Date: 08/28/97 15:45
JAMES SCOTT (1886-1938)
Hometown: Neosho, Mo.
Missouri produced three great ragtime
composers and pianists: Scott Joplin (of Sedalia), the now virtually forgotten
John William "Blind" Boone (of Miami) and James Scott, who is buried in
Kansas City, Kan. Many consider Scott to be second only to Joplin as a
ragtime composer. Scott published his first composition when he was 17
and working at a music store in Carthage, Mo. He moved to Kansas City as
early as 1914 and in the '20s became an orchestra leader for silent movie
houses on 12th and 18th streets. Among his rags are "Grace and Beauty,"
"The Fascinator" and "Kansas City Rag." Although associated with the ragtime
era, he performed well into the jazz age.
Hometown: Kansas City
Moten might be considered the godfather
of Kansas City Jazz. The bandleader is remembered less for the recordings
under his own name than for the roster of future stars he employed and
influenced -- Count Basie, Harlan Leonard, Hot Lips Page, Eddie Durham
and Ben Webster among them. His name lives on in "Moten's Swing," a jazz
standard you may have detected in the soundtrack to Robert Altman's "Kansas
City." Moten wrote the tune with his brother, Ira Moten. Bennie Moten's
bizarre and tragic early death from complications following a tonsillectomy
became one of the city's enduring jazz stories.
ANDY KIRK (1898-1992)
Hometown: Newport, Ky.
As band leader of the Clouds of
Joy, Kirk was a contemporary of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Kirk's
band became popular through successful engagements at the Pla-Mor Ballroom.
It toured the Midwest and made records, all with a light sound that was
a hit with jazz and pop fans. In 1930 the Clouds of Joy replaced Fletcher
Henderson's band at the Roseland Ballroom in New York. Kirk's skills as
a band leader attracted the best talent: Mary Lou Williams, Charlie Parker,
Thelonious Monk and Lester Young are but a few of the musicians who worked
with him before his band broke up in 1948.
Hometown: Gallatin, Mo.
The bassist got his musical training
from Major N. Clark Smith at Lincoln High School and from the University
of Kansas. Page led the Blue Devils during a time when the personnel included
Count (then just Bill) Basie, Eddie Durham and Lester Young. Bandleader
Bennie Moten began hiring away members of the Blue Devils and eventually
Page himself went over to the Moten band; after Moten's untimely death
Page stayed with a core of musicians who metamorphosed into the band led
by Basie at the Reno Club. He was a key ingredient of Basie's all-important
rhythm section and drummer Jo Jones often credited him as a major influence
and pragmatic music instructor.
Hometown: St. Joseph
Hawkins, who achieved fame as a
soloist and arranger for the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, was never based
in Kansas City -- but the big tenor saxman looms large in the city's jazz
lore. One evening in 1934, when the Henderson band played a one-night stand,
Coleman decided to check out the Kansas City saxophonists he'd heard so
much about. At the Cherry Blossom, Hawkins entered the most famous "cutting
contest" -- a "try-keeping-up-with-this" battle among improvisers -- in
Kansas City history. After hours of blowing, with Mary Lou Williams on
piano part of the night, only four saxmen remained -- Hawkins (who had
removed his shirt), Lester Young, Ben Webster and Herschel Evans. A few
hours later Hawkins, unable to defeat his rivals, finally hopped in his
car and raced to St. Louis for the Henderson band's next gig.
JULIA LEE (1902-1958)
Hometown: Boonville, Mo.
She was best known for bawdy, double-entendre
songs -- "King Size Poppa," "Snatch and Grab It," "My Man Stands Out" --
but Julia Lee was a stylish vocalist and fine pianist who was perfectly
at home with a jazz ballad. She began her career singing in bands led by
her older brother, George E. Lee, but eventually turned solo. In the 1940s
she scored a succession of hit records cut in Los Angeles and Kansas City
under the supervision of producer Dave Dexter, a Kansas City native who
wrote or co-wrote many of the songs recorded by Lee. For many years Lee
performed at the original Milton's Tap Room on Troost.
Hometown: Red Bank, N.J.
Basie, pianist and bandleader, for
all practical purposes invented Kansas City Jazz. The distinctive swing
music he and his band refined at the Reno Club in 1936 is the style most
often associated with this city. It was that sound -- simple, economical,
pulsing -- that caught producer John
Hammond's ear and catapulted Basie to international fame. That sound
influenced many other bands, many other jazz artists, but Basie was modest
about his accomplishments. "I never did call it Kansas City jazz," he said.
"I just called it swing." Basie used New York as his home base after leaving
Kansas City in 1936, but he returned often and carried fond memories of
the rowdy city where he spent his formative years as a musician. "It was
a cracker town, but a happy town," he once said.
