It didn’t seem dumb at the time.
1987, and the Kansas City Jazz Commission was all over the news. Its former treasurer was charged with stealing $6400 in city money from the Commission. The City Auditor was auditing it.
I was the treasurer who succeeded the accused treasurer, not knowing when I volunteered what had gone on before me. But I learned the details, quickly.
So when the second chairman resigned from the Commission in the space of a couple months, and the executive director announced he would leave, I was the person remaining who knew most about what was putting the Jazz Commission on the front page. In my mind, I was the most logical choice to volunteer to be the next chairman.
So, with the encouragement of other Commission members, I wrote a letter to the mayor asking to be named chairman of the Kansas City Jazz Commission. It was delivered to the Mayor’s Office by the outgoing executive director with the message that the Commission supported this appointment.
Problem was, mayors typically don’t appoint as chairmen people they don’t know and, in my case, had never even met. The mayor (or his staff) contacted Commission members he did know and trust. They vouched for me. I was appointed the new chairman.
Good people – very good people – stepped forward to take the positions of vice chairman, treasurer, secretary, and advisory members, rebuilding the executive committee which would run the Jazz Commission.
*****
The City Auditor’s work was complete. The new vice chairman, treasurer, secretary and I were called in to meet with the auditor in his City Hall office, to receive a copy of the audit, and to discuss it with him prior to its release to the City Council.
Before the Jazz Commission, I didn’t even know the city had an auditor. I lived north of The Plaza but worked at a small graphic arts studio in Johnson County. Our new vice chairman was a photographer. Our treasurer worked in advertising. Our secretary had been active in civic affairs.
There we sat, mostly novices, as the City Auditor described to us the procedures lacking in the Jazz Commission’s operations, the records not found, the recommendations being made. This audit would be released to the City Council next week. It would be helpful if, in his presentation to the Council, the City Auditor could say we agreed to implement his recommendations. We did.
I took a copy of the audit. A copy would go to the the Mayor’s Office. Another copy would go to the chairman of the City Council committee which would receive it. The City Auditor’s office, of course, kept copies.
The next day the audit was leaked to The Kansas City Star. An article appeared on the front page. I didn’t know who leaked it.
At that time, Kansas City had both a morning newspaper, The Kansas City Times, and an evening newspaper, The Kansas City Star. While both were owned by The Star and shared the building at 18th and Grand, reporters for each newspaper competed. Both newspapers had a reporter covering City Hall. On this story, the reporter for The Star (who still writes for the newspaper) scooped the reporter for The Times.
The reporter for The Star found someone happy to jab another knife into the Jazz Commission’s already bleeding back, and see the audit in the press before we had an opportunity to prepare a response.
Coincidentally, the reporter for The Times covering the story lived in the same apartment complex as I did. Months later, after all the turmoil over the Jazz Commission subsided, the Times reporter was sitting out by the pool one weekend afternoon when I walked by. I stopped and we chatted. There were no hard feelings. He was a nice guy doing his job.
“Let me ask you,” he said, “because it’s bothered me. Did you leak the audit?”
No, it wasn’t me, I told him. I wasn’t anxious to see it in the newspaper. I’d wondered myself who leaked it.
“I didn’t think you had,” the reporter said. “But if it wasn’t you, who was it?”
We talked through who had copies. The City Auditor’s office, he said, never leaked reports. The chairman of the City Council committee receiving the report was not friendly with reporters, he said, so it wasn’t him. I didn't leak it. That left the Mayor’s Office.
I had been warned that the mayor’s assistant did not like the Jazz Commission. I never knew why. But I had been told that the individual had tried to undermine the Commission before.
The reporter and I looked at each other. That was it. An aide in the Mayor’s Office had leaked the audit report to The Star.
*****
Some of the City Council members on the committee controlling budget matters discussed Jazz Commission funding among themselves.
That funding was important to the Commission. Not only was it seed money that donors looked on favorably in deciding whether to give us grants, it largely paid for our executive director. Without that money, it would be difficult to hire a new executive director. We’d have nobody in the office to answer the phone, to write grant proposals, to plan pub crawls.
Never mentioned in the press but disclosed to me was that the chairman of the Council’s budget committee had devised a plan to give the Jazz Commission’s funding to another community group which happened to be a law client of another member of the budget committee. He assumed that gave him at least two votes on his four member committee to end funding for the Jazz Commission.
An unfavorable audit and our former treasurer going to court didn’t help.
We had problems.
More next month, in another blog post.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Commission Tales 1: Beginning of the End
I’m not going to mention the individual’s name, because this person satisfied the court order, repaid what was stolen, and the incident was expunged from their record. And this person is still active in the music community.
The Star wrote about it extensively at the time – I have some good stories about those stories, too – but they predate the record currently available online. No doubt, some people around at the time will remember who it is. But you will get no confirmation from me.
Still, if I was in a position to hire musicians, this is one – who I’ve actually never met – that I would not hire because of what they put me through. I’m not bitter, but I remember.
It was a helluva way to take over a Jazz Commission.
*****
I was active with the jazz festival first. The festival had its own issues, and its other officers held little interest in the Jazz Commission, even though the Commission’s board officially included a seat for the festival. So, when I expressed interest in that seat, nobody objected, and I was appointed by the mayor to the Kansas City Jazz Commission.
Actually, I’m assuming that you know what the Kansas City Jazz Commission was. You may not. It was a city commission – like the Landmarks Commission, or the Arts Commission, or the TIF Commission – created in the 1980s to bring together the leaders of Kansas City’s then numerous jazz organizations to support jazz in Kansas City. At least, that was its altruistic goal. It was the goal I knew when I was appointed. I didn’t know about the other agendas.
The Jazz Commission was then, in the mid-1980s, a mostly lackadaisical group which, outside of its executive director, accomplished little. It was comprised of the leaders of other jazz organizations, most of whom were busy running their own groups, and some musicians and residents with historical ties (Bennie Moten’s daughter was one of the nicest and most supportive members during my years). And it was something of a dumping ground for friends of the mayor who wanted to be on a city commission. Few ever attended a meeting.
Some of the commission’s members were looking for leadership to guide the organization towards accomplishing something meaningful. But others just wanted to boast that they were on the Jazz Commission.
So when the Commission’s treasurer resigned, I volunteered to help. I had served as treasurer of the jazz festival. Nobody else volunteered. The chairman named me treasurer.
Then I found out that the last treasurer resigned because the individual was being investigated for stealing city money from the Jazz Commission. That was interesting to hear.
Then the Commission made news stories in The Kansas City Star and The Kansas City Times (we had a morning and an evening newspaper then). A former member, someone who left the Commission before I joined, stood before a City Council committee to argue that the Jazz Commission should receive no city funding.
At the time, the Jazz Commission received $20,000 each year from the city budget. But this young attorney, whose brother was a local jazz musician, said the Commission was failing to create jobs for jazz musicians and should receive no city support.
There was one of those other agendas. The Jazz Commission was not created to create jobs. But this young attorney, apparently, decided it was and it didn’t so it shouldn’t be funded.
Then the county prosecutor charged the Jazz Commission’s former treasurer with stealing $6400 of city money from the Commission. That made the front page of The Star and The Times.
Then the Jazz Commission’s chairman resigned. We never knew the specific reasons. He never told anyone on the Commission. We found out when the Commission’s executive director was alerted by someone in the Mayor’s Office that they had received his letter of resignation.
A new chairman was appointed.
Then the City Auditor announced that, in light of the prosecution of the former treasurer, his office would audit the Jazz Commission.
The young attorney testified again before a City Council committee that the Jazz Commission was dysfunctional and should not be funded. Nobody from the Jazz Commission showed up to defend it. A city councilman on the committee angrily asked why nobody from the Commission showed (Answer: Nobody left on the Commission was politically adept enough to know that we should).
Then the executive director gave notice that he was taking a job with a radio station in California.
