into the BIG PAY class! You have had actual experience behind you in genuine radio broadcasting work which gives you preference in any radio job. The hours you spend in my ultra-modern, ‘High-Fidelity’ commercial station W9XBY and my licensed television experiment station W9XAL mean dollars to you. Never before have you been offered so great an opportunity! Tune in on ‘High-Fidelity’ station W9XBY – 1530 kilocycles.”

W9XBY broadcast Count Basie’s band live from the Reno Club, in 1935 and 1936, for a half hour six nights a week.

FNT student and W9XBY engineer Newcomb Weisenberger, recalls:

“W9XBY broadcast live dance music late at night.  These remote pickups were manned by an announcer and [an] engineer.  I covered two such pickups on the same night.  The first was at Pusatari's Italian Supper Club….

“After this broadcast, I would pack up and move to [12th] and Cherry to cover a program from a black dance hall. The same announcer shared this assignment. (This was not a nice part of K.C. to visit after dark. But white people did!)

“I set up the W9XBY remote mixer on a small table, off stage, between the dance band and the door to the ladies powder room. The floorshow was so noisy that I heard it seeping into my headphone covers. It took all my attention and both hands to mix the sound….

“The waiter brought drinks for the announcer and me….  The wet glasses ate sticky rings into the fake leather cover of the mixer. As couples left, the waiters cleaned off the round tables by dumping the ashtrays onto the floor.

“The floor show ended with the two male dancers flat on the floor, face to one side, crawling off on their elbows and toes….”

Record producer John Hammond caught W9XBY’s signal late one night in Chicago. He came to Kansas City to see and hear Basie’s band for himself. Basie and his band left for New York in November, 1936.

W9XBY’s call letters changed to KXBY in 1936 or 1937 and later to KITE. In a reallocation of AM frequencies in 1941, KITE was moved to 1590 AM with a standard frequency. In July, 1942, it changed call letters again to KXKX. In financial trouble, the station went off the air in October, 1942. In November, 1942, the FCC ruled its license was in default.

A Week Off

A busy weekend, combined with work on two posts that are requiring more thought, more research and more time than I expected, mean no new post today.

Once upon a time, I pressed myself to fill this space every week. It was a personal goal. But that resulted in some not very good blog posts and occasional burnout. If I seem to be taking more weeks off these days, it's with the hope that when I do put something here, it's worth looking at.

Thoughts on the MMF

When I first walked into the Mutual Musicians Foundation – I think it was 1983 – many of the greats who created and developed Kansas City jazz were still there. On a Saturday afternoon, you could sit across a table from and chat with Herman Walder, or Ben Kynard, or Baby Lovett.

But you knew that 1823 Highland was their building, their former union hall. You were welcome, but you were a guest in their clubhouse.

In the latter half of the 1980s, the building was refurbished. At the time, Jane Flynn, director of the Landmarks Commission, told me that most of the joists had rotted away and the four walls were being held up by little more than the ceiling. With funds secured after the Mutual Musicians Foundation was named a National Historic Landmark, 1823 Highland was structurally stabilized.

Its management proved less stable. As the first generation of Kansas City jazz musicians passed, the Foundation evolved. Some board members passed through pursuing only the best for the historic institution. Others allegedly used the Foundation for personal gain.

And to many of us, visiting on a Saturday afternoon or taking in a late night jam session still felt like we were visiting somebody else’s clubhouse.

Somehow, the Foundation was missed when redevelopment enveloped the 18th and Vine district. Buildings were torn down and replaced with museums and offices along the north side of 18th street. The Gem Theater was rebuilt on the south side. But development dollars overlooked Vine Street – which is still a disgrace – and Highland Street.

The Mutual Musicians Foundation sat off on a side street and was pointed to from the lavish new buildings as a historic relic with a reputation for being poorly run and anyway, it’s really somebody else’s clubhouse. Surrounding homes deteriorated. Windows were boarded in the decrepit hotel next door. Visit the shiny new museum, public. But the Foundation? You don’t really want to go over there.

The stigma stuck. History dictated that the Mutual Musicians Foundation be recognized as a crucial piece of the jazz district. But it was over on a side street where it more often than not badly managed itself.

