Bending the Mold

1983 saw the rebirth of the Kansas City Jazz Festival. Organizers wisely placed a call for volunteers in the program, to help plan and organize the 1984 event. I was looking for an entrée to civic involvement and responded. I remained involved, to varying degrees, through the next seven festivals.

That may be why I still hold a keener interest in jazz festivals than most people.

The festival I helped organize would eventually, after I left, merge with the Blues festival and grow into a much larger event. But it eventually died, reportedly succumbing to a massive debt.

The Rhythm and Ribs Festival was born eight years ago as a grand event. It encompassed two days and all of Parade Park. But financial reports available online tell us it lost money each year.

That’s easy to do with festivals.

In 2009, in the face of the recession, Rhythm and Ribs retired. The next year, a different festival with the same name replaced it. This new event filled a single day, and embraced a much more concise footprint. The downsizing, let’s be honest, was a disappointment. But those online financial reports tell us this was the first Kansas City festival named Rhythm and Ribs to turn a profit. The wisdom of the change is clear.

The new Rhythm and Ribs adopted a formula: A jazz headliner, a blues headliner, and an R and B headliner whose sole purpose was to draw a crowd. Commercially, it worked. Two years ago, when the repackaged musical band War took the festival stage and started singing The Cisco Kid, Rhythm and Ribs, in that year, stopped being a jazz or a blues festival. But give organizers credit. That band drew the largest audience of the day and the audience loved it.

Still, after three years of the same formula, of jazz headliner/blues headliner/r and b headliner to draw a crowd, the format was growing stale. When you’re turning a profit, it takes courage to change. And it takes wisdom to recognize when an event needs to evolve.

This year, Rhythm and Ribs has been rechristened as Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival. The name could stand some pruning, but if that turns out to be the biggest complaint, who cares.

Last week, the lineup was announced. Its emphasis is crossover appeal.

Top headliner George Duke brings solid jazz credentials, but is a name also known in rock and R and B circles. I know little about the second jazz headliner, the Art Blakey Tribute Band, but YouTube videos suggest this group may hold more appeal to jazz traditionalists.

Bettye LaVette is claimed by both the Blues and R and B sides of the fence. I just categorize her as the headliner I most want to hear. Kelley Hunt, who in December will be performing with The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra, delivers solid Blues.

(In the ad replicating the festival poster in JAM magazine, both Bettye LaVette’s and Kelley Hunt’s names are misspelled. Let’s hope those typos didn’t make it to the final poster.)

And there’s the R-and-B-Band-Whose-Purpose-Is-To-Draw-A-Crowd: Con Funk Shun.

Last week I noted that in booking the Prairie Village Jazz Festival, a goal was to see it evolve and grow. I believe the goal, however modestly, was met. The renamed festival at 18th and Vine seems to have modestly grown as well. Two solid jazz headliners and two blues headliners expands on the one/one/one formula.

If it seems I sometimes whine about Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival, or show overt interest, it’s because my festival planning years leave me caring for the event. Yes, I’ve helped plan the jazz festival in Prairie Village. But the festival at 18th and Vine is the one bearing the most potential. It clearly has the bigger budget with the more broadly recognized acts. And it has been extraordinarily well organized and executed, minding the details which make a difference to the audience experience.

Kansas City doesn’t need a festival on the scale of Newport’s. Jammin’ at the Gem and the Folly Series and Jazz Winterlude and The Blue Room bring nationally recognized jazz talent to Kansas City throughout the year. But this city, one of a rare few where jazz was born, deserves a major jazz festival. And Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival is the event showing the greatest potential to grow into that event.

Curiously, though, the festival situated where jazz and blues were born in Kansas City seems convinced that acts with crossover appeal are needed to draw a crowd to the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the festival situated out in the suburbs is placing its faith in a day of music that can only be sold as jazz.

If I could make a suggestion to organizers at the American Jazz Museum: When booking this festival, have more faith in jazz.

And shorten the name.

Building a Festival

Successful events grab you through their personality.

A few years ago, a group of people, looking to benefit the community, founded the Prairie Village Jazz Festival. They considered a city-wide celebration, but the price of national jazz talent quickly convinced them to scale their plans to a community event, focusing on performers from or with distinct ties to Kansas City.

The second year of the event, I was asked to help. Last year and this year, the festival’s fourth, I’ve booked the talent.