Then the new chairman, deciding this was too much for him, submitted his letter or resignation to the Mayor’s Office. At least this chairman talked with other Commission members first.
So there, in mid-1987, stood the Kansas City Jazz Commission: Needing its third chairman in three months, a spry young attorney lobbying the City Council to deny it funds, its executive director leaving, its former treasurer charged with stealing $6400 of city money from it, and being audited by the City Auditor.
Only a total idiot would volunteer to be chairman under those circumstances.
I volunteered to be chairman of the Kansas City Jazz Commission.
More, in another blog post.
The Star wrote about it extensively at the time – I have some good stories about those stories, too – but they predate the record currently available online. No doubt, some people around at the time will remember who it is. But you will get no confirmation from me.
Still, if I was in a position to hire musicians, this is one – who I’ve actually never met – that I would not hire because of what they put me through. I’m not bitter, but I remember.
It was a helluva way to take over a Jazz Commission.
*****
I was active with the jazz festival first. The festival had its own issues, and its other officers held little interest in the Jazz Commission, even though the Commission’s board officially included a seat for the festival. So, when I expressed interest in that seat, nobody objected, and I was appointed by the mayor to the Kansas City Jazz Commission.
Actually, I’m assuming that you know what the Kansas City Jazz Commission was. You may not. It was a city commission – like the Landmarks Commission, or the Arts Commission, or the TIF Commission – created in the 1980s to bring together the leaders of Kansas City’s then numerous jazz organizations to support jazz in Kansas City. At least, that was its altruistic goal. It was the goal I knew when I was appointed. I didn’t know about the other agendas.
The Jazz Commission was then, in the mid-1980s, a mostly lackadaisical group which, outside of its executive director, accomplished little. It was comprised of the leaders of other jazz organizations, most of whom were busy running their own groups, and some musicians and residents with historical ties (Bennie Moten’s daughter was one of the nicest and most supportive members during my years). And it was something of a dumping ground for friends of the mayor who wanted to be on a city commission. Few ever attended a meeting.
Some of the commission’s members were looking for leadership to guide the organization towards accomplishing something meaningful. But others just wanted to boast that they were on the Jazz Commission.
So when the Commission’s treasurer resigned, I volunteered to help. I had served as treasurer of the jazz festival. Nobody else volunteered. The chairman named me treasurer.
Then I found out that the last treasurer resigned because the individual was being investigated for stealing city money from the Jazz Commission. That was interesting to hear.
Then the Commission made news stories in The Kansas City Star and The Kansas City Times (we had a morning and an evening newspaper then). A former member, someone who left the Commission before I joined, stood before a City Council committee to argue that the Jazz Commission should receive no city funding.
At the time, the Jazz Commission received $20,000 each year from the city budget. But this young attorney, whose brother was a local jazz musician, said the Commission was failing to create jobs for jazz musicians and should receive no city support.
There was one of those other agendas. The Jazz Commission was not created to create jobs. But this young attorney, apparently, decided it was and it didn’t so it shouldn’t be funded.
Then the county prosecutor charged the Jazz Commission’s former treasurer with stealing $6400 of city money from the Commission. That made the front page of The Star and The Times.
Then the Jazz Commission’s chairman resigned. We never knew the specific reasons. He never told anyone on the Commission. We found out when the Commission’s executive director was alerted by someone in the Mayor’s Office that they had received his letter of resignation.
A new chairman was appointed.
Then the City Auditor announced that, in light of the prosecution of the former treasurer, his office would audit the Jazz Commission.
The young attorney testified again before a City Council committee that the Jazz Commission was dysfunctional and should not be funded. Nobody from the Jazz Commission showed up to defend it. A city councilman on the committee angrily asked why nobody from the Commission showed (Answer: Nobody left on the Commission was politically adept enough to know that we should).
Then the executive director gave notice that he was taking a job with a radio station in California.
Then the new chairman, deciding this was too much for him, submitted his letter or resignation to the Mayor’s Office. At least this chairman talked with other Commission members first.
So there, in mid-1987, stood the Kansas City Jazz Commission: Needing its third chairman in three months, a spry young attorney lobbying the City Council to deny it funds, its executive director leaving, its former treasurer charged with stealing $6400 of city money from it, and being audited by the City Auditor.
Only a total idiot would volunteer to be chairman under those circumstances.
I volunteered to be chairman of the Kansas City Jazz Commission.
More, in another blog post.
Monday, April 11, 2011
A Portrait of the Foundation Last Saturday Night
Around 3:45 a.m., they temporarily stopped letting people go upstairs. Too many guests were already up there.
Meanwhile, downstairs, the line of people snaked out the door. One man in a military uniform asked if he could get in free. No, he was told, this was the only means of income. Think of the cover charge as a donation. He did.
People wandered around downstairs, looking closely at the portraits of Kansas City jazz legends which line the walls. I prefer the ambiance downstairs.
“How do they do this?” one person asked, looking away from the wall, throwing the question out to anybody. “How can they stay open all night? Do they have a special permit?”
“The state of Missouri passed a special law just for this place,” I offered, from across the room. “This is a National Historic Landmark, after all.”
Upstairs, every seat was filled. People lined the back of the room and the thin aisles between tables. Most held a drink. Everyone I saw looked happy.
The crowd was diverse – black people, white people, Asian people – and enjoying each other’s company. I came alone and shared a table with strangers. But they weren’t strangers. We introduced ourselves. The other guests started asking questions.
“Do you come here often?”
“Not too often,” I answered. “At my age, I need an afternoon nap to stay out this late. But I’ve been coming here since the 1980s.”
“So who has played here?”
“Just about anyone associated with jazz. Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Mary Lou Williams, Big Joe Turner. In fact, I saw Big Joe Turner here.”
“You did?”
“Yes, downstairs. I was standing about an arm’s length away while he shouted the blues.”
People upstairs stood, bought a drink, apologized when they bumped into each other, then sat down to chat and to listen and to marvel.
Let’s be honest: This was a beautiful spring night. And at 3:45 a.m. on a weekend night in Kansas City, here and the casinos are the only places I know where you can (legally) enjoy entertainment and drink. Some people were here because they could be. Some just weren’t ready for bed yet on such a gorgeous night.
But some in the audience came for the jazz. The people I spoke with came to touch history. Here, it touches back.
On stage, a rhythm section anchored the Saturday night jam session (Sunday morning, actually; it started at 1 a.m.). They were joined by trumpet, trombone and tenor sax. There was solid experience, a veteran of Kansas City jazz, behind the piano. But on trumpet, Chalice is young and here regularly. I’ve heard him before, and before he sounded inexperienced. But tonight his sound is more controlled. He’s growing in mastery of his instrument. I’m not the only one who noticed.
Is this what Kansas Citians had the chance to hear 75 years ago, when a young Charlie Parker once squeaked his sax – in, among other places, this building – then gradually grew and mastered his instrument? Sure, we don’t know where any young player will end up. It’s improbable that I’m hearing the maturing of a future jazz great. I understand odds stand stacked against that.
But it’s possible. Because in this building, history touches back.
Downstairs, I chatted with Anita, who is in charge. I told her that after some recent turmoil on the Board here, I asked a friend, a musician, what was going on. My friend told me, “Don’t worry, Anita will take care of everything.” Anita laughed. My friend was right.
Outside, cars lined both sides of Highland Street, leaving a single lane on a two-way street. I stopped to chat with another friend. On the street, a car and a taxi approached from opposite directions and stopped, facing each other. Someone from the car, who maybe had a bit to drink, stepped out, flashing muscles (“he’s done steroids,” my friend decided) and yelled at then kicked the taxi. The taxi driver just talked on his cell phone. The car pulled to the side, between two parked cars, and the taxi passed. As it did, the driver of the car yelled at the taxi driver. The taxi driver continued to talk on his cell phone.
