Your Custom Text Here
Original image by Plastic Sax.
*Michael Pagán’s Paganova performed on Kansas Public Radio’s Jazz in the Night program.
*Snippets of a David Watson gig were shared by Joe Dimino.
*Joel Harrison marvels at the visionary creativity of Pat Metheny in an appreciative essay.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The folksy expression applies to Wire Town’s artful new album Riffin’ on Grand. As with the band’s 2024 debut recording, Wire Town’s new release documents four of Kansas City’s finest artists honoring the town’s jazz tradition with seventy minutes of exquisite musicianship and life-affirming spirit.
Riffin’ on Grand again features guitarists Danny Embrey and Rod Fleeman along with bassist Gerald Spaits. Brian Steever ably replaces Todd Strait on drums on the set recorded at Green Lady Lounge eight months ago. The quartet has nothing to prove and no axes to grind. The four men strike an ideal balance of reserved tastefulness and articulate individual statements.
Embrey and Fleeman display the sort of mindmeld that can only be attained by close friends through decades of collaboration. Sublimating their egos, the guitarists and their band mates craft sonic landscapes as modestly majestic as the most dignified shan shui painting.
Green Lady Lounge hosts the album release show for Riffin’ on Grand at 6 p.m. Sunday, February 16.
Moon City Big Band has been featured at Homer's Coffee House for years. The ensemble returns to the downtown Overland Park establishment on Saturday, February 1.
Original image by Plastic Sax.
*Bukeka Blakemore and Anita Dixon-Brown are among the Creative City KC representatives pitching World Cup-inspired music initiatives in television news reports here and here.
*Joe Dimino interviewed Brian Steever.
It’s been almost impossible for mainstream jazz vocalists to capture even modest glimmers of attention since Samara Joy hit the scene. A generational talent with a voluptuous voice, Joy makes all other comers suffer by comparison. Even so, Kansas City’s Eboni Fondren equals Joy in at least one way: she possesses a similar amount of charisma. Fondren’s ebullient personality shines on An American in Paris. Accompanied by a European jazz band and a string quartet on a concise set of seven standards, Fondren is wonderfully elegant. The refined approach is mostly absent on her rough-and-tumble debut album The Journey. An American in Paris may not be Joy-ful, but it’s very good nevertheless.
The members of Marbin are pranksters, online pedagogues and road warriors. The Chicago based band touches down at the Ship on Saturday, February 1.
Original image by Plastic Sax.
*The new episode of Kansas Public Radio’s Live at Green Lady Lounge program features the Rod Fleeman Trio.
*A University of Kansas student’s report about jazz in Kansas City cites Green Lady Lounge as “the city’s highest-paying gig for musicians.”
*Joe Dimino interviewed Carl Allen.
*Kemet Coleman is lobbying for additional government investment in Kansas City’s music scene.
*An academic gives a lecture about Kansas City’s jazz legacy at UCLA on January 22.
Original image by Plastic Sax.
The most compelling jazz has always been rebellious, adventurous and innovative. Yet a debilitating perception pervasive in Kansas City and beyond posits jazz as a moldering art form best applied as relaxing background music.
The refutation of this notion is among the reasons I treat the annual publication of the Francis Davis Jazz Poll and the El Intruso’s Periodistas Internacionales jazz poll as a holiday. Sifting through the data published January 10 is a powerful affirmation of the artistic vitality of jazz.
I’m honored to be consulted in the enterprises. Sunny Five’s caustic Candid is my selection for the top album in both polls. The attack of the avant-garde all-stars aligns with my ongoing affinity for punk rock. The improvisatory onslaught was all too necessary in 2024.
The polls can be used as barometers of Kansas City’s current stature in the jazz universe. The 19th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll focuses on recordings. Six of the approximately 600 albums released in 2024 receiving votes are connected to the Kansas City area.