This year’s schedule for Saturday, September 7th at Harmon Park, 7700 Mission Road in Prairie Village, Kansas – with free admission – looks like this:

3:00 – 3:50 p.m.  Andy McGhie Quintet
Andy McGhie, tenor saxophone, Hermon Mehari, trumpet, Andrew Ouelette, piano, Karl McComas-Reichl, bass, Ryan Lee, drums

4:10 – 5:00 p.m.  Parallax
Stan Kessler, trumpet, Roger Wilder, piano, Bill McKemy, bass, Ryan Lee and Brian Steever, drums

5:20 – 6:10 p.m.  Mutual Musicians Foundation All-Stars
Steve Lambert, tenor saxophone and flute, Mike Herrera, alto saxophone, Peter Schlamb, vibraphone, Chris Clarke, piano, Dominique Sanders, bass, Brad Williams, drums

6:30 – 7:20 p.m.  Everette DeVan – Chris Hazelton Quartet
Everette DeVan and Chris Hazelton, Hammond B3 organs, Matt Hopper, guitar, Danny Rojas, drums

7:40 – 8:40 p.m.  Marilyn Maye
Marilyn Maye, vocals, Tedd Firth, piano, Gerald Spaits, bass, Jim Eklof, drums

9:00 – 10:30 p.m.  Bobby Watson All-Star Big Band with Special Guest Jon Faddis
Bobby Watson, alto saxophone, Jon Faddis, trumpet, plus a big band

So just how is a festival like this booked? Out of all of the spectacular talent in Kansas City, how did these acts make the six-slot lineup?

For starters, festival acts need to be dynamic. We’re talking a large stage facing a hill seating thousands of people. Intimate jazz is wonderful in the right venue. A hill seating thousands of people is not the right venue.

Second, consider the audience: Families with picnic baskets out for a fun time. The music can’t be too esoteric, can’t require too much concentration to understand and appreciate. Few on that hill came to concentrate. Make the music accessible.

However, jazz in this city covers a broad range. It’s not the festival’s goal to force the full gamut down audience throats. But neither should this be a full day of swing because swing is accessible. Offer variety.

And grow the event. Last year’s festival was a terrific success, as fundraising coming a bit more easily this year attests. Businesses recognize the success and want to be associated with it. But we can’t offer the same package again. That’s stagnation. Within its parameters – within its personality – this festival needs to evolve into something more significant.

To my mind, that means a mix of established acts and acts unique to the festival. Because it’s through those unique acts that the event sees its greatest chance for growth.

Some acts I knew I wanted long ago. Last year I first heard Andy McGhie’s quintet, some KC’s best young jazz talent, playing bebop standards and originals. The way Andy and Hermon Mehari played off of and drove each other made for an amazing night at Take Five. I knew then that this was the group to open this year’s festival.

Parallax may be the most contemporary band of the day. But its two drums astound and should play extraordinarily well on a big outdoor stage. I realized that early this year.

Everette Devan - Chris Hazelton may be the swingingest group of the day. They were certainly the swingingest in January’s Jazz Winterlude. And dueling Hammond B3s ought to be another big outdoor stage delight. Another early in the year realization.

The festival president argued strongly for inclusion of a local singer he knew. The singer is good and I voiced no objections. Festival committee politics fills a slot.

Meanwhile, I struggled with finding the right headliners. All of you smooth jazz bands who have played the Jazz in the Woods and contacted me: Smooth is their schtick, not ours.

Then in early April, I heard what was then billed as Bobby Watson’s 18th and Vine Big Band at The Blue Room. This was the big band Bobby assembled for a pair of February Kansas City Symphony pops concerts. The personnel were a who’s who of Kansas City jazz in 2013. That night, I asked Bobby if he could assemble the band again for the Prairie Village Jazz Festival in September. Yes, he could. Now take this a step further. If you could feature any guest you wanted with the band, within reason, who would it be?

A couple weeks later the answer came back: Jon Faddis will do it.

This was what I was looking for. With Jon Faddis, one of the most respected names in jazz performing with Bobby and his big band, we keep the KC connection the festival committee wants. And we feature something unique. Sure, this isn’t going to draw the New York literati. But if you want to hear two jazz greats, Bobby Watson and Jon Faddis, perform together backed by an all-star big band, you must be in Prairie Village, Kansas on September 7th.

That left one open slot. To my surprise, fundraising was proceeding well enough to consider another headline-level name. I’d been thinking Marilyn Maye from the start. She was available and wanted to do it. Done.

Then not done. We found the singer festival committee politics selected wasn’t actually available that day. Once more, one more slot needed filling. This was an opening between the days’s most contemporary and swingingest groups. I needed music to bridge that contrast. I considered four groups and offered it to one. They weren’t available.

After some thought, I phoned a board member at the Mutual Musicians Foundation. How about bringing a Foundation jam to Prairie Village? How about a group with some of the best musicians jamming 18th and Highland on a Friday or Saturday night? Quickly, the band came together. Musically, it fits the slot. And it’s one more group unique to this festival.

The schedule is finalized. Contracts are signed. Goals were set and I hope they’re met. On September 7th, we’ll find out.

We’ll find out whether the 2013 Prairie Village Jazz Festival grabs you through its personality.

Big Bands Live

I saw at least two guests carrying oxygen tanks, so wisecrack about the age of the audience if you must. But when I heard that The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra (KCJO) April Tribute to Benny Goodman concert netted nearly $120,000 – largely through donations given in support of the event – my respect didn’t just grow. It jumped somersaults.

All but one number at KCJO’s tribute concert was played by Goodman’s band in 1938 (though solos that night sprinkled in more contemporary phrasing).