I walked down the street, smiling, to my car, then drove off for the night. I drove through the Crossroads district, seeing maybe two other cars on the road. The rest of Kansas City was asleep.
When I pulled out of my parking spot, on Highland, and drove off, I saw another car pull into the space. I saw two people step out.
As I drove up the ramp to I-35 from West Pennway, to head back home, I wondered if those two people had found their way upstairs yet.
— Last Saturday night at the Mutual Musicians Foundation.
Meanwhile, downstairs, the line of people snaked out the door. One man in a military uniform asked if he could get in free. No, he was told, this was the only means of income. Think of the cover charge as a donation. He did.
People wandered around downstairs, looking closely at the portraits of Kansas City jazz legends which line the walls. I prefer the ambiance downstairs.
“How do they do this?” one person asked, looking away from the wall, throwing the question out to anybody. “How can they stay open all night? Do they have a special permit?”
“The state of Missouri passed a special law just for this place,” I offered, from across the room. “This is a National Historic Landmark, after all.”
Upstairs, every seat was filled. People lined the back of the room and the thin aisles between tables. Most held a drink. Everyone I saw looked happy.
The crowd was diverse – black people, white people, Asian people – and enjoying each other’s company. I came alone and shared a table with strangers. But they weren’t strangers. We introduced ourselves. The other guests started asking questions.
“Do you come here often?”
“Not too often,” I answered. “At my age, I need an afternoon nap to stay out this late. But I’ve been coming here since the 1980s.”
“So who has played here?”
“Just about anyone associated with jazz. Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Mary Lou Williams, Big Joe Turner. In fact, I saw Big Joe Turner here.”
“You did?”
“Yes, downstairs. I was standing about an arm’s length away while he shouted the blues.”
People upstairs stood, bought a drink, apologized when they bumped into each other, then sat down to chat and to listen and to marvel.
Let’s be honest: This was a beautiful spring night. And at 3:45 a.m. on a weekend night in Kansas City, here and the casinos are the only places I know where you can (legally) enjoy entertainment and drink. Some people were here because they could be. Some just weren’t ready for bed yet on such a gorgeous night.
But some in the audience came for the jazz. The people I spoke with came to touch history. Here, it touches back.
On stage, a rhythm section anchored the Saturday night jam session (Sunday morning, actually; it started at 1 a.m.). They were joined by trumpet, trombone and tenor sax. There was solid experience, a veteran of Kansas City jazz, behind the piano. But on trumpet, Chalice is young and here regularly. I’ve heard him before, and before he sounded inexperienced. But tonight his sound is more controlled. He’s growing in mastery of his instrument. I’m not the only one who noticed.
Is this what Kansas Citians had the chance to hear 75 years ago, when a young Charlie Parker once squeaked his sax – in, among other places, this building – then gradually grew and mastered his instrument? Sure, we don’t know where any young player will end up. It’s improbable that I’m hearing the maturing of a future jazz great. I understand odds stand stacked against that.
But it’s possible. Because in this building, history touches back.
Downstairs, I chatted with Anita, who is in charge. I told her that after some recent turmoil on the Board here, I asked a friend, a musician, what was going on. My friend told me, “Don’t worry, Anita will take care of everything.” Anita laughed. My friend was right.
Outside, cars lined both sides of Highland Street, leaving a single lane on a two-way street. I stopped to chat with another friend. On the street, a car and a taxi approached from opposite directions and stopped, facing each other. Someone from the car, who maybe had a bit to drink, stepped out, flashing muscles (“he’s done steroids,” my friend decided) and yelled at then kicked the taxi. The taxi driver just talked on his cell phone. The car pulled to the side, between two parked cars, and the taxi passed. As it did, the driver of the car yelled at the taxi driver. The taxi driver continued to talk on his cell phone.
I walked down the street, smiling, to my car, then drove off for the night. I drove through the Crossroads district, seeing maybe two other cars on the road. The rest of Kansas City was asleep.
When I pulled out of my parking spot, on Highland, and drove off, I saw another car pull into the space. I saw two people step out.
As I drove up the ramp to I-35 from West Pennway, to head back home, I wondered if those two people had found their way upstairs yet.
— Last Saturday night at the Mutual Musicians Foundation.
Monday, April 4, 2011
The Blue Devils You Don't Know
Count Basie opens his autobiography recalling the first time he heard the Blue Devils and the impact they had on his music and his career.
Basie:
“…The Blue Devils was the first big band I ever had a chance to get close to and really listen to, and it was the greatest thing I had ever heard. I had never heard the blues played like that….”
Jimmy Rushing:
“Basie had come West with a show. He couldn’t play the blues then….
“They would balleyhoo in front of the show, take a band and play a number, and have fellows singing….
“ The first time [Basie] heard the Blue Devils, we were balleyhooing on a big truck in Kansas City. [In his autobiography, Basie says it was in Tulsa.] There was a lot of that in those days. Wherever you were working, you had to go out and balleyhoo for the place. Coming back from downtown, we struck up with a good blues. Basie heard this and thought it was a record, but somebody told him, ‘No, that’s the Blue Devils!’ He ran down and met all the fellows. Not long after, he…joined our band.”
One of most influential bands from the early days of Kansas City jazz was Walter Page’s Original Blue Devils. A territory band which spent winters in Kansas City but traveled the Midwest, some of the greatest names associated with KC jazz were once a Blue Devil.
Bassist Walter Page, who would anchor Count Basie’s orchestra, was there at the start, in 1923. Bill Basie joined in 1928. Other Blue Devils included saxophonist Buster Smith (joined in 1925, profiled here), singer Jimmy Rushing (1925), drummer and vocalist Ernie Williams (1925), trombonists Dan Minor (1927) and Eddie Durham (1928), trumpeter Oran “Hot Lips” Page (1928), and saxophonist Lester Young (1932).
Ernie Williams:
“The original Blue Devils was Billie King’s [Road Show, a 9-piece vaudeville troupe, started in Kansas City].”
Buster Smith:
“The first man that [led the band] was a fellow named Coleman, we called him Bucket. He was kind of hard to get along with and the boys fired him and turned it over to Walter Page….”
Page took over and renamed the band in 1925, then expanded it to 13 pieces.
Count Basie:
“… you could also hear the musicians addressing [Page] by his nickname, which was Big ‘Un. You could also tell right away that they didn’t just respect him because he was the boss; they really liked him and felt close to him because he was also one of them.”
Pianist and vocalist Sam Price:
“I remember hearing the Blue Devils [in the mid-1920s]. When the saxophones would be playing a riff, Jimmy Rushing would be singing and Lips [Page] would…play anything he wanted to…. He didn’t have to play with the [trumpet] section. He’d be up high, Rush’d be singing and the rhythm and the band’d be playing something else. It’d be fantastic.”
Count Basie:
“Everybody seemed to be having so much fun just being up there playing together…. There was such a team spirit among those guys, and it came out in the music, and as you stood there looking and listening you just couldn’t help wishing that you were a part of it. Everything about them really got to me….”
Pianist Jesse Stone:
“The biggest upset we ever had in our life…happened to be in Sioux City, Iowa…and it was a battle of the bands between Page and Jesse Stone. We got up there on the stand first because we were considered like a house band there. We played there regularly. Well, we started out with some of our light things, little ballads. And [the Blue Devils] hit right off the reel, wham, and they didn’t let up all night long. They had a tough band. They were just sharper, cleaner, more powerful, and they had more material….
“These guys, they were actually ragged. Their uniforms were tattered and they came in an old beat up…airport bus. It was about ready to cave in. We said, ‘It ain’t no problem.’ And they gave us the biggest shock of our whole career….”
Jimmy Rushing:
“The best band in Kansas City in those days was reckoned to be Bennie Moten’s. We battled all the bands around, but he avoided us until we caught him one night and tore him up.”