Tell the Birds I Said Hello: The Music of Herbie Nichols, an exquisite trio recording featuring Kansas City guitarist Steve Cardenas, came in at #67. Pat Metheny’s solo guitar statement Moodial finished at #70. Charles McPherson’s excellent Reverence is ranked #107.
In a separate vocal category, Betty Bryant’s delightful Lotta Livin’ is graded at #16. Although attention was lavished on it locally, the latest archival Charlie Parker release Bird in Kansas City placed at a humble #24 in the reissue division. I gave it a nod on my ballot.
Where the Francis Davis poll is open to critics favoring both conventional and anarchic styles, El Intruso’s 17th Annual International Critics Poll 2024 is intended to reward “creative music, jazz and beyond, free improvisation, art-rock, and experimental music.”
Albums are just one of many classifications at stake in El Intruso’s referendum. No Kansas City musicians were among the finalists in any section, but Seth Andrew Davis, Marvin Gruenbaum, Pat Metheny, Aryana Nemati and Peter Schlamb were recognized.
Amusingly, El Intruso puts faces to the names of voters. Anyone who has imagined what a typical jazz critic looks like will have their suspicions confirmed as they scroll through the individual selections of the electors. A goofy photo antithetical to the spirit of rebellion accompanies the ballot of the man responsible for Plastic Sax.
Smooth jazz practitioners The Yellowjackets may hold the record for most appearances in the Folly Jazz Series. The quartet returns to Kansas City on Saturday, January 25. The current lineup consists of Russell Ferrante, Bob Mintzer, Dane Anderson and Will Kennedy. The embedded video captures a portion of a 1981 performance with a young Ferrante on keyboards.
Original image by Plastic Sax.
*Jacob Schwartzberg is featured in The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle.
*Rob Scheps created a fundraiser connected to a recording session in Kansas City.
Two tracks on Tippin', the phenomenal new album by Carl Allen, Christian McBride and Chris Potter, exemplify the most artistically consequential segment of Kansas City culture.
The genial swing applied to the Pat Metheny standard “James” represents kindhearted Midwestern values. And the momentous rendering of Charlie Parker’s “Parker’s Mood” that opens Tippin’ suggests that Allen now identifies as a Kansas Citian since becoming the Director of Jazz Studies at UMKC in 2021
As one of the most respected drummers in mainstream jazz for more than thirty years, Allen is accustomed to working with the form’s top talents. Bassist McBride and saxophonist/clarinetist Potter are among the biggest names in jazz. Accordingly, the trio’s burly approach proves that new ideas and fresh approaches are still possible within a conventional swing format.
“L’s Bop” careens toward the outer boundaries of the form while “Song For Abdullah” delivers gorgeous epiphanies. The intensity subsides on two or three tracks, including a relaxed take on “Put on a Happy Face.” Tippin’ is a necessary reminder of the enduring resilience of jazz in Kansas City.
OJT has always been solid but the accomplished organ trio took a considerable leap forward with the excellent 2024 album Ground Level. The Kansas City band’s next appearances at Green Lady Lounge are Thursday, January 9, Friday, January 10, and Saturday, January 11.
Original image by Plastic Sax.
*Camila Meza and Vernon Reid select Pat Metheny tracks and Steve Cardenas praises Jim Hall in The New York Times’ "5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Jazz Guitar" feature.
*Joe Dimino interviewed Bryan Hicks and shared footage of a Jeff Shirley performance at Black Dolphin.
It Hits Different is sexy. While every note of Norman Brown’s fourteenth album conforms to the smooth jazz format, the Kansas City’s guitarist’s 2023 album is designed to stimulate romance rather than relaxation. Not coincidentally, it’s the most popular jazz-adjacent album released by a Kansas City musician not named Pat Metheny last year. Songs featuring vocals possess the crossover appeal of hits by Brown’s role model George Benson while the funk-forward instrumental tracks are the smooth jazz equivalent of Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro.” The album certainly does hit differently.