Last Saturday night, a new big band born to recreate KC jazz as it was heard way back then, played its second gig. Kent Rausch’s Vine Street Rumble is orchestrated not like a contemporary big band, but the way big bands were built in KC in the ’20s and ’30s: four sax, four or five brass, and four rhythm. Genuine orchestration to produce the genuine jazz. When Vine Street Rumble plays, you can hear 1930s KC sounds in 2013.

Another Kansas City big band also draws its orchestration from KC’s jazz origins, but this one couldn’t sound more different. The People’s Liberation Big Band of Greater Kansas City (PLBB) celebrated its fifth anniversary at the Record Bar last Sunday, of playing original – and quite contemporary – compositions bounced with a whimsical flair. PLBB is built on a preference for the less brassy 1930s KC four/four/four orchestration. But when the People’s Liberation Big Band plays, you hear that orchestration through a 2013 blender.

One all new KC big band premiered last Wednesday. The Mutual Musicians Foundation has been home to this music for over 80 years, but recently not so much to a big band. Not until last week, anyway, when the Foundation 627 Big Band (or is it the Mutual Musicians Foundation Big Band? I’ve seen both names) swung charts ranging from Basie to originals. Missed it? I see the band is booked for August 1st at Green Lady Lounge.

Last Tuesday night you could have heard Clint Ashlock’s New Jazz Order Big Band (actually, you can hear Clint in a bunch of these big bands. That’s a good thing). This band plays a longstanding gig most weeks at Harling’s (though word is that come September they scootch over to the Green Lady for the Tuesday shows). This band’s book places it squarely between KCJO and PLBB.

Bobby Watson assembled a big band to play a pair of pops concerts with the Kansas City Symphony. From veterans to exceptional youth, this is a band of genuine 2013 Kansas City jazz all-stars. Bobby assembled them again for a show at The Blue Room a few months back. And I have inside info that they they’re coming together once more, with a special guest, for the finale of a September jazz festival.

Kansas City also is home the the New Vintage Big Band, and the Louis Neal Big Band, and the Abel Ramirez Big Band. And there may well be some that I missed.

Big bands are alive and, from all appearances, quite well in Kansas City.

So what’s going on? Weren’t big bands and their music supposed to be dead by now? Didn’t their days of commercial viability end with World War II?

For starters, nobody told the musicians. Some enjoy composing for various big band voicings. The People’s Liberation Big Band of Greater Kansas City, five years after taking up monthly residence in the Record Bar, boasts a book of over fifty original compositions. These compositions have grown the big band sound into 21st century sensibilities.

And many musicians enjoy playing big bands and their charts. With the extraordinary wealth of jazz talent calling Kansas City home, we have the musicians today to populate nine (or more, if I missed any) big bands playing a broad range of music.

Well, then, what about these bands specializing in the Basie and Goodman sound? Didn’t those bandleaders die decades ago?

They did. And they left behind classic American music that parts of the public still enjoy. Our blogging colleague, Plastic Sax, has posited on the pending death of swing. Perhaps eventually he’ll be right. Yet the fact is, in 2013, while it’s not sharing any stages with hip-hop, there’s enough people who still enjoy this music to keep an audience in front of big bands playing it.

A few years ago, The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra stood at the precipice of survival. I managed it for a few months then, and will claim no credit for pulling the group back from that ledge. But a move to the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts brought the orchestra increased respect and recognition, and put more people in seats.

So what if KCJO’s Kauffman Center seats are largely filled with the less spritely. There will always be less spritely people. Many, with money to support this art.

Repost: Race, On Independence Day

A busy weekend allowed little time to write about Kansas City or jazz. So today, I offer a repost, from Independence Day week two years ago.

*****

The great jazz and rhythm and blues singer and Kansas City native Priscilla Bowman is buried in a cemetery adjacent to the Quindaro ruins. Her grave sits at the crest of a hill, under the shade of a large tree. It’s an appropriately beautiful setting for someone whose singing brought joy to so many of us.

I saw the gravesite some years ago while on a guided tour of the Quindaro ruins which, with permission of the nearby Allen AME Church, included the cemetery.

(If you don’t know, Quindaro was established in the mid-1850s as a town for slaves escaping across the Missouri river, from current day Parkville, to find help and a route to freedom on the underground railroad. The town’s ruins, today within Kansas City, Kansas, were uncovered in the 1980s.)

Priscilla Bowman’s gravesite is one of the few properly identified in these burial grounds, one of the few anchored by a marker. Most of the grounds are littered with the stumps, if that, of the tombstones which once filled the cemetery. The tour guide said that in the 1950s and 1960s, police or sheriff’s deputies (I don’t now remember which) used the tombstones for target practice, firing bullets at them until none remained.

I cannot imagine the feeling of knowing your mother’s or grandmother’s gravesite was desecrated, and her tombstone destroyed, by authorities using it for target practice.

People, of course, are shaped by experiences common to their community. And sometimes others of us cannot understand those experiences, because we know no comparable frame of reference.