Buster Smith:
“We played a whole bunch of battles. We used to play rings around Bennie, because he wanted to play all them old tunes he made, and he’d stick with them a lot…. We had a better reed section than Bennie had…. We’d get off. We built the band around them solo things. We had Lips [Page] on trumpet over there and we had Dee Stewart…second trumpet. In other words, we tried to be a band that could just get off instead of just read music.”
Bennie Moten began to raid the Blue Devils for musicians. Basie left for Moten’s band in 1929, followed by Lips Page, Jimmy Rushing and Eddie Durham. Walter Page left and joined Moten in 1932. Buster Smith, Lester Young and Ernie Williams were still with the Blue Devils when the band fell apart in 1933 in Virginia. The last seven Blue Devils hoboed on trains to St. Louis. When Moten heard, he sent a car to pick up them up and hired all seven.
Count Basie:
“…As things worked out, hearing them that day was probably the most important turning point in my musical career so far as my notions about what kind of music I really wanted to try to play was concerned…. When I look back at just about every step I’ve taken since I ran into those guys that morning, I can see quite a lot to bear out the old saying, ‘Once a Blue Devil, always a Blue Devil.’”
*****
Quotes by Basie are from his autobiography, Good Morning Blues. Quotes by Jimmy Rushing are from the book, The World of Count Basie. All other quotes are from the book, Goin’ to Kansas City.
Basie:
“…The Blue Devils was the first big band I ever had a chance to get close to and really listen to, and it was the greatest thing I had ever heard. I had never heard the blues played like that….”
Jimmy Rushing:
“Basie had come West with a show. He couldn’t play the blues then….
“They would balleyhoo in front of the show, take a band and play a number, and have fellows singing….
“ The first time [Basie] heard the Blue Devils, we were balleyhooing on a big truck in Kansas City. [In his autobiography, Basie says it was in Tulsa.] There was a lot of that in those days. Wherever you were working, you had to go out and balleyhoo for the place. Coming back from downtown, we struck up with a good blues. Basie heard this and thought it was a record, but somebody told him, ‘No, that’s the Blue Devils!’ He ran down and met all the fellows. Not long after, he…joined our band.”
 |
| Walter Page's Blue Devils, 1932 |
Bassist Walter Page, who would anchor Count Basie’s orchestra, was there at the start, in 1923. Bill Basie joined in 1928. Other Blue Devils included saxophonist Buster Smith (joined in 1925, profiled here), singer Jimmy Rushing (1925), drummer and vocalist Ernie Williams (1925), trombonists Dan Minor (1927) and Eddie Durham (1928), trumpeter Oran “Hot Lips” Page (1928), and saxophonist Lester Young (1932).
Ernie Williams:
“The original Blue Devils was Billie King’s [Road Show, a 9-piece vaudeville troupe, started in Kansas City].”
Buster Smith:
“The first man that [led the band] was a fellow named Coleman, we called him Bucket. He was kind of hard to get along with and the boys fired him and turned it over to Walter Page….”
Page took over and renamed the band in 1925, then expanded it to 13 pieces.
Count Basie:
“… you could also hear the musicians addressing [Page] by his nickname, which was Big ‘Un. You could also tell right away that they didn’t just respect him because he was the boss; they really liked him and felt close to him because he was also one of them.”
Pianist and vocalist Sam Price:
“I remember hearing the Blue Devils [in the mid-1920s]. When the saxophones would be playing a riff, Jimmy Rushing would be singing and Lips [Page] would…play anything he wanted to…. He didn’t have to play with the [trumpet] section. He’d be up high, Rush’d be singing and the rhythm and the band’d be playing something else. It’d be fantastic.”
Count Basie:
“Everybody seemed to be having so much fun just being up there playing together…. There was such a team spirit among those guys, and it came out in the music, and as you stood there looking and listening you just couldn’t help wishing that you were a part of it. Everything about them really got to me….”
Pianist Jesse Stone:
“The biggest upset we ever had in our life…happened to be in Sioux City, Iowa…and it was a battle of the bands between Page and Jesse Stone. We got up there on the stand first because we were considered like a house band there. We played there regularly. Well, we started out with some of our light things, little ballads. And [the Blue Devils] hit right off the reel, wham, and they didn’t let up all night long. They had a tough band. They were just sharper, cleaner, more powerful, and they had more material….
“These guys, they were actually ragged. Their uniforms were tattered and they came in an old beat up…airport bus. It was about ready to cave in. We said, ‘It ain’t no problem.’ And they gave us the biggest shock of our whole career….”
Jimmy Rushing:
“The best band in Kansas City in those days was reckoned to be Bennie Moten’s. We battled all the bands around, but he avoided us until we caught him one night and tore him up.”
Buster Smith:
“We played a whole bunch of battles. We used to play rings around Bennie, because he wanted to play all them old tunes he made, and he’d stick with them a lot…. We had a better reed section than Bennie had…. We’d get off. We built the band around them solo things. We had Lips [Page] on trumpet over there and we had Dee Stewart…second trumpet. In other words, we tried to be a band that could just get off instead of just read music.”
Bennie Moten began to raid the Blue Devils for musicians. Basie left for Moten’s band in 1929, followed by Lips Page, Jimmy Rushing and Eddie Durham. Walter Page left and joined Moten in 1932. Buster Smith, Lester Young and Ernie Williams were still with the Blue Devils when the band fell apart in 1933 in Virginia. The last seven Blue Devils hoboed on trains to St. Louis. When Moten heard, he sent a car to pick up them up and hired all seven.
Count Basie:
“…As things worked out, hearing them that day was probably the most important turning point in my musical career so far as my notions about what kind of music I really wanted to try to play was concerned…. When I look back at just about every step I’ve taken since I ran into those guys that morning, I can see quite a lot to bear out the old saying, ‘Once a Blue Devil, always a Blue Devil.’”
*****
Quotes by Basie are from his autobiography, Good Morning Blues. Quotes by Jimmy Rushing are from the book, The World of Count Basie. All other quotes are from the book, Goin’ to Kansas City.
Monday, March 28, 2011
In Lieu of 1000 Words: The Matt Otto Quartet (But With Six Musicians)
It was billed as the Matt Otto Quartet, but there were six musicians on stage. So that doesn’t work.
And there’s the complete list of what didn’t work that night.
What did work, I wrote about in another post about a month ago. To quote myself:
“The musicians included Matt on tenor sax, Gerald Dunn on alto sax, Jeff Harshbarger on bass, Michael Warren on drums, Beau Bledsoe on guitar, and Shay Estes vocalizing….
“The vocalizing – no words, but rather the voice as an instrument – added a unique layer of depth to the sound. To my ears, which only know how to respond emotionally, the bass and drums carried rhythms. On top of that I heard tenor, alto, guitar and voice blending, harmonizing, into the wonder of a single complex instrument, creating often beautiful, often smoothly opaque, detailed, yet consistently extraordinary waves of music, of jazz, unlike any I’ve heard elsewhere.”
This is a collection of Kansas City jazz all-stars. All but Matt are better known in KC in other groups. Yet in this configuration, they blend their talents into a unique voice for Matt’s compositions (and some by Monk and others) to fill the room with musical wonder.
In case you didn’t pick up on it, I like this group.
On the night of February 9th, the six musicians of the Matt Otto Quartet (hey, I didn’t name the group) performed at Jardine’s. It snowed that night, and few patrons braved the weather. But I was there, with camera, and below you’ll see how it looked. As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.
And there’s the complete list of what didn’t work that night.
What did work, I wrote about in another post about a month ago. To quote myself:
“The musicians included Matt on tenor sax, Gerald Dunn on alto sax, Jeff Harshbarger on bass, Michael Warren on drums, Beau Bledsoe on guitar, and Shay Estes vocalizing….
