“Kansas City, Here They Come: A local group hopes to mine the town’s rich jazz history for tourism” by Kirk Silsbee
Only four American cities have contributed distinct styles that account for separate epochs of jazz history: New Orleans, Chicago, New York and Kansas City, Missouri. Other cities, like Los Angeles, have provided innovation, styles of playing and great musicians, but not formal devices that define eras. The brand of swing that emerged in K. C. in the 1930s reflected the town itself: set foursquare into a 4/4 beat and blues-based, yet with a mobility and drive—in both ensemble and soloists—that swung harder than bands heard elsewhere. Its greatest instrumentalists were all great blues players: trumpeters Buck Clayton and Hot Lips Page; tenor saxophonists Lester Young, Ben Webster, Herschel Evans, and Dick Wilson; alto saxophonists Buster Smith and Charlie Parker; pianists Jay McShann, Mary Lou Williams and Count Basie.
So it’s no surprise that some civic leaders are now trying to find ways to turn this legacy into tourist dollars. What is surprising is that opposition looms. The struggle represents larger social, political, economic, and even musical battles within the city.
In K.C., on the last morning in August, local political figures, community activists and representatives of no less than 16 area jazz organizations convene with the idea of turning the city into an international tourist destination. The scene is almost surreal, as the press conference takes place on the miniature baseball diamond in the Negro Leagues Museum on 18th Street. Amid life-size bronze figures of nine “black ball” immortals, this grass-roots coalition-brought together by Cultural Convention & Visitor Services director Anita Dixon--recognizes that the combination of Kansas City jazz and barbecue as the city’s brand to attract tourists. Proponents say the plan, if carried out, would pay for the redevelopment and upkeep of the historically black Twelfth Street District.
“You go anywhere in the world and ask people about Kansas City, and they’ll tell you jazz and barbecue,” asserts Shar (pronounced “Cher”) Valleau, a petite, well-groomed woman who’s part of the Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors. This 25-year old organization produces concerts, gives out music scholarships, and provides assistance to artists and their families. In the space of about three minutes, she’s galvanized the assembled group, not with fiery rhetoric, but with a measured, articulate outline that makes sense to everyone in the room.
“If we present a simple, cohesive, memorable brand and then carry it through, everywhere—from the airport to the borders—you see jazz, jazz memorabilia, the names of the legends who are still being emulated everywhere in the world,” she says. “Kansas City is the only place I’ve seen that refuses to hug itself, even as the rest of the world embraces us.” She asks the group to leverage K.C.’s jazz legacy as a way of acquiring income to support the expansion of programs, economic development and improvements to infrastructure. “We cannot continue to go into the pockets of our tax base to ask them to support these things,” she says. “We don’t have to. We’ve got a story to tell, we have dollars to invest, and the return on those dollars is tourism, and it will come in big!”
As the group filters out of the Museum, on the sidewalk across the street is another retinue of political and corporate people. While Dixon’s press conference had been announced several weeks earlier, this hastily-arranged “rump” conference was put together by a faction centering around the Jazz Development Corporation. This group stages its own yearly event, the Rhythm & Ribs Festival, but it doesn't advocate building up K.C. tourism through jazz. Indeed, although impresario George Wein (founder of such famed celebrations as the Newport Jazz Festival, L.A.’s own Playboy Jazz Festival, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) has expressed interest in staging a yearly Kansas City jazz fest—something Dixon and her cohorts would welcome—the JDC takes a proprietary posture against an outside like Wein.
Dutch émigré Adry Fisher Lambert is the general manager of the nicely-appointed Quarterage Hotel, in the trendy Westport area. It’s an area with lots of nightlife and shopping that attracts young people. She’s been a jazz fan since her teenage years, when the Marshall Plan was aided—on a spiritual/emotional level—by the touring American jazz orchestras and bands that bolstered morale in post-World war II Europe. Lambert has even staged a jazz festival in Botswana. Driving through the town, she remarks, “This city has so much to offer,” notes Dutch émigré Adry Fisher Lambert, general manager of the nicely-appointed Quarterage Hotel, later on as she drives me through town. Her hotel is in the trendy Westport area, which boasts a lot of nightlife and shopping that attracts young people. She’s been a jazz fan since her teenage years, when the Marshall Plan was aided—on a spiritual/emotional level—by the touring American jazz orchestras and bands that bolstered morale in post-World war II Europe. Lambert has even staged a jazz festival in Botswana. “I can’t understand how people can be so small-minded and not want to let the rest of the world know about what’s here.”
While the music’s modern developments have not been lost on the town’s jazz musicians—trombonist/composer Bob Brookmeyer, alto saxophonists Gary Foster and Bobby Watson, guitarist Pat Metheny, singer Karrin Allyson are all from the area—present-day K.C. jazz shares a few characteristics with its historic antecedents. This is not the place to hear fragile chanteuses or academic exercises in long form tedium. Audiences here like their jazz swinging and, whenever possible, loud.
Local musical flavors offer plenty to savor. Midweek at Jardine’s, a restaurant and jazz club on Main Street, the room is packed for singer Megan Birdsall. Pianist Greg Richter, who also arranges, leads the rhythm section in some tasty treatments, like an up-tempo “Norwegian Wood.” His background as drummer and vibraphonist may explain his forceful attack on the keyboard. In any case, L.A.’s own Catalina Bar & Grill and Jazz Bakery should have such strong Wednesday-night turnouts for local artists.
Mind you, K.C. is no jazz backwater. Not even Los Angeles has a service group like the Coda organization, which buries musicians and their spouses who can’t afford such arrangements; at press time, it had paid for 40 such last rites. “In L.A., nobody looks out for you,” laments transplanted Angeleno alto saxophonist Bobby Bryant Jr., after asking me about a well-known L.A. drummer, just before taking the stand at The Phoenix bar at Eighth and Central. “He got sick and got behind in his house payments, and they put him out on the street,” Bryant continues. “I heard he was homeless for awhile. I think he’s in a home now over on San Vicente.”
Another rare feature of Kansas City jazz are the late night jam sessions that happen every Saturday and Sunday, from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., at the Mutual Musician’s Foundation on Highland. It boasts two simultaneous jams on two floors. A few hours earlier on the night I attended, the quartet of saxophonist Dennis Monroe, pianist Everette Freeman, bassist Tyrone Clark and drummer Mike Warner had backed bel canto singer Lisa Henry at the Blue Room on 18th. They played raucous blues for her like “I Want a Big Fat Daddy” and a luxurious “At Last.” But at the Foundation, they roll up their sleeves on modal tunes by Coltrane and Cedar Walton and some like-minded originals. The room began to slowly fills with people who appeared to be college age and older. This is the Westport demographic: all colors, men and women, young, hip and thirsty for some after hours music.
Earlier that night, singer Eboni Fondren sang standards with organist Everette DeVann’s band at the Drum Room of the Presidents Hotel on Baltimore Street. The tall, striking beauty was sheathed in a satiny dress that had next to nothing for a back. A savvy manager could mold her into a headliner. At the Foundation, however, she wears jeans and a pullover top. Sitting in a corner, sipping a beer, she muses about her passion. “I don’t really care if I ever get discovered or make a record,” she says. I just love to sing jazz and I love to sing it the way they like it in Kansas City.”
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L.A. CityBeat, Sept. 28, 2006
Kirk Silsbee - LA Jazz Times (Sep 28, 2006)