*****

The surrounding homes today sit beautifully refurbished and occupied. The hotel next door now looks new and is full with renters. Buildings along half of Highland Street still need work. But surrounding the Mutual Musicians Foundation is a neighborhood the city can showcase as proudly as the shiny museums.

New management is running the Foundation like a business. Through a federal grant, downstairs walls were reworked to tell the Foundation’s story. I don't like what they have done with the walls and feel it was unnecessary. But a business decision was made by the board, money was identified, and it was done.

This is a business now, not somebody’s clubhouse, and I respect that.

Management has brought in Brand USA, a public-private partnership promoting international travel to the US, to help market the Foundation. In June, the Foundation sponsors a meeting of jazz writers and bloggers, including highly respected author Stanley Dance, to tour the district, see the remaining historic structures and experience the Foundation, then go write about it.

And awhile back I noted the Foundation’s pursuit of a low power radio station license. More news on that is promised soon.

There's a pugnaciousness to the Foundation’s moves. This disrespected and badly managed historic building on a side street is determined to make its mark on the jazz world. This is noise beyond all night jams. The Mutual Musicians Foundation is set on making noise the jazz world will not ignore.

But there is still a division in the Kansas City jazz community over the Foundation. It cannot shake skepticism built from decades of dubious actions.  An ill-defined set of musicians tried to organize a boycott of the Foundation last February for reasons never publicly explained. As far as I can tell, they were mostly ignored. A new organization, KC Jazz Alive, purportedly wants to bring together the Kansas City jazz community. Yet, officers of the Foundation tell me they haven't been asked to join.

Kansas City jazz is not a community that can thrive through division. It cannot survive apparently overlooked invites. It cannot survive its most historic member feeling it must doggedly make noise all alone. It cannot survive hurt feelings and silly boycotts.

I chaired The Kansas City Jazz Commission in the latter half of the 1980s, before the museums, when a multitude of jazz organizations set their own paths because nobody believed anyone else was doing it right.

Kansas City today can boast more jazz clubs than it has seen in a decade, thriving festivals (albeit festivals that are too small) at 18th and Vine and in Prairie Village, and young talent dominating the scene that just might be the best we've heard since Basie and Prez.

It’s time we get along with each other, all of us, no matter our past.

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.

In Celebration of Dionne

It was the happiest room in town, and it was the saddest room in town.

This was a tribute to Dionne Jeroue, the young singer who passed a week and a half earlier, and who was adored by everyone in Kansas City jazz who knew her. This was a celebration of Dionne’s life. Musicians and friends swung at their best. Heads swayed, arms thrust forward in time, bodies twisted to and fro in their seats, people rose and danced.

And tears streamed.

The Green Lady Lounge opened early Monday, April 7th, following a memorial service for Dionne, for family, friends and musicians to gather. The Kansas City jazz community draws close when it looses one of its own. Partly, it’s to share grief with friends. But largely, it’s knowing that the person lost is not just honored, but is somewhere smiling broadly at being remembered through a magnificent jam.

Below are photos of just a few of the musicians who celebrated Dionne Jeroue at The Green Lady Lounge. As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.

Ian Corbett, Lori Tucker and Matt Hopper

Everette DeVan on Hammond B3 and, just beyond, flowers in tribute to Dionne

Ian Corbett and Eboni Fondren

Left to right in The Green Lady Lounge: Chris Hazelton on Hammond B3, Ian Corbett on alto sax, Eboni Fondren, vocals, Danny Rojas on drums, Matt Hopper on guitar, Kent Means on vibes

Trumpets riff along the wall

Matt Hopper and Stephanie Moore

Stephanie Moore

Chris Hazelton

Chris Hazelton and Molly Hammer

Eboni Fondren

Shay Estes

Leaving condolences

Left to right, jamming in The Green Lady Lounge: Everette DeVan on Hammond B3, Steve Lambert on tenor sax, Phillip Wakefield on drums, Lori Tucker, vocals, Matt Hopper on guitar, Kent Means on vibes

Ran Out of Weekend

When you sit in your chair in front of your laptop computer in the evening to write a blog post, and the next thing you know you’re waking up in that chair at 4 a.m., neck sore from I-don’t-know-how-many-hours of a drooping head, it’s time to proclaim mea culpa, I’ve run out of weekend, and there will be no new blog post this week.