Differences were unspoken but prominent when I first encountered Kansas City’s jazz community in the 1980s. Back then, if you stepped into the historic Mutual Musicians Foundation on a Saturday afternoon – and often, I did – you would find many of the musicians who created Kansas City jazz in the 1930s. But, while you were welcome in the landmark, you understood that you were walking into the elderly musicians’ domain. You were walking into the gathering place of supremely talented people who, throughout their career, had been personally banned from certain hotels and restaurants and public water fountains.

You knew you were walking into an institution which existed because, until the mid-1960s, Kansas City had separate unions for black musicians and white musicians. And you were walking in there less than twenty years after those unions merged.

We sensitive, liberal youth responded naively. The Kansas City Jazz Festival was staged in Volker Park because that was a universally accepted location, where most people would go, near both the Country Club Plaza and the city’s black community/white community dividing line – even more decisively so then – of Troost Ave. We consciously scheduled a balance between numbers of black and white musicians on the festival stage. We envisioned a common gathering place and a common reason to celebrate – jazz! – bringing Kansas City together. In the end, we contributed no particular good but created no harm.

In 1989, Sprint was the festival’s title sponsor and chose to produce a CD of Kansas City jazz, entirely local musicians. When a representative of the company faxed to me the list of groups their producer planned to include, I faxed back that there was a predominance of white musicians and that could cause them problems within the jazz community. As a result, Eddie Baker’s New Breed Orchestra was added.

During my festival years, I succeeded at persuading big corporations to react naively, too.

Today, I can't help but note the preponderance of white musicians playing Kansas City jazz. I shouldn’t note it, but I can’t shake instincts and sensitivities built on past experience.

Jazz is, after all, a music which grew from black experiences. In Kansas City, during years of prohibition and overt racism (Count Basie once described Kansas City as “a cracker town, but a happy town”), jazz provided a living and a route to national recognition for talented musicians in a tight community. Performers from throughout the Southwest flocked to Kansas City for the opportunities available here. In certain, less obvious and more modern ways, maybe 18th and Vine of the 1920s and 1930s was a Quindaro of its day.

When I question some of Kansas City’s young jazz musicians today on whether race is an issue for them, I might as well be asking if they’ve visited Mars. I’ve received odd looks that the question should be raised. It’s not an issue.

What a perfect response.

Yet, I know of pockets of insular attitudes within Kansas City's jazz community, mostly among some who personally experienced or whose parents personally experienced the worst of exclusion. Some people in the community have told me they’ve tired of encountering these attitudes. But I greet them with respect.

Because I cannot imagine the feeling of knowing your mother’s or grandmother’s tombstone was destroyed by authorities using it for target practice.

In Lieu of 1000 Words: Trumpet Summit at The Blue Room

The show started at 8:30. That's when I walked in, give or take a few minutes. I was about to hand over the $10 cover charge when the ticket seller warned me, “It’s standing room only.” I thought a moment then gave her my money, adding, “Good. I’m glad that room is packed.” The ticket seller laughed (then she found me an open seat on the floor. It pays to be a regular and make the ticket seller laugh).

The Blue Room remained standing room only through the second set last Saturday night. Because Kansas City still knows a great jazz show when we hear one.

Trumpet Summit is a spectacular mix of KC jazz veterans and youth. With a front line of Mike Metheny, Stan Kessler and Hermon Mehari, you start with three of the best trumpet (and flugelhorn and EVI) players anywhere. Add a rhythm section of Gerald Spaits on bass, T.J. Martley on piano and Brian Steever on drums, and you have one of the most talented jazz ensembles anywhere.

Hearing the ensemble’s take on compositions ranging from Gil Evans to Thad Jones, and from originals to the blues (with an especially wild version of The Chicken Shack), it’s easy to understand why the audience stayed.  Between magnificent solos and the masterfully arranged blending of two and three horns (which, as Stan noted, isn’t easy; you don’t want it sounding like the Tijuana Brass), this Trumpet Summit is brass at its best.

If you missed the group, you can catch them at their CD release party in September at Take Five. And you can see below a sampling of how Saturday night looked (as always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it).

Trumpet Summit. Left to right: T.J. Martley , Stan Kessler, Gerald Spaits, Brian Steever, Hermon Mehari, Mike Metheny

Stan Kessler on trumpet while Hermon Mehari listens

Mike Metheny

Hermon Mehari on trumpet while Mike listens

The rhythm section: T.J. Martley, Gerald Spaits and Brian Steever

Gerald Spaits on bass

T.J. Martley on piano

Brian Steever on drums

The front line: Stan Kessler, Hermon Mehari and Mike Metheny

Stan Kessler

Hermon watches while Mike solos on EVI (Electronic Valve Instrument)

Hermon Mehari

T.J. takes a solo

Stan and Hermon

Because I See the Potential

The 1984 Kansas City Jazz Festival lost $128,000.

