The Top Performances of 2024

The Top Jazz Performances of 2024 by Kansas City Musicians
1. Peter Schlamb at the Ship
Plastic Sax review.

2. Rev. Dwight Frizzell’s Bridge at Charlotte Street Foundation
Instagram clip.

3. Rev. Dwight Frizzell’s Heliophonie at Charlotte Street Foundation
Plastic Sax review.

4. Steve Cardenas, Forest Stewart and Brian Steever at Westport Coffee House
Plastic Sax review.

5. WireTown at Green Lady Lounge
Instagram clip.

6. Seth Davis, Kwan Leung Ling, Aaron Osborne and Evan Verploegh at 7th Heaven
Instagram clip.

7.  Jackie Myers, Matt Otto and Bob Bowman at the Market at Meadowbrook
Instagram snapshot.

8. Alber at Charlotte Street Foundation
Instagram snapshot.

9. Ernest Melton, Parker Woolworth, Jordan Faught and Jalen Ward at In the Lowest Ferns
Plastic Sax review.

10. Rod Fleeman Trio at Green Lady Lounge
Instagram clip.

The Top Performances of 2024 by Touring Musicians
1. Makaya McCraven at Liberty Hall
Plastic Sax review.

2. Trond Kallevåg at the Folk Alliance International Conference
Instagram clip.

3. David Lord at Farewell
Plastic Sax review.

4. Willow at the T-Mobile Center
There Stands the Glass review.

5. Trap Jazz at Concourse Park
Instagram clip.

6. Mike Baggetta and Peter DiStefano at the Ship
There Stands the Glass review.

7. Damon Smith at Westport Coffee House
Instagram clip.

8. Phill Smith and Kyle Jessen at Charlotte Street Foundation
Instagram clip.

9. Síomha at the Kansas City Irish Festival
Instagram clip.

10. David Menestres at the Bunker Center for the Arts
Instagram snapshot.

Last year’s survey is here.

Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*New releases by Betty Bryant, Seth Andrew Davis, Rod Fleeman and Pat Metheny are among the 366 albums receiving votes in the 2024 Mid-Year Jazz Critics Poll. Plastic Sax’s ballot is here.

Album Review: Kyle Quass, Kevin Cheli and Seth Andrew Davis- Bloom

I’m sympathetic to the Plastic Sax readers struggling with my frequent endorsements of the output of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society. To be sure, the music made by members of the collective is often unsettling. While it’s another uncompromising installment in the free jazz tradition associated with past masters such as Bill Dixon, Milford Graves and Derek Bailey, the new release Bloom is a relatively accessible entry point. Kyle Quass’ trumpet and Kevin Cheli’s  percussion provide acoustic contrast to the churning guitar and electronic tremors created by Kansas City’s Seth Andrew Davis. Detractors will insist Bloom is merely ninety minutes of anarchic noise. I’d counter that the rapturous beauty and devastating ugliness documented on the album accurately reflects our times.

KCUR Meets EMAS

Plastic Sax diligently attempts to track the activities of representatives of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society. The multitude of recordings and performances is both thrilling and exhausting. That’s one reason the author of this site was pleased to examine the collective from a different perspective. The audio feature he created for KCUR streams here.

Concert Review: David Lord at Farewell

Getting a handle on the music of David Lord isn’t easy. The Wichita based guitarist showcases a unique conception on his 2023 album Forest Standards, Vol. 3. Is Lord filtering John Fahey through Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics? Elsewhere, he sounds like James “Blood” Ulmer interpreting Claude Debussy.

Lord echoed Thelonious Monk in a solo outing at Farewell on Saturday, March 9. Thorny and agitated, Lord’s hermetic approach resists categorization. Reverent members of an audience of 25 who paid a $10 admission charge seemed certain that Lord is among today’s most important artists.

Wearing a Depeche Mode shirt, V.Vecker preceded Lord with a mesmerizing set in which he looped riffs from his saxophone to construct swirling sonic monoliths. The evening began with the jagged power trio of Seth Andrew Davis, Aaron Osborne and Evan Verploegh.

Album Review: Scott Dean Taylor and Seth Andrew Davis- Infidels

Infidels is the first Bob Dylan album I bought as a new release. It’s maintained a spot in my rotation for four decades. Scott Dean Taylor and Seth Andrew Davis apparently share my affinity for the undervalued 1983 recording. 

The itinerant drummer and the Kansas City guitarist exchanged banter about Infidels during a performance featuring Maria Elena Silva and Devin Gray last year. The four track titles of their new improvised duo album Infidels are lyrics from the Dylan songs "Jokerman" and "Union Sundown". 

Portions of “They Used To Grow Food in Kansas” could pass for guitarist Mark Knopfler and drummer Sly Dunbar warming up at Dylan’s recording session. The duo’s squiggles, blurps, taps and thumps intimate melodic intent.

The 17-minute opening selection “You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing” is more aligned with the severe extemporization that characterizes much of Davis’ output. 

Dylan accuses an antagonist of being a “noisemaker, spirit maker, heartbreaker, backbreaker” on the Infidels’ song “License to Kill”. Taylor and Davis fit the bill on their remorseless version of Infidels.

Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*Seth Davis, Mike Dillon and Matt Otto received votes in El Intruso’s 16th Annual International Critics Poll.

*A slightly different version of the audio feature about Charlie Parker’s Grafton saxophone created for KCUR in December aired nationally on NPR’s Morning Edition program last week. 

*Joe Dimino shared footage of recent performances of bands led by Pete Fucinaro and Adam Larson.

*WBGO aired a travelog set in Kansas City’s Jazz District.

Now’s the Time: Kevin Cheli

Percussionist Kevin Cheli resumes his extensive series of collaborations with guitarist Seth Davis at Farewell on Wednesday, December 27. Scott R. Looney and Aaron Osborne will join them. Night Mode and Nate Hofer round out the bill.

Album Review: Brandon Cooper, Seth Andrew Davis, Krista Kopper, Evan Verploegh and Drew Williams- Compressed Space

An adventurous outing in the courtyard of Charlotte Street Foundation on May 18, 2022, was one of the most memorable performances presented by the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society. Ten days later, many of the same Kansas City musicians recorded Compressed Space. The document is even better than the concert. The improvisations of Drew Williams (woodwinds), Seth Andrew Davis (guitar and electronics), Krista Kopper (double bass), Brandon Cooper (drums and percussion) and Evan Verploegh (drums and percussion) range from pristine quietude to atomizing skronk.

Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s return to the Folly Theater is plugged by The Kansas City Star.

*Danny Embrey is interviewed by Ken Lovern in four new videos.

*Mary Lou Williams was remembered on an episode of KCUR’s Up To Date program.

*Pinball, a new album by Seth Davis and Kevin Cheli, was reviewed by a blogger.

Concert Review: Dan Clucas at World Culture KC

Established jazz clubs occupy hallowed grounds for devotees of improvised music. The venues are more essential than ever. Due to ongoing attrition, however, many of the most rewarding performances are increasingly transpiring in unconventional settings.

A sextet played compelling new music on the porch of a home known as World Culture KC in Kansas City on Monday, September 4. The droning of cicadas, the buzz of aircraft and the lonesome whistles of trains accentuated the outing.

The event was a forum for the Los Angeles based Dan Clucas. The multi-instrumentalist has recording credits on albums by artists ranging from guitar hero Nels Cline to the rock band the BellRays. His most recent release is a harsh “hypothetical meeting between trumpeter Fats Navarro and drummer Peeter Uuskyla.”

Representatives of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society (EMAS)- guitarists Shanté Clair and Seth Davis, harpist Brooke Knoll, bassist and electronics manipulator Aaron Osborne and drummer Evan Verploegh- deferred to their guest. Poor sightlines for the handful of attendees made it unclear which of the musicians adeptly echoed Clucas’ trumpet and violin riffs.

Ideally suited to the informal setting, the gently anarchic and carefully considered chaos might not have fared as well in a conventional jazz club. Thanks in large part to the scrappy persistence of EMAS, Kansas City’s position on the cutting edge of the international jazz map is being reasserted.

Concert Review: Eli Wallace at Stray Cat Film Center

Pity the piano that was delivered to Stray Cat Film Center for a performance by Eli Wallace on Monday, July 24. After enduring a move in extreme heat, the instrument was mercilessly poked and prodded by the Brooklyn based pianist.

Wallace’s 20-minute solo improvisation was as vehemently athletic. The prepared piano attack sounded as if ragtime piano rolls had grown sentient roots and branches after being stored in a dark, wet basement for more than a century. Several people paid $10 to experience the uncommon sounds.

The extraordinary exhibition illuminated only by an exit sign and a red light bulb on the floor was preceded by a brisk improvisation by saxophonist Benjamin Baker, guitarist Seth Davis, multi-instrumentalist Aaron Osborne and drummers Kevin Cheli and Evan Verploegh.

The most transfixing moments transpired when Davis and Cheli joined Wallace. The spell cast by the trio’s considered investigations was broken as the remainder of the ensemble gradually joined the improvisation. The beleaguered piano was buried under a dense heap of noise.

Concert Review: Devin Gray, Maria Elena Silva and EMAS at Firehouse Gallery #8

A downtown art gallery was transformed into an emporium for vital new music on Wednesday, June 21. Nine musicians represented compelling slices of the vanguard of sound in 2023.

The peripatetic drummer Devin Gray’s new release Most Definitely includes a 20-minute homage to free jazz legend Milford Graves. In keeping with that pursuit, his solo outing demonstrated even further possibilities in percussion.  

Segments of his often unhuman attack seemed as if a Jolly Chimp had been infected by an evil strain of artificial intelligence. At other moments his electronically-enhanced performance sounded like an Antifa rally outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

The noirish music of vocalist and electric guitarist Maria Elena Silva and drummer Scott Dean Taylor evoked the disquieting moments preceding and following bouts of bloodcurdling violence. The unresolved tension was exquisitely excruciating.

Six affiliates of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society- Drew Williams (saxophone), Seth Davis (guitar), Brook Knoll (harp), Aaron Osborne (electronics and percussion), Krista Kopper (bass) and Evan Verploegh (drums)- built imposing walls of noise.

Davis summoned the pinging of sonar, an effect that prompted thoughts of the ill-fated submarine in the Atlantic Ocean currently dominating the news cycle. The size of the audience may have been negligible, but the import of the music was monumental.

Albums Review: Torches Mauve- Volume One and Volume Two

The recording quality of Volume One and its slightly superior companion Volume Two, albums released by Torches Mauve on February 17, is astounding.  Listeners with good equipment will have the uncanny sensation that they can reach out and touch guitarist Seth Davis and drummer Evan Verploegh.  Whether or not that sonic immediacy is desirable is another matter.  Anyone with an appreciation of noisy jazz-rock guitar innovators like Vernon Reid and Andy Summers will appreciate Davis’ virulent shredding.  Free jazz enthusiasts will find Verploegh’s evocation of drummers such as Ronald Shannon Jackson and Tony Williams similarly invigorating.  Everyone else is likely to be horrified by the sonic proximity to the Kansas City duo’s wild-eyed outbursts.

Album Review: Kyle Hutchins and Seth Andrew Davis- Coaxial

Hundreds of hours of difficult listening have led me to conclude that duo sessions are my favorite category of recordings by the ridiculously prolific members of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society.  Coaxial, a new album by saxophonist Kyle Hutchins and guitarist/electronics manipulator Seth Andrew Davis, is no exception.  The reduced number of sonic salvos and relative brevity of its eight tracks makes Coaxial the new music equivalent of a crossover pop album.  Davis, a founder of EMAS, toys with severe noise and echoes Jimi Hendrix when he isn’t playing guitar in the percussive style of Joe Morris.  Hutchins builds on the lineage of saxophone innovators including Pharoah Sanders, Evan Parker and Roscoe Mitchell.  In Coaxial, Kansas City has produced another free jazz hit.

Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*A blogger reviewed Bobby Watson’s concert at Yardley Hall.

*The Defender offers an unconventional perspective of Kansas City’s jazz heyday.

*Seth Davis is characterized as an “improv-aholic” in his appearance on Classical KC’s Sound Currents program.

*A Jackie Myers gig was documented by Joe Dimino.

*Tweet of the Week: NPR Music- For nearly a century, jazz musicians have debated what gives songs that swing feel. The secret may lie in subtle nuances in a soloist's timing. (link)

Faux Fest

I attended a cutting-edge jazz festival in Kansas City on Wednesday, January 4.  What’s that?  You didn’t know about the event?  Well, since Kansas City hasn’t hosted a proper jazz festival in five years, I’ve taken to curating one-night festivals for myself.

On Wednesday I spent five hours at three venues taking in an immensely rewarding blend of touring and locally based artists.  The faux festival got off to a rough start at Westport Coffee House ($10 cover).  When guitarist Seth Andrew Davis thanked members of the audience for attending, the Bay Area keyboardist Scott R. Looney sneered “three people!”

The other musicians seemed to brush off Looney’s disappointment in the turnout.  Looney, Davis and the New York based percussionist Kevin Cheli began by playing what sounded like devilish variations on the cartoon music of Raymond Scott.

Looney, bassist Krista Kopper and drummer Evan Verploegh toyed with extreme dynamics in the second set.  In staving off mere anarchy by holding the center, Kopper was the most valuable contributor to a third set featuring all five musicians.  The first stage of the festival concluded with an improvisation on what may have been an inverse version of Miles Davis’ “All Blues.” 

The second phase of the bespoke festival transpired at Green Lady Lounge ($5 cover).  I joined about 75 revelers for a set by OJT, the popular venue’s de facto house band.  Seated directly behind drummer Sam Platt, my appreciation of the ways in which guitarist Brian Baggett and organist Ken Lovern apply their roots in rock to update the organ jazz trio tradition was strengthened.

Funkadelick headlined the fake fest at the Brick ($10 cover).  Drummer Nikki Glaspie had the night off, so the peripatetic Mike Dillon and Brian Haas, the keyboardist best known for his groundbreaking work with Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, operated as a duo for most of their nearly two-hour set.

Dillon manned his expansive rig like punk-jazz’s answer to Carl Palmer as he and Haas interpreted the entirety of the forthcoming album Inflorescence.  The tandem was later joined in musical roughhousing by guest drummer Arnold Young.  A violent interpolation of the Stooges’ proto-punk classic “I Wanna Be Your Dog” typified the raucous attack.

Drawn to the pocket-size stage like a moth to a flame, I posted up front and center for most of the riveting performance.  The approximately 50 people seated behind me couldn’t have been pleased that I obstructed their sightlines.  I didn’t care.  After all, it was my festival.

The Plastic Sax People of the Year: Seth Davis and Evan Verploegh

A Kansas City jazz musician complained about what he perceived as a lack of performance opportunities during an otherwise satisfactory set in a prominent club earlier this year.  In creating an entirely new scene for clangorous improvised music, Seth Andrew Davis and Evan Verploegh have proven that there’s no excuse for such woebegone resignation.

While their sound isn’t yet welcome at most conventional Kansas City venues, Davis, Verploegh and their colleagues in the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society (EMAS) possess an admirable enthusiasm for playing in punk clubs, record stores, coffee shops, arts centers and private residences in North America and Europe.

The do-it-yourself attitude may be born out of necessity, but it’s precisely the sort of nonpartisan engagement that’s more conducive to a flourishing future for improvised music than institutional hermeticism.  Many of the collective’s performances- Live in London and Badger State Games among them- are promptly made available at Bandcamp.

The albums are among the more than two dozen live and studio recordings released by members of EMAS in 2022.  With an impressive list of gigs already on next year’s calendar, the collective’s catalog should continue to rapidly expand.

A few of the recordings feature the notable touring artists they bring to Kansas City.  Visiting collaborators in 2022 included Phillip Greenlief and Josh Sinton.  These events vastly improved the lives of Kansas City’s free jazz enthusiasts.  Davis and Verploegh, consequently, are Plastic Sax’s People of the Year.

The previous recipients of the designation are Rod Fleeman (2021), Charlie Parker (2020), Logan Richardson (2019), Peter Schlamb (2018), John Scott (2017), Eddie Moore (2016), Larry Kopitnik (2015), Deborah Brown (2014), Stan Kessler (2013), Doug and Lori Chandler (2012), Jeff Harshbarger (2011), Mark Lowrey (2010) and Hermon Mehari (2009). Bobby Watson was named the Plastic Sax Person of the Decade in 2009 and again in 2019.

The Kansas City Jazz Scene's Top Stories and Trends of 2022

1. Full Swing

It’s almost as if nothing happened.  On the surface, Kansas City’s post-pandemic jazz scene now looks just as it did in 2019.

2. Got It Covered

In spite of- or maybe even because of- the $5 cover charge instituted last year, Green Lady Lounge is packed on any given night.  It makes sense: Green Lady Lounge is the only place in Kansas City at which jazz is performed every evening.

3. Frequent Freakouts

Fans of free jazz and experimental music no longer need to leave Kansas City to hear those sounds.  Thanks to the strenuous initiatives of members of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society, innovative music made by notable touring musicians and local artists is regularly performed in Kansas City.

4. A Man Called Adam 

The dynamic presence of Adam Larson continues to elevate Kansas City.  The saxophonist’s two new albums- with a third on the way- requires skeptical outsiders to reassess the vitality of Kansas City’s scene.

5. For the Record

It’s an extraordinarily productive year when a lovely album featuring Bob Bowman can’t squeeze into a list of the top ten Kansas City jazz albums of 2022, 

6. Don’t Call It a Comeback

While they never went away, the innovative veterans Dwight Frizzell and Arnold Young reemerged as prominent bandleaders with active performance schedules.

7. Fest or Famine

The one-stage, single-day, storm-plagued Prairie Village Jazz Festival notwithstanding, the Kansas City area hasn’t hosted a true jazz festival since a “stellar but ill-fated” event in 2017.

8. Outside Validation

Jazz at Lincoln Center created a fetching tradition-oriented video portrait of Kansas City.

9. Meanwhile, Back at the Museum

Had it done nothing but present Nduduzo Makhathini at the Blue Room in June, the American Jazz Museum would have provided an invaluable cultural contribution to the city in 2022.  Yet its noontime concerts and the resumption of the Jammin’ at the Gem series were similarly encouraging developments.

10. An Awkward Anniversary

Another year passed without an appearance by Pat Metheny.  The hometown hero last played in Kansas City in 2012.  Although he continues to tour extensively, ten years have passed since a Metheny concert transpired in his old stomping grounds.

Last’s year’s installment of this annual series is here.

Now’s the Time: Josh Sinton

The distinguished baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton will perform at Vinyl Underground, the performance space in the basement of 7th Heaven, on Saturday, December 17.  The Brooklyn based Sinton will be joined by Seth Davis and Drew Williams in the first set.  Davis, Krista Kopper and Evan Verploegh are slated to join Sinton for a second set.