“The vocalizing – no words, but rather the voice as an instrument – added a unique layer of depth to the sound. To my ears, which only know how to respond emotionally, the bass and drums carried rhythms. On top of that I heard tenor, alto, guitar and voice blending, harmonizing, into the wonder of a single complex instrument, creating often beautiful, often smoothly opaque, detailed, yet consistently extraordinary waves of music, of jazz, unlike any I’ve heard elsewhere.”
This is a collection of Kansas City jazz all-stars. All but Matt are better known in KC in other groups. Yet in this configuration, they blend their talents into a unique voice for Matt’s compositions (and some by Monk and others) to fill the room with musical wonder.
In case you didn’t pick up on it, I like this group.
On the night of February 9th, the six musicians of the Matt Otto Quartet (hey, I didn’t name the group) performed at Jardine’s. It snowed that night, and few patrons braved the weather. But I was there, with camera, and below you’ll see how it looked. As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.
The Matt Otto Quartet. Left to right: Beau Bledsoe on guitar, Shay Estes, vocals, Jeff Harshbarger on bass, Matt Otto on tenor sax, Michael Warren on drums, Gerald Dunn on alto sax
Matt Otto
Gerald Dunn
Shay Estes
The front line: Shay, Matt and Gerald
Beau Bledsoe
Jeff Harshbarger
Michael Warren
Shay admires Matt's solo
Matt Otto on tenor
The Matt Otto Quartet enjoying Jeff's bass solo
Monday, March 21, 2011
The World is Ending. No Band-Aid Required.
11th Annual Jazz Lovers Pub Crawl screams the poster dominating one wall of my office. It was 1992, and listed across the bottom of that poster are thirty-one clubs. That’s right. That night in 1992 thirty-one night clubs throughout Kansas City featured live jazz.
Wow. You mean to tell me that in 1992 I could have gone to thirty-one different places in Kansas City and heard jazz? And today there’s what, two clubs? Three? There you go, case closed, jazz is dead.
Wait a minute. I said that one night – one night – for the Pub Crawl, thirty-one clubs showcased jazz.
The Pub Crawl then was sponsored by the Kansas City Jazz Commission. I served as chairman of the Jazz Commission between 1987 and 1989. I was responsible for a couple of crawls. And club owners told me that the Pub Crawl – buses taking listeners and drinkers from one jazz night spot to the next – was so big that, when it happened, they were forced to book jazz and be on the crawl or nobody would come to their bar.
I don’t recall any of those club owners concluding their tale with, “Thank you for making me book jazz. I’ll do it again.”
So, how many clubs are on the Jazz Commission’s Jazz Lovers Pub Crawl today?
Jazz Commission? Jazz Lovers Pub Crawl?
A couple weeks back our friend Plastic Sax surveyed Kansas City jazz club calendars for March (here). He determined that, at best, 61% of the jazz club bookings were actually some form of jazz. “If this trend continues” he wrote, “– and there's no reason to believe that it won’t – jazz will eventually become a secondary consideration in these rooms.”
There you go, case closed, the end of the jazz world as we know it.
Wait a minute. I’ve heard this refrain.
Last year, a friend, a local musician who plays several clubs around town, bemoaned Jardine’s booking cabaret shows on Monday nights. Cabaret moves in and takes over a club, this friend railed. Soon there will be no jazz at Jardine’s.
A year or so later, what I don’t see on Jardine’s latest schedule is cabaret shows.
In fact, on the day I wrote this, I surveyed the April schedules of Jardine’s and The Blue Room. The schedules were not yet complete, but on this day included 44 acts so far set for the month. Under my big tent, 42 of them count as a variation of jazz.
March, apparently, had less jazz in the jazz clubs. April seems headed towards more. An off month doesn’t constitute a world-ending trend. There’s more to consider.
Patrons may turn out once or twice for something quirky or different. But how often will they return if the overall experience is flawed? Ignore The Blue Room for the moment. Since my post about Jardine’s in January (here), several people have mentioned they would go there more often (or at all) if it was a better restaurant. Maybe the music isn’t the issue. Maybe the question is whether the restaurant could thrive without the jazz.
I’m seeing more restaurants and clubs around town sampling jazz, from West Chase Grill in Leawood to bars in the Crossroads district. Some of that is attributable to musicians hustling for work. But maybe, just maybe, some of it is also attributable to the audience seeking out new venues to hear jazz.
Times evolve. Today there’s no Jazz Commission. Today you couldn’t convince thirty-one clubs to devote a night to jazz in Kansas City. You could argue that proves jazz is dead. But it would be another false argument. The Jazz Commission developed a successful, well-marketed event, a one night mini-festival staged in buses and clubs, which drew a significant following of twenty- and thirty-somethings.
Even in 1992, most clubs participated not to support jazz, but as a stunt for a night of business (the principal support for jazz came from the $15,000+ profit the Jazz Commission – at least during my years as chairman – turned on the event). How else to explain, among those thirty-one clubs, participants like Fuzzy's South Sports Bar and Grill (yes, they were on the 1992 crawl)?
Today’s audience for jazz, clearly, is not the size it was then. But the audience is there. Cabaret hasn’t usurped the jazz world. If jazz clubs sometimes book nights of quirk, not jazz, maybe it’s because they need modern stunts to, at least for a night, overcome other perceptions.
Jazz has seen healthier days. That’s not a revelation. But spectacular musicians and a devoted audience seeking new opportunities keep it alive. Jazz is not trending towards second-tier status in Kansas City’s jazz clubs.
Plastic Sax opened his post with, “This is going to hurt a little bit.” He concluded it with, “Would you like a Band-Aid?”
Nope.
Wow. You mean to tell me that in 1992 I could have gone to thirty-one different places in Kansas City and heard jazz? And today there’s what, two clubs? Three? There you go, case closed, jazz is dead.
Wait a minute. I said that one night – one night – for the Pub Crawl, thirty-one clubs showcased jazz.
The Pub Crawl then was sponsored by the Kansas City Jazz Commission. I served as chairman of the Jazz Commission between 1987 and 1989. I was responsible for a couple of crawls. And club owners told me that the Pub Crawl – buses taking listeners and drinkers from one jazz night spot to the next – was so big that, when it happened, they were forced to book jazz and be on the crawl or nobody would come to their bar.
I don’t recall any of those club owners concluding their tale with, “Thank you for making me book jazz. I’ll do it again.”
So, how many clubs are on the Jazz Commission’s Jazz Lovers Pub Crawl today?
Jazz Commission? Jazz Lovers Pub Crawl?
A couple weeks back our friend Plastic Sax surveyed Kansas City jazz club calendars for March (here). He determined that, at best, 61% of the jazz club bookings were actually some form of jazz. “If this trend continues” he wrote, “– and there's no reason to believe that it won’t – jazz will eventually become a secondary consideration in these rooms.”
There you go, case closed, the end of the jazz world as we know it.
Wait a minute. I’ve heard this refrain.
Last year, a friend, a local musician who plays several clubs around town, bemoaned Jardine’s booking cabaret shows on Monday nights. Cabaret moves in and takes over a club, this friend railed. Soon there will be no jazz at Jardine’s.
A year or so later, what I don’t see on Jardine’s latest schedule is cabaret shows.
In fact, on the day I wrote this, I surveyed the April schedules of Jardine’s and The Blue Room. The schedules were not yet complete, but on this day included 44 acts so far set for the month. Under my big tent, 42 of them count as a variation of jazz.
March, apparently, had less jazz in the jazz clubs. April seems headed towards more. An off month doesn’t constitute a world-ending trend. There’s more to consider.
Patrons may turn out once or twice for something quirky or different. But how often will they return if the overall experience is flawed? Ignore The Blue Room for the moment. Since my post about Jardine’s in January (here), several people have mentioned they would go there more often (or at all) if it was a better restaurant. Maybe the music isn’t the issue. Maybe the question is whether the restaurant could thrive without the jazz.
I’m seeing more restaurants and clubs around town sampling jazz, from West Chase Grill in Leawood to bars in the Crossroads district. Some of that is attributable to musicians hustling for work. But maybe, just maybe, some of it is also attributable to the audience seeking out new venues to hear jazz.