A show at Starlight Theater with Sarah Vaughan and Ray Charles drew a fraction of the audience that Ella Fitzgerald and George Benson attracted there the year before. Then rains scattered the crowd at Volker Park on September 2nd, at the festival’s big outdoor finale, leaving a meager crowd for the delayed conclusion of Joe Williams with the Duke Ellington Orchestra conducted by Mercer Ellington.

Leaders of the event negotiated with vendors and slowly repaid the debt. In 1989, the last of it was paid off.

That, coincidentally, was the year I served as festival president, and the year Pat Metheny’s performance succumbed to storms.

I was delighted to turn over a debt-free festival to the organization’s next president. But rains do more than spoil a year of planning. They illustrate to sponsors the risk inherent with their support and lay out vividly that the recognition expected by association with a successful outdoor festival can be washed away faster than you can say Bryan Busby.

A successful event breeds more and more generous donors. I’m seeing it this year with the Prairie Village Jazz Festival. A rainout makes the arduous art of fundraising even more grueling. I saw it after the 1984 and 1989 Kansas City Jazz Festivals and after the 2011 Prairie Village fest.

So I understand the risks. I recognize the obstacles.

And I see the potential.

I chaired the Kansas City Jazz Commission from 1987 into 1989. Different members of the City Council approached me with different agendas: An international jazz hall of fame. Convert the KCMO tower (at 31st and McGee) into a giant saxophone, to rival the St. Louis arch. And, from more than one, combine this city’s multiple jazz festivals – at the time, we hosted the Kansas City Jazz Festival and the 18th and Vine Jazz and Heritage Festival – into one mega-jazz-fest to compete with New Orleans.

The desire has long simmered for this city to host a major celebration of our internationally-renowned heritage. Not one to compete with New Orleans. Recognize that some events are unique and beyond our reasonable reach. But something more grand than any of the relatively minor jazz celebrations that currently pepper this town.

Last week, I bemoaned the formula of the festival staged the last few years by the American Jazz Museum, and that it appears positioned not as an independent event but as a fundraiser for the Museum.

I understand the risks of breaking a successful, if uninspiring, formula. I recognize the obstacles organizers must face coming off a year devoured by rain.

And I point to it because I see the potential for that festival to grow into something grand.

Say it plainly: In Rhythm and Ribs, organizers have executed an outstanding event. They have outlined an excellent flow to the festival grounds, including performance spaces inside the museum. Likewise, there’s a flow to the schedule. The event hosts an overwhelmingly happy crowd. Vendors I spoke with two years ago were pleased (one I knew said demand exceeded his expectations). Details are where many such events go wrong, and here the details are exceptionally well managed. For example, look at the signage. It’s not hand-scribbled slop, but professionally produced placards. This may seem insignificant, but it makes a difference to the image projected.

Even last year, when rain rendered most of the festival grounds unusable, the staff coped, shoehorning crowds into the Gem Theater. Despite the storms, the festival went on. Two years ago, the Prairie Village Jazz Festival was called on account of rain. Likewise the second day of this year’s Corporate Woods Jazz Fest. Where Johnson County wimps out, 18th and Vine perseveres.

The American Jazz Museum has established the base of an extraordinary event. But it hurts not to see the festival grow beyond this base. It hurts knowing Kansas City deserves a major jazz festival, and seeing the start of one, but not yet seeing it grow beyond that start.

I’ve listed the plethora of jazz stars headlining the Newport Jazz Festival this August. As wonderful as it would be, Kansas City doesn’t need to match that. I suspect those three days in August are Newport’s lone gasp of jazz air for the year. We have the Folly and Jammin’ at the Gem jazz series. We have special guests visiting throughout the year, especially at The Blue Room. Kansas City’s jazz exposure isn’t limited to three days. We don’t need to equal Newport’s three days.

Yet we need to improve. The Museum cannot risk losing the kind of money The Kansas City Jazz Festival once lost. But the Museum’s festival nevertheless holds the potential to grow beyond a jazz name, a blues name, and some R-and-B group to draw a crowd.

Perhaps that’s happening.

Not officially announced, as far as I know, the festival known as Rhythm and Ribs is changing its name. The American Jazz Museum’s online newsletter (here) promotes early ticket sales for “Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival (formerly Rhythm and Ribs).”

The newsletter doesn’t actually give us the date of the event, but Ticketmaster (here) is selling tickets for “Kansas City’s 2013 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival” starting at 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 12th.

Does the name change portend a shift in focus? In the wake of a rain-damaged year, has the festival retrenched, or is it building on its exquisitely executed potential?

I’m optimistic.

Because I see the potential.

Thor Hates Jazz

Apparently, Thor doesn’t like jazz.

Thor, of course, is the Norse god of thunder (and, outside of Marvel comics, of lightning and storms). Two years ago, Thor wiped clean the second Prairie Village Jazz Festival. Last year, he vented his rage on Rhythm and Ribs. And this past weekend he decided one day of smooth jazz in Corporate Woods was quite enough, as an afternoon storm tore through and cancelled Saturday evening’s Jazz in the Woods.