Erin Keller performs at the Ship on Thursday, January 9. As with her 2023 EP Songs for Times Like These, Keller will be backed by the James Ward Band.
Original image by Plastic Sax.
*The American Jazz Museum advised patrons that its live music venue “(t)he Blue Room will be closed from January 1st to January 25th.”
The brazen title of the 1959 album The Shape of Jazz to Come seems idealistic today. Few of Ornette Coleman’s innovations have been adopted by mainstream jazz musicians. The harmolodics devised by Coleman thrive only in the fringes of improvised music.
Arnold Young has personified outsider jazz in Kansas City for more than 50 years. The drummer’s 2024 album Young Spirit often seems like an homage to Coleman’s initial conceptions. Young also looks beyond early Coleman on the 69-minute recording. The funky “Monkey Motor Company” is reminiscent of Coleman efforts like the 1982 album Of Human Feelings.
Adam Galblum evokes the free jazz fiddler Leroy Jenkins on “The Stone the Builder Refused.” Song titles alluding to additional iconoclasts such as Nduduzo Makhathini, Roscoe Mitchell and Charlie Parker suggest additional variations. While Young is always front and center, the powerful presence of bassist Gerald Spaits is no less essential. Their sturdy foundation allows several young Kansas City horn players to shine.
The revolution incited by Coleman and his cohorts converted surprisingly few followers, but Young remains a true believer. A young spirit who refuses to lose his edge, Young continues to spread Coleman’s audacious directive in a dauntless mission to change the shape of jazz in Kansas City.
Fans of David Basse can ring in the new year with the Kansas City mainstay at Uptown Lounge on Tuesday, December 31.
Original image by Plastic Sax.
*Gene Hall, the co-founder of The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra, has died.
*Crosby Kemper III moderated a discussion about Kansas City jazz.
*A reporter for The Kansas City Star ponders the fate of the American Jazz Museum’s sidelined film collection.
Original image of Matt Hopper, Joseph Panella and Nate Nall by Plastic Sax.
1. Ten dollars, please
The cover charge at Green Lady Lounge and its sister club Black Dolphin was boosted to $10. The impact of Kansas City’s most popular jazz venue commanding the meaningful entry fee surely altered the perception of the music’s worth.
2. Better angels
The release of Bird in Kansas City, an assortment of essential scraps, accorded Charlie Parker the kind of attention living jazz musicians in Kansas City can only dream about.
3. Extempore
The burgeoning clout wielded by the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society included a public radio audio feature and a tireless performance schedule. The collective also presented more touring improvising musicians than any other music venue or arts organization in Kansas City in 2024.
4. Heaven Can’t Wait
7th Heaven, the Kansas City music retailer most closely aligned with jazz, shuttered after 50 years in business.
5. Rolling
Dozens of Kansas City based jazz musicians released an unprecedented number of albums in 2024. Plastic Sax’s favorite albums list represent just a portion of worthy new recordings.
6. Blind Boone Remembered
Bill McKemy launched the Nameless and Unremembered podcast. The endeavor examines the “hidden stories of American music.”
7. Road Trip, Part One
The inaugural edition of the Lee's Summit Jazz Festival was encouraging and the Prairie Village Jazz Festival continues to thrive. Jazz Winterlude at Johnson County Community College, brings in one touring act each year. The three suburban undertakings account for all of the Kansas City area’s non-academic jazz festivals.
8. Road Trip, Part Two
Dozens of prominent touring jazz artists passed over Kansas City in favor of gigs in Bentonville, Denver, Iowa City, Joplin, St. Louis, Tulsa and Wichita.
9. Mythbuster
A massive crowd for Yo-Yo Ma’s last-minute appearance in Parade Park decimated the long-cited trope that suburbanites are unwilling to enter the Jazz District.
10. Big Fish, Small Pond
Plastic Sax continues to be the preeminent source for analysis and news concerning Kansas City jazz.
Last year’s recap is here.