Times evolve. Today there’s no Jazz Commission. Today you couldn’t convince thirty-one clubs to devote a night to jazz in Kansas City. You could argue that proves jazz is dead. But it would be another false argument. The Jazz Commission developed a successful, well-marketed event, a one night mini-festival staged in buses and clubs, which drew a significant following of twenty- and thirty-somethings.
Even in 1992, most clubs participated not to support jazz, but as a stunt for a night of business (the principal support for jazz came from the $15,000+ profit the Jazz Commission – at least during my years as chairman – turned on the event). How else to explain, among those thirty-one clubs, participants like Fuzzy's South Sports Bar and Grill (yes, they were on the 1992 crawl)?
Today’s audience for jazz, clearly, is not the size it was then. But the audience is there. Cabaret hasn’t usurped the jazz world. If jazz clubs sometimes book nights of quirk, not jazz, maybe it’s because they need modern stunts to, at least for a night, overcome other perceptions.
Jazz has seen healthier days. That’s not a revelation. But spectacular musicians and a devoted audience seeking new opportunities keep it alive. Jazz is not trending towards second-tier status in Kansas City’s jazz clubs.
Plastic Sax opened his post with, “This is going to hurt a little bit.” He concluded it with, “Would you like a Band-Aid?”
Nope.
Monday, March 14, 2011
In Lieu of 1000 Words: Steve Lambert Quartet at Jardine's
Maybe a year ago, I first heard him. He sat in and jammed on the last set of someone else’s show (I don’t remember whose), and this kid was good.
I heard Steve Lambert again, jamming with others. He’d sometimes get flustered, but watching and listening, you knew that would be overcome, in time, with confidence built through experience.
He emailed me last summer, suggesting I might like a show at The Blue Room that week, pianist Chris Clarke’s group, with Steve joining on sax. I went, and that’s the night I saw a corner turned. Trumpeter Hermon Mehari sat in much of the night. Drummer Ryan Lee joined for a few numbers. Anchored by veteran pianist Clarke, Steve and the other young musicians flew, one musically bouncing off the next for a wonderful night of music. I left there recognizing that in these young hands, the future of jazz is solid.
Steve Lambert’s music has continued to mature, playing in Crosscurrent (photographed here) and The New Jazz Order Big Band (photographed here) and other groups around town. And now with his own quartet and compositions, Steve has released his first CD, Subject to Change, with TJ Martley on piano, Seth Lee on bass and Matt Leifer on drums.
You can catch the Steve Lambert Quartet at the 10:30 show on the 26th of this month at Jardine’s, and pick up a CD from him there. Until then, here’s how it looked at the CD release party at Jardine’s on January 31st. Clicking on any photo should open a larger version of it.
I heard Steve Lambert again, jamming with others. He’d sometimes get flustered, but watching and listening, you knew that would be overcome, in time, with confidence built through experience.
He emailed me last summer, suggesting I might like a show at The Blue Room that week, pianist Chris Clarke’s group, with Steve joining on sax. I went, and that’s the night I saw a corner turned. Trumpeter Hermon Mehari sat in much of the night. Drummer Ryan Lee joined for a few numbers. Anchored by veteran pianist Clarke, Steve and the other young musicians flew, one musically bouncing off the next for a wonderful night of music. I left there recognizing that in these young hands, the future of jazz is solid.
Steve Lambert’s music has continued to mature, playing in Crosscurrent (photographed here) and The New Jazz Order Big Band (photographed here) and other groups around town. And now with his own quartet and compositions, Steve has released his first CD, Subject to Change, with TJ Martley on piano, Seth Lee on bass and Matt Leifer on drums.
You can catch the Steve Lambert Quartet at the 10:30 show on the 26th of this month at Jardine’s, and pick up a CD from him there. Until then, here’s how it looked at the CD release party at Jardine’s on January 31st. Clicking on any photo should open a larger version of it.
The Steve Lambert Quartet. Left to right: TJ Martley on piano, Seth Lee on bass, Steve Lambert on tenor sax, Matt Leifer on drums.
Steve Lambert on sax
TJ and Seth
Pianist TJ Martley
Steve backed by Seth and Matt
Drummer Matt Leifer
Steve and Seth
Bassist Seth Lee
For the last set, Micah Herman, who produced the CD, sat in on bass
Steve Lambert
Monday, March 7, 2011
This 'n That 'n KC CDs
I know the date because I still have the poster. It was April 21, 1985. The Count Basie Orchestra played in the ballroom of what was then the Vista International Hotel, on 12th street, downtown, where rows of small shops and jazz clubs once stood. They played a set, and then Jay McShann took the orchestra’s piano seat.
With an impish grin, McShann started playing classical music. The band, silently, watched and listened. Then the classical music flowed into Moten Swing. Every member of the Count Basie Orchestra smiled, even Freddie Green, and joined McShann on the most classic of Kansas City jazz.
That moment came to mind as I listened to the start of the last recording by Kansas City piano great Pete Eye (and others), Live From JCCC’s Yardley Hall. It starts with a Mozart Improvisation. But this is Mozart by jazz pianist. This Mozart swings with a jazz sensibility. This Mozart makes me smile. All of the music on this CD makes me smile.
At the end of last year, I wrote a post playfully summarizing (in quite bad verse) some the year’s CDs by Kansas City jazz musicians. It wasn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, but rather a mention of those new KC jazz CDs which, over the year, I’d acquired.
It turns out there were a few released last year which I hadn’t acquired.
Such as the joyous recording capturing Pete Eye and Scott McDonald on piano, Tyrone Clark on bass and Tommy Ruskin on drums. Next month will mark a year since Pete’s passing, and this live recording was captured about 13 months before that. Here’s a musical illustration of the talent we lost. Here’s piano which swings with delight, with a gets-under-your-skin-and-dares-you-to-resist-smiling pure jazz bounce. Here is jazz meant to engage and entertain.
Kansas City’s jazz history has a continuity. We’re more than just the legends who birthed a unique style here in the 1930s or the fantastic young talent here today. Pete Eye obtained his union card in 1957. Here’s proof that great jazz talent and Kansas City have been continuously synonymous.
But while Pete may be gone, other pianists carry on the Kansas City excellence, among them Michael Pagán. And Michael released two CDs last year.
12 Preludes & Fugues is written by a jazz pianist and performed by a saxophone quartet. But the 24 short compositions strike me as too structured to call this album jazz.
Not so with Three for the Ages. Here, the Michael Pagán Trio, with Michael on piano, Bob Bowman on bass and Ray DeMarchi on drums, plays a more sophisticated brand of jazz. This isn’t the consistently upbeat, free-wheeling swing of Pete Eye. This is jazz of a more precise, more purposeful bent. Some numbers certainly exude a similar playfulness – How Deep is the Ocean, for instance – but much of the CD swings in a more exacting manner.
If Pete Eye’s music is jazz which builds emotion, Three for the Ages is more often more serious and contemplative music. One style is not inherently superior to the other. Rather, here are styles in elegant contrast. And here is proof that in Kansas City, jazz is not just one thing. Kansas City jazz covers a wide breadth of brilliance.
Michael Pagán’s Three for the Ages is available from Amazon here, from CD Universe here, and on iTunes here. His 12 Preludes & Fugues is on Amazon here, on CD Universe here, and on iTunes here.
Live From JCCC’s Yardley Hall with Pete Eye and Scott McDonald is a little harder to get your hands on but well worth the effort, in part because its sales help to fund the free weekly noon jazz concerts at Johnson County Community College. You can purchase it at those concerts, or you can email jmires@jccc.edu or dmaronde@jccc.edu or phone 913-469-8500, ext. 3605, to arrange to obtain a copy.