I know how it feels. I helped on the Prairie Village festival that Thor decimated (though the event returned last year and plans are proceeding for a fourth festival this year). And I was president of The Kansas City Jazz Festival in 1989 when Thor looked down on a packed Volker Park, Brush Creek Boulevard jammed with cars, and nevertheless decided to pummel the grounds with torrid rains and force cancellation of The Pat Metheny Group.

There was no Norse god of music. Too bad. Thor could use a little culture, and someone to tell him to back off of our festivals.

At least Jazz in the Woods managed one night of celebration. Its soft music focus is not my cup of jazz tea. I’m programming this year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival. You’ll find a sampling of my type of tea when contracts are finalized and that lineup is announced.

But give Jazz in the Woods, the Corporate Woods Jazz Festival, credit for 24 continuous years as a free outdoor jazz festival. Its organizers have built a successful event that, in recent years, has typically attracted tens of thousands of people with blankets and lawn chairs to hear music and, by purchasing concessions, raise thousands of dollars for local charities.

The Corporate Woods Jazz Festival was started by a pair of refugees from the rained-out 1989 Kansas City Jazz Festival I presided over. Two board of directors members of my Thor-shortened event did not like the person who took over as president of the Volker Park festival in 1990 and fled to Johnson County to start a new jazz festival.

In 1990, the Kansas City area hosted The Kansas City Jazz Festival, The 18th and Vine Jazz and Heritage Festival, and the Corporate Woods Jazz Festival. Today, only the Corporate Woods event survives.

My friends turned over organization of the festival to a civic group. I’ll cite that as proof that the success and continuation of a jazz festival is not dependent on jazz fans. The success and continuation of a jazz festival requires civic support and involvement.

And some way to keep Thor appeased.

*****

This past weekend’s Jazz in the Woods and the Coleman Hawkins Jazz Festival up north in St. Joseph, Missouri, starring a plethora of Kansas City’s best jazz ensembles, reminds us that festival season has arrived.

And it reminds us that Kansas City is not home to a major jazz festival.

Newport, in early August, hosts a major jazz festival. Among their 33 announced headliners: Wayne Shorter, Esperanza Spaulding, Natalie Cole, Chick Corea, Robert Glasper, Joshua Redman, Jim Hall with Julian Lage, Roy Haynes, Paquito D’Rivera, Marcus Miller, Terrance Blanchard.

Hopefully, Rhythm and Ribs will return, surviving last year’s storms. It’s an extraordinarily well produced festival. Organizers manage all of the details (except parking) extremely well, which is key to a wonderful experience for guests.

But this event seems content presenting an unimaginative formula of a mid-level jazz name, a mid-level blues name, then an R-and-B name to draw a crowd.

According the the American Jazz Museum’s 2012 audit report (downloadable from a link on the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation’s web site, from this page; click on View Financial Details to go to the audit links), the previous two Rhythm and Ribs turned a profit, the first in the festival’s history. I suppose that reduces any incentive to risk producing something more grand. And if, as the audit suggests (but does not spell out), that profit feeds the museum rather than seed the next fest, there will never be a base from which the festival could grow. If Rhythm and Ribs survives, it appears destined to live its life as a Jazz Museum fundraiser.

Having booked this year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival, I can predict a step up from last year’s event. And with solid support from the Prairie Village City Council and the community, there’s reason for optimism that this fest can continue to grow without resorting to the Woods’ soft jazz mush.

But this is still a six act, one day jazz festival in a Kansas City suburb, just two years removed from a near-death cancellation. Newport need harbor no fears that Prairie Village, Kansas is close to stealing its thunder.

Kansas City, this home to jazz with institutions and a tradition other cities can envy, sits mired in minor festivals.

Reviewing that Newport list, we’re the city deep with envy.

What It Is, What It Was

The last tour in this blog, a few weeks back, ended at the corner of 18th and Vine. So let’s pick up there. But this time, look down the south side of 18th Street, east from Vine. In this 1940s photo, Matlaw’s clothing store (owned and operated by a white Jewish family) ocupies the corner space in the Lincoln building. Gazing down 18th, you see the Gem Theater and the Boone Theater.

Today, Danny’s Big Easy holds the space once filled by Matlaw’s. The cars parked along the street are newer. Otherwise, the view is remarkably similar.

And here’s the other side of 18th street in 1940, across from the Gem Theater.

Today, this view is remarkably different. All of the pictured buildings and businesses have been replaced by The American Jazz Museum / Negro Leagues Museum complex. Today, new construction lines the north side of 18th Street in the Historic District.

On May 4, 1930, the members of Musicians Local 627 lined up in front of their new union hall at 1823 Highland Street. Standing with Bennie Moten’s orchestra is their pianist, Bill Basie, and singer Jimmy Rushing.

All of the musicians in the 1930 photo are gone. But the photo fills the wall when you walk into that building today, the Mutual Musicians Foundation, where their music lives. The houses at the right are gone. But the Rochester Hotel at the left was recently remodeled and reopened as The Rochester at Highland Place, apartments for seniors.

Across the street, at 1824 Highland, stood this single family home in 1940.