PETE JOHNSON (1904-1967)
Hometown: Kansas City
When record producer John Hammond
put Pete Johnson together with other barrel-house piano players in the
1938 "Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall, it sparked a national
boogie-woogie craze. Johnson was among the best practitioners of this visceral,
thundering blues style, and he refined his touch in clubs on Kansas City's
12th Street. He often performed with the singer Big Joe Turner, most famously
on their collaboration of "Roll 'em Pete." The American Society of Composers,
Authors and Publishers lists more than 60 compositions written or co-written
by Johnson. Among them: "Kansas City Farewell," "Kaycee Feeling" and "Kaycee
on My Mind."
CLAUDE "FIDDLER" WILLIAMS (b. 1908)
Hometown: Muskogee, Okla.
Williams, who shares a hometown
with pianist Jay McShann, arrived in Kansas City in 1928 as a violinist
with Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy. He's been here off and on ever since --
often appearing at European jazz festivals and touring European cities.
In the 1980s he appeared on Broadway in the lavish revue "Black and Blue."
Williams performed on the very first recordings made by Kirk's band, and
later found himself playing guitar for the Basie band at the Reno Club.
He was edged out after the band's "discovery" by John Hammond, who urged
Basie to hire guitarist Freddie Green. He is one of only a handful of accomplished
jazz violinists. Williams and McShann also share the spotlight as the oldest
veterans of Kansas City's jazz heyday still actively performing.
Hometown: Kansas City
Webster was one of the giants of
tenor sax. Long before altoist Charlie Parker helped create bebop, Webster
was pushing the limits of big band swing -- and blowing his way into history.
His style was breathy on ballads, brusque on hard-driving swing. As an
interpreter of ballads, he is ranked by critics with trumpeter Miles Davis
and saxman Stan Getz. He worked and recorded with most of the major swing
bandleaders, including Cab Calloway, Fletcher Henderson and Bennie Moten.
But the man they called "The Brute" enjoyed his greatest fame in the orchestra
of Duke Ellington.
LESTER YOUNG (1909-1959)
Hometown: Greenwood, Miss.
A veteran of Basie's Reno Club band,
Young introduced a new vocabulary to the tenor saxophone. His playing was
light, delicate and nuanced compared to the aggressive style typified by
Coleman Hawkins. He stayed with Basie off and on through 1944, when he
was drafted into the Army -- an experience for which he was totally unprepared.
Emotionally scarred, he forged ahead after World War II, maintaining star
status through the bebop revolution and laying the groundwork for cool
jazz -- despite increasing health problems caused by heavy drinking and
smoking. He had a long friendship and fruitful artistic relationship with
singer Billie Holiday.
Hometown: Muskogee, Okla.
Jay "Hootie" McShann, an accomplished
and versatile pianist of international renown, is the only bandleader from
Kansas City's glory days still performing (he has given his birth date
as 1916 and declined to confirm evidence to the contrary). He remembers
many of the legendary characters, including the two Piney Browns -- Big
Piney and Little Piney -- and has performed with many of the extraordinary
musicians linked to Kansas City. He hired a young Charlie Parker for the
big band he formed in 1940 and has enjoyed a long musical association with
another Muskogee native, Claude "Fiddler" Williams. McShann can play all
styles of music, but at heart he's a bluesman. He's also an evocative singer.
MARY LOU WILLIAMS (1910-1981)
Hometown: Atlanta
She was only 19 years old when she
played on the first recordings made by Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy. That
marked the beginning of her Kansas City years, which she often recalled
as a phenomenal time when young musicians from around the country happened
to be in the same place at the same time -- resulting in a creative cross-pollination
that has never been duplicated. She was both pianist and arranger for Kirk
and later composed and arranged for the Duke Ellington Orchestra. In the
early '50s she abruptly retired and became a devout Roman Catholic. When
she returned to performing a few years later, it was with a renewed sense
of music's spiritual importance. "Jazz is like religion," she said. "It's
healing to the soul... Spirituals and jazz, they were born out of suffering.
And only out of suffering is a true thing born."
Hometown: Kansas City
The story goes like this: Boogie-woogie
pianist Pete Johnson would pound out measure after measure of thundering
blues as Joe Turner, the singing bartender, shouted out improvised and
cobbled-together lyrics for maybe 45 minutes at the old Sunset Club. Then
they took a break. One song, one set. Turner and Johnson got their shot
at national fame as part of the famous "Spirituals to Swing" concert at
Carnegie Hall in 1938 and Turner went on to record with a dizzying array
of jazz and rhythm-and-blues artists, helping shape the music called rock
'n' roll. Most famous of his hits in the '50s was "Shake, Rattle &
Roll," written by another veteran of the Kansas City jazz scene, Jesse
Stone. Turner's 1940 recording, "Piney Brown Blues," recalled a legendary
18th-and-Vine character.
ELLA FITZGERALD (1918-1996)
Hometown: Newport News, Va.
Ella Fitzgerald, who'll be the subject
of a major exhibit at the Kansas City Jazz Museum, had no significant connection
to the city, but she returned often after appearing at the Pla-Mor Ballroom
in 1939 as the leader of the Chick Webb Orchestra. Her career began in
1934, when she won $25 singing on an amateur night at the legendary Apollo
Theatre in Harlem. An association with producer Norman Granz that began
in