*****
Speaking of those free noon jazz concerts, they kicked off last week with Shay Estes singing, Mark Lowrey playing piano, Dominque Sanders on bass and Sam Wisman on drums. It was a blast.
The concerts continue each Tuesday through April 5th in Johnson County Community College’s Carlsen Center, and with one exception are in the Center's Recital Hall. Each concert starts at noon and is free.
(And you can buy the Pete Eye CD there.)
Here’s the remainder of the schedule:
March 8 – Killer Strayhorn
March 15 – David Basse and the City Light Orchestra, in Yardley Hall
March 22 – Dennis Winslett Quartet
March 29 – James Ward Trio
April 5 – Rob Whitsitt Quartet
Parking is free. And note that next week’s concert with David Basse and the City Light Orchestra is in the exceptional setting of Yardley Hall.
With an impish grin, McShann started playing classical music. The band, silently, watched and listened. Then the classical music flowed into Moten Swing. Every member of the Count Basie Orchestra smiled, even Freddie Green, and joined McShann on the most classic of Kansas City jazz.
That moment came to mind as I listened to the start of the last recording by Kansas City piano great Pete Eye (and others), Live From JCCC’s Yardley Hall. It starts with a Mozart Improvisation. But this is Mozart by jazz pianist. This Mozart swings with a jazz sensibility. This Mozart makes me smile. All of the music on this CD makes me smile.
At the end of last year, I wrote a post playfully summarizing (in quite bad verse) some the year’s CDs by Kansas City jazz musicians. It wasn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, but rather a mention of those new KC jazz CDs which, over the year, I’d acquired.
It turns out there were a few released last year which I hadn’t acquired.
Such as the joyous recording capturing Pete Eye and Scott McDonald on piano, Tyrone Clark on bass and Tommy Ruskin on drums. Next month will mark a year since Pete’s passing, and this live recording was captured about 13 months before that. Here’s a musical illustration of the talent we lost. Here’s piano which swings with delight, with a gets-under-your-skin-and-dares-you-to-resist-smiling pure jazz bounce. Here is jazz meant to engage and entertain.
Kansas City’s jazz history has a continuity. We’re more than just the legends who birthed a unique style here in the 1930s or the fantastic young talent here today. Pete Eye obtained his union card in 1957. Here’s proof that great jazz talent and Kansas City have been continuously synonymous.
But while Pete may be gone, other pianists carry on the Kansas City excellence, among them Michael Pagán. And Michael released two CDs last year.
12 Preludes & Fugues is written by a jazz pianist and performed by a saxophone quartet. But the 24 short compositions strike me as too structured to call this album jazz.
Not so with Three for the Ages. Here, the Michael Pagán Trio, with Michael on piano, Bob Bowman on bass and Ray DeMarchi on drums, plays a more sophisticated brand of jazz. This isn’t the consistently upbeat, free-wheeling swing of Pete Eye. This is jazz of a more precise, more purposeful bent. Some numbers certainly exude a similar playfulness – How Deep is the Ocean, for instance – but much of the CD swings in a more exacting manner.
 |
| Michael Pagán, Bob Bowman and Ray DeMarchi at Jazz Winterlude in January |
If Pete Eye’s music is jazz which builds emotion, Three for the Ages is more often more serious and contemplative music. One style is not inherently superior to the other. Rather, here are styles in elegant contrast. And here is proof that in Kansas City, jazz is not just one thing. Kansas City jazz covers a wide breadth of brilliance.
Michael Pagán’s Three for the Ages is available from Amazon here, from CD Universe here, and on iTunes here. His 12 Preludes & Fugues is on Amazon here, on CD Universe here, and on iTunes here.
Live From JCCC’s Yardley Hall with Pete Eye and Scott McDonald is a little harder to get your hands on but well worth the effort, in part because its sales help to fund the free weekly noon jazz concerts at Johnson County Community College. You can purchase it at those concerts, or you can email jmires@jccc.edu or dmaronde@jccc.edu or phone 913-469-8500, ext. 3605, to arrange to obtain a copy.
*****
Speaking of those free noon jazz concerts, they kicked off last week with Shay Estes singing, Mark Lowrey playing piano, Dominque Sanders on bass and Sam Wisman on drums. It was a blast.
The concerts continue each Tuesday through April 5th in Johnson County Community College’s Carlsen Center, and with one exception are in the Center's Recital Hall. Each concert starts at noon and is free.
(And you can buy the Pete Eye CD there.)
Here’s the remainder of the schedule:
March 8 – Killer Strayhorn
March 15 – David Basse and the City Light Orchestra, in Yardley Hall
March 22 – Dennis Winslett Quartet
March 29 – James Ward Trio
April 5 – Rob Whitsitt Quartet
Parking is free. And note that next week’s concert with David Basse and the City Light Orchestra is in the exceptional setting of Yardley Hall.
Monday, February 28, 2011
In Lieu of 1000 Words: Junior Mance Quintet at The Blue Room
From here they headed West, winding up in Colorado. Here’s how The Denver Post previewed their performance:
“Julian Clifford ‘Junior’ Mance is a living, thriving link to the history of jazz. When he was a teenager, the Chicago pianist backed up saxophonist Gene Ammons. From there he toured with another saxophone king, Lester Young, as well as singer Dinah Washington, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley.”
That link to jazz history returned to Kansas City’s link to jazz history – 18th and Vine – on February 5th with his quintet for what will undoubtedly be one of The Blue Room’s funnest shows of the year, just as last April’s show (which I photographed here) was last year.
With tenor saxophonist and Paola native Ryan Anselmi and drummer and Hutchinson native Kim Garey, Junior’s current quintet arrives with strong Midwestern ties. Add bassist Hide Tanaka and baritone saxophonist Andrew Hadro, and I’m betting you can’t find a jazz group which swings harder than this one.
Here’s how it looked earlier this month. As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.
“Julian Clifford ‘Junior’ Mance is a living, thriving link to the history of jazz. When he was a teenager, the Chicago pianist backed up saxophonist Gene Ammons. From there he toured with another saxophone king, Lester Young, as well as singer Dinah Washington, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley.”
That link to jazz history returned to Kansas City’s link to jazz history – 18th and Vine – on February 5th with his quintet for what will undoubtedly be one of The Blue Room’s funnest shows of the year, just as last April’s show (which I photographed here) was last year.
With tenor saxophonist and Paola native Ryan Anselmi and drummer and Hutchinson native Kim Garey, Junior’s current quintet arrives with strong Midwestern ties. Add bassist Hide Tanaka and baritone saxophonist Andrew Hadro, and I’m betting you can’t find a jazz group which swings harder than this one.
Here’s how it looked earlier this month. As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.
The Junior Mance Quintet. Left to right: Junior Mance on piano, Hide Tanaka on bass, Ryan Anselmi on tenor sax, Kim Garey on drums, Andrew Hadro on baritone sax.
Junior Mance plays piano
Hide Tanaka
Ryan Anselmi solos...
...Which Junior both accompanies and enjoys.
The rhythm section
Kim Garey peers over the drums
Andrew solos while Junior (and all of us in the audience) love it
Andrew Hadro on baritone sax
Junior Mance at the piano
When Junior solos, everyone listens
Ryan solos while a ghostly Coltrane (via a photo on the wall) listens
The Junior Mance Quintet at The Blue Room
A very happy Junior Mance. We all left happy.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Extraordinary as the Norm
It was a Kansas City jazz festival in the mid-1980s – I no longer remember the exact year – at the end of a long day of acts, concluding with what we billed as a jam session. The rhythm section started to play. I was standing near the back of the stage, to assist. A tired staff worker turned to me and said, Let’s not let anyone else join the session, let’s just wrap this up. Sure, I answered.
A young saxophonist walked up to the stage. I stepped out of the way and motioned for him to join the jam. Why did you do that? the tired staff worker barked at me. I shrugged my shoulders and turned away to hear the music.