Today, the house has been beautifully remodeled as a duplex.

Next door in 1940, at 1826 Highland, stood this house.

Today, it still stands, recently remodeled for rental. Note that what was an empty lot south of it in 1940 today is filled with a modern apartment building.

The Magic Jazz Fairy Is Busy

It was tired. It was tired because it had been so busy. There were so many nights and shows to promote, and the information was, mostly, readily available. So, yes, it was tired, but this was a good tired.

Think about it (not that you, personally, have any experiences you can directly relate to this). But flapping wings, especially large wings, to levitate a body then propel it quickly from jazz fan to jazz fan while they sleep, must expend considerable energy.

So imagine you’re the Magic Jazz Fairy. As we’ve established before, every city of any consequence has one. Because in so many cities – and heaven knows Kansas City nightspots of the past have been guilty of this – club owners fail to promote their jazz offerings and just expect audiences to show up because it’s jazz. And they can get away with that because they know there must be a Magic Jazz Fairy who flies to every jazz fan while we sleep telling us when and where jazz can be heard, so we wake up knowing, just knowing, so it clearly cannot be the club owner’s fault if nobody shows up.

And Kansas City recently has seen – of course nobody is pretending this is New York or Chicago or L.A., but for Kansas City – an exceptional story to tell. Jazz every night of the week. Sundays Mark Lowrey jams at The Majestic while Bram Wijnands followed by another show swings Green Lady Lounge, and some Sundays add a band at Take Five. Mondays mean a jam or big band at The Blue Room and Millie Edwards at The Phoenix. Tuesdays are Everett DeVan’s turn to jam at The Phoenix, Hermon Mehari’s at The Majestic, and someone different each week at Green Lady. Green Lady keeps jumpin’ on Wednesdays. By Thursday, you can add the Kill Devil Club and The Blue Room back to the list. And on Friday and Saturday, Take Five and everybody else kicks in, some clubs spotlighting a couple shows each night, plus the Mutual Musicians Foundation jamming all night.

And these aren’t trivial performances. Drum star Winard Harper visits KC this month. Trumpet Summit – Mike Metheny, Stan Kessler and Hermon Mehari, all at once – perform this month, too. And Matt Otto's quintet. And Sons of Brazil. And Book of Gaia.

Not only that, the Magic Jazz Fairy smiled, but each of the clubs maintains an online calendar, and maintains it reasonably well.

Now throw in special evenings of more eclectic jazz at Grünauer (Fado Novato, Snuff Jazz) or The Record Bar (People’s Liberation Big Band), occasional nights at Louie’s Wine Dive, and hotel bars here and there, and Kansas City’s Magic Jazz Fairy has suddenly found itself with plenty to stay on top of.

It’s the situation every Magic Jazz Fairy craves: Lots of jazz to whisper to sleeping fans and, whether through online calendars or notices on Facebook, shows reasonably easy to discover.

Stopping a moment from its frantic rounds, the Magic Jazz Fairy took a breath to note Kansas City jazz today was lively but peaceful. An uncommon stability has seemed to settle over the scene. No faction of the jazz community, as far as this Fairy could tell, was battling another. No club was threatening to go out of business. New performance spaces were dipping their toes into the jazz-related waters. The Pitch has even started promoting a jazz show a week (the name writing that new piece seemed awfully familiar, but the Magic Jazz Fairy couldn’t quite place it).

There was no sniff of friction in the air.

In fact, the local music festival to cancel itself was Kanrockas, an oddly-named event which one organizer described as targeting “three genres: electronic/DJ, hip-hop, and about 55 to 60 percent of the lineup will focus on alternative rock.” Gee, the Magic Jazz Fairy wryly contemplated, if that had been a jazz festival in Kansas City going under, commentators would be wetting themselves to morbidly declare jazz is dead. Surely the same standards apply here. Surely this event bucket-kicking must mean electronic/DJ, hip-hop and alternative rock are dead. Surely those commentators don’t hold the mortality of jazz to a different standard.

The Magic Jazz Fairy giggled with sarcasm. Oh well, it smiled, those commentators must have missed the article in the newspaper.

The winged being turned its attention back to jazz. It understood the scene holds room for improvement. Jazz will never again thrive here as it did in the 1930s, of course. But Kansas City could support a jazz supper club, as do Denver and Seattle. And this city’s heritage demands a major festival to compliment or supplement the pair of not-so-major events the metropolitan area currently hosts each fall.

But, the Magic Jazz Fairy mused, young talent continues to emerge. And Kansas City supports a culture of jazz greater than other communities its size.

It stopped on a rooftop and pulled those large wings back for a moment’s rest. It broke out a cigar. Striking a match on the roof, it lit the cigar then puffed then sighed.

This wasn’t always the case. But being Kansas City’s Magic Jazz Fairy these days, it realized, was not a bad gig.

The Pla-Mor

It was torn down in 1972.

Before that, it was a rock concert hall. The Who performed there.

Before that, it was the seventh largest bowling alley in America.

