[Dixielandjazz] My Gratitude

[Fred Spencer]

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Kansas City...and All That's Jazz. The Kansas City Jazz Museum. Kansas City. 
Andrews McMeel, 1999. vii, 120pp., illus.

This profusely illustrated "museum" book tells the tale of a city where a 
unique, "all day and night" style of jazz was created. Kansas City was the 
"swinging town of the 1930s when jazz musicians in the hundreds played clubs 
and dances all over town." They were encouraged in their efforts by "Boss" 
Tom Pendergast, the city's corrupt mayor. The famous--Count Basie, Charlie 
Parker, Mary Lou Williams, Lester Young--and the not-so-famous--Chauncey 
Downs, Charlie Green, Frank Miller, Bob Wilson--jammed with each other and 
any outsiders who dared to challenge them. "Kansas City Jazz. A Photographic 
History" illuminates two-thirds of the book. One picture is of Pha Terrell, 
Andy Kirk's male vocalist, who was often branded as a woman because his name 
was pronounced "Fay". Pictures of marching bands and a Works Progress 
Administration (WPA) band show two jazz combinations that were shared by 
Kansas City and New Orleans (see NEW ORLEANS, Rose and Souchon).

"The Kansas City Scene" is described in an interview "with the veteran 
pianist and band leader, Jay McShann, who was "Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma on 
January 12, 1909." Other sauces say with equal authority that he was born on 
January 12,1916.(Birth records in Oklahoma are closed to public inspection 
so the correct birthdate may be difficult to establish).

The Kansas City Jazz Museum is now known as The American Jazz Museum. Other 
books about Kansas City include Jazz Style in Kansas City and the Southwest 
(Ross Russell, University of California Press, 1973); Goin' to Kansas City 
(Nathan W. Pearson, Jr., University of Illinois Press,1987); Kansas City: 
Jazz From Ragtime to Bebop, A History (Frank Driggs and Charles Haddie, 
Oxford University Press, 2005)

.Jazz museums in New Orleans and New York (Howard E. Fischer. Jazz Expose: 
The New York Jaxz Museum and The Power Struggle That Destroyed It (Sundog, 
2006) have closed.. A projected one in Charlottesville, Virginia never 
materialized.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <LRG4003 at aol.com>
To: <drjz at bealenet.com>
Cc: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 6:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] My Gratitude


> Larry Walton wrote...
>
> "Do they do anything at the Jazz museum?  I would think they would  have
> something going on there.
> Larry
> StL"
>
> In response to your query Larry, the jazz Museum has an excellent
> (acoustically speaking) Jazz Club called the Blue Room.  Here's a little 
> more about the
> facility, club calendar, etc. _http://www.americanjazzmuseum.com/_
> (http://www.americanjazzmuseum.com/)
>
> As museums go I would say it is probably more interesting to the 
> non-player.
> Some artifacts, history, etc.--but the Negro Leagues Baseball  Museum, 
> next
> door is much more entertaining.
>
> As for the Room, during my visits there it tends more to the "polite" type
> of club as opposed to a more raucous setting.  And the music skews more
> modern, with an occasional foray into blues-inflected jazz
> (Ida McBeth) and some old style K.C. swing (The Scamps).  Outside of 
> local
> concert venues it is the primary stopover point for any high profile 
> national
> jazz coming through town---Joey DeFrancesco plays there for example and
> saxaphonist Bobby Watson who now teaches Jazz at the Univ. of Mo. K.C. 
> appears
> there, but there is no Dixieland and only a small percentage of  OKOM.  It 
> is
> true however, that after gigs,
> musicians start popping into the Foundation for jams that go to  sunrise.
> That much, at least maintains the K.C. tradition.
>
> There is really only one, consistently high quality dixieland group 
> playing
> regularly in town---the New Red Onion Jazz Babies and a handful of 
> offshoots
> in  ragtime and other related styles.
>
> How about St. Louie?  And where would anybody suggest these days is  the 
> top
> location for dixieland beyond New Orleans?
>
> K.C. Clarinet
>
>
>
>
>
> **************Start the year off right.  Easy ways to stay in shape.
> http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489
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