The truth is, I had been hearing this saxophonist’s name repeatedly. He was new to town then, and people were talking about how outstanding he was, and I wanted to hear him play.
He drove that jam and the crowd loved it.
His name is one that anyone familiar with Kansas City’s jazz scene today will know. The young saxophonist was Kim Park.
I have no training in music. I know it as Duke Ellington described it: “There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.” That's me: Just a simple, emotional response. But lacking training sometimes leads me to wonder, do I truly understand which music stands out, is extraordinary?
CDs and touring musicians provide a frame of reference.
I heard Kim Park for the first time in a while last month, playing at Jazz Winterlude. There I heard an alto of ideal tone, playing solos which jumped from one imaginative idea to the next. The large Yardley Hall stage placed too much separation between the musicians and the audience, so the intimacy of a good club or a smaller hall was missing. But the music was technically ideal and peppered with fresh phrasings.
Compare that to the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Ensemble the next night in the same hall. Here was a name from the East coast, playing the music of Ellington. Their presentation was impeccable, their music technically perfect. But they were recreating Ellington recordings. I knew these numbers. Often, I heard in my head the next note before it was played, because this was a live recreation of the recording, and those recordings were on the phone in my pocket. Only the trumpeter seemed to stretch.
I’ll take the imagination of Kim Park over this group any day. I would since that day I first heard Kim on that jazz festival stage.
I often rave in this blog about the young jazz talent populating Kansas City today. But I recognize some are still growing, musically. One who too often showed frustration on stage after a good solo now shows confidence after a better solo. Another who performed as well or as poorly as the group surrounding him is now maturing into a musician who sets the level of excellence for a band. It’s fascinating to hear these musicians climb musical tiers, to know I’m an audience to something special. For some of these musicians, the top tier has not yet been grasped.
Yet other Kansas City jazz musicians I’d not hesitate to judge against anyone who accompanies a jazz headliner on the Folly or Gem stage. And some I’d take over the headliners. I hear the performances in the halls. I hear the performances in the local clubs. Certainly, some headliners perform at another level which leaves an audience in awe. But others are distinguished from some amazing KC jazz musicians only by charisma or history or a magazine article or ticket price.
Here’s what I mean.
Earlier this month I heard Matt Otto’s sextet at Jardine’s. It snowed that night, so perhaps 25 people attended. I shot photos, and will have them on this blog in the coming weeks.
The musicians included Matt on tenor sax, Gerald Dunn on alto sax, Jeff Harshbarger on bass, Michael Warren on drums, Beau Bledsoe on guitar, and Shay Estes vocalizing. Compositions were originals by Matt.
I’m not sure, sans training, I have the vocabulary to correctly describe just what I heard, but I’m going to try. The vocalizing – no words, but rather the voice as an instrument – added a unique layer of depth to the sound. To my ears, which only know how to respond emotionally, the bass and drums carried rhythms. On top of that I heard tenor, alto, guitar and voice blending, harmonizing, into the wonder of a single complex instrument, creating often beautiful, often smoothly opaque, detailed, yet consistently extraordinary waves of music, of jazz, unlike any I’ve heard elsewhere.
One solo sticks with me, on bass, where the sound initially jarred against the expected, yet naturally fit the composition. It surprised, as I cocked my head to listen closer. Isn’t that an emotional response only the most imaginative music elicits?
I can’t believe anyone else could have walked into that club that night and played superior jazz.
(The group performs again March 10th at The Blue Room.)
Kansas City is not the jazz mecca it was eighty years ago. Larger cities offer musicians a larger mesh of opportunities and interactions in which to grow their craft. But somehow, Kansas City has cultivated musicians in the art for which this city is known, since before Basie. And KC continues to be home to jazz musicians who set an extraordinary standard. My ears may lack training, but I know what I hear.
Because Duke Ellington also said of music, “If it sounds good, it is good.”
So, by extension, if it sounds extraordinary….
A young saxophonist walked up to the stage. I stepped out of the way and motioned for him to join the jam. Why did you do that? the tired staff worker barked at me. I shrugged my shoulders and turned away to hear the music.
The truth is, I had been hearing this saxophonist’s name repeatedly. He was new to town then, and people were talking about how outstanding he was, and I wanted to hear him play.
He drove that jam and the crowd loved it.
His name is one that anyone familiar with Kansas City’s jazz scene today will know. The young saxophonist was Kim Park.
I have no training in music. I know it as Duke Ellington described it: “There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.” That's me: Just a simple, emotional response. But lacking training sometimes leads me to wonder, do I truly understand which music stands out, is extraordinary?
CDs and touring musicians provide a frame of reference.
I heard Kim Park for the first time in a while last month, playing at Jazz Winterlude. There I heard an alto of ideal tone, playing solos which jumped from one imaginative idea to the next. The large Yardley Hall stage placed too much separation between the musicians and the audience, so the intimacy of a good club or a smaller hall was missing. But the music was technically ideal and peppered with fresh phrasings.
Compare that to the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Ensemble the next night in the same hall. Here was a name from the East coast, playing the music of Ellington. Their presentation was impeccable, their music technically perfect. But they were recreating Ellington recordings. I knew these numbers. Often, I heard in my head the next note before it was played, because this was a live recreation of the recording, and those recordings were on the phone in my pocket. Only the trumpeter seemed to stretch.
I’ll take the imagination of Kim Park over this group any day. I would since that day I first heard Kim on that jazz festival stage.
I often rave in this blog about the young jazz talent populating Kansas City today. But I recognize some are still growing, musically. One who too often showed frustration on stage after a good solo now shows confidence after a better solo. Another who performed as well or as poorly as the group surrounding him is now maturing into a musician who sets the level of excellence for a band. It’s fascinating to hear these musicians climb musical tiers, to know I’m an audience to something special. For some of these musicians, the top tier has not yet been grasped.
Yet other Kansas City jazz musicians I’d not hesitate to judge against anyone who accompanies a jazz headliner on the Folly or Gem stage. And some I’d take over the headliners. I hear the performances in the halls. I hear the performances in the local clubs. Certainly, some headliners perform at another level which leaves an audience in awe. But others are distinguished from some amazing KC jazz musicians only by charisma or history or a magazine article or ticket price.
Here’s what I mean.
Earlier this month I heard Matt Otto’s sextet at Jardine’s. It snowed that night, so perhaps 25 people attended. I shot photos, and will have them on this blog in the coming weeks.
The musicians included Matt on tenor sax, Gerald Dunn on alto sax, Jeff Harshbarger on bass, Michael Warren on drums, Beau Bledsoe on guitar, and Shay Estes vocalizing. Compositions were originals by Matt.
I’m not sure, sans training, I have the vocabulary to correctly describe just what I heard, but I’m going to try. The vocalizing – no words, but rather the voice as an instrument – added a unique layer of depth to the sound. To my ears, which only know how to respond emotionally, the bass and drums carried rhythms. On top of that I heard tenor, alto, guitar and voice blending, harmonizing, into the wonder of a single complex instrument, creating often beautiful, often smoothly opaque, detailed, yet consistently extraordinary waves of music, of jazz, unlike any I’ve heard elsewhere.
One solo sticks with me, on bass, where the sound initially jarred against the expected, yet naturally fit the composition. It surprised, as I cocked my head to listen closer. Isn’t that an emotional response only the most imaginative music elicits?
I can’t believe anyone else could have walked into that club that night and played superior jazz.
(The group performs again March 10th at The Blue Room.)
Kansas City is not the jazz mecca it was eighty years ago. Larger cities offer musicians a larger mesh of opportunities and interactions in which to grow their craft. But somehow, Kansas City has cultivated musicians in the art for which this city is known, since before Basie. And KC continues to be home to jazz musicians who set an extraordinary standard. My ears may lack training, but I know what I hear.
Because Duke Ellington also said of music, “If it sounds good, it is good.”
So, by extension, if it sounds extraordinary….
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