But before that it was the Pla-Mor Ballroom, opened on Thanksgiving, 1927 to over 4000 patrons. The Kansas City Times raved:

“Entrance was under a brilliant electric sign. Once past the door, wall decorations of freehand painting attracted attention. Rich carpet gave an impression of luxuriousness. Up a flight of steps and down a hall past the women’s cloak room the eye followed vivid hunting and jungle scenes of the modern motif. Velour tapestries were admired particularly by the women. In the two women’s rest rooms imported Italian furniture was another feature. The ball room and mezzanine were decorated in a more strictly patterned manner. Here the lighting brilliance demanded the first and lasting attention. Ceiling fixtures of beaded glass chains suspended bowl-shaped, with variable colors glowing through them, vied with tinted lamps casting full and toned colors across the floor from the walls.”

The Pla-Mor Ballroom, 3142 Main, 1930s

On the northwest corner of Linwood and Main (3142 Main Street was the official address), the Pla-Mor complex claimed to be the country’s largest indoor amusement center, with a bowling alley, a restaurant, and a hockey arena, home to the Kansas City Pla-Mors of the American Hockey Association from 1928 through 1933. But the star attraction was the ballroom, which boasted a 14,000 square foot dance floor on top of 7000 springs that could flex up to a quarter inch, accommodating 3000 people.

It was the Pla-Mor that brought Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy to Kansas City. Kirk, in his autobiography, Twenty Years on Wheels, recounted:

“George [E. Lee] and the band stopped in Tulsa to see us….

“Later that evening George said to me, ‘By the way, Cab Calloway is breaking it up at El Torreon Ballroom in Kansas City. That’s the Pla-Mor’s rival.’ At that point, those ballroom names meant nothing to me, so I just said, ‘Oh,’ and he went on, ‘The Pla-Mor’s manager, Bennett Stydham, is looking for an out-of-town band to give Cab some competition. He doesn’t want us. He wants new faces. Why don’t you give him a call? No, better still, I’ll call him myself.’

“The next night Stydham drove the 360-odd miles from Kansas City to Tulsa to hear us. In a day or two, we had our contract. Thanks to George E. Lee, the Pla-Mor was about to have new faces. We didn’t even know what a plum we’d picked off the 1929 Boom Tree when we rolled into Kansas City that hot June day, the first out-of-town colored band to play the Pla-Mor. We were replacing Chick Scoggins, the Play-Mor’s White house band….

“We went into the Pla-Mor…that first night excited, a little nervous, but ready to give Cab at the El Torreon a real battle. There was just one hitch. We got the news that Cab had already left. We were alone on the battlefield. We went into our theme, You Can Take It From Me, with feeling.

“Stydham came up on the stand and introduced us to the dancers: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy. We brought them in from Oklahoma where everybody loves them. We know you’ll love them, too. Let’s welcome Andy Kirk and the band!’ They did. And every Cloud’s face that I could see from behind my sousaphone had a big grin….

“Only Whites could come to dance and attend sports events at the Pla-Mor, which was a regular entertainment complex with an arena for hockey besides the ballroom. The Clouds always got passes to the hockey games. We were the only Blacks in the audience, of course, and we got plenty of stares and looks until word was passed around that it was OK. we were the band. Then everybody forgot all about us and watched the game….

“For cooling the ballroom in those pre-air-conditioning days we had to depend on fans. They were the ceiling type with those great big blades that looked like airplane propellers….

“For the first time we could all belong to the same local musicians’ union. Up till this time we had all belonged to various segregated locals. But we resigned from them and joined local 627, the Kansas City black local. We became officially known as a Kansas City orchestra….

Inside the Pla-Mor Ballroom

“There were good music kicks right at the Pla-Mor, when bands like McKinney’s Cotton Pickers or Fletcher Henderson shared the stand with us…. At the Pla-Mor Fletcher Henderson was the band that really opened our ears. When they came in to guest for a night, the Clouds of Joy stood around the bandstand just like the customers, soaking up the sound….”

The Pla-Mor drew unwanted attention to Kansas City when, on Christmas weekend of 1945, the segregated ballroom threw out Cab Calloway, visiting to see Lionel Hampton’s band on Hampton’s invitation, because he was Black. Calloway was struck with the butt of a gun, requiring eight stitches in his scalp. Hampton, hearing about the incident, refused to play his second set and the Pla-Mor refunded angry dancers who paid $1.50 a ticket. The complete story is recounted in a Kansas City Star article here.

Post World War II moves to the suburbs by patrons precipitated the Pla-Mor’s decline. It closed in 1957 then was reborn as one of the country’s largest bowling alleys. That closed in 1966. From 1970 to 1972 it reopened as Freedom Palace, a rock concert hall. That operation moved to Cowtown Ballroom, which was a rock hall converion of the El Torreon ballroom at 31st and Gillham (still standing), the Pla-Mor’s one time arch-competitor. The Pla-Mor was demolished on March 31, 1972.

Today, the site is a car lot for Conklin Fangman Cadillac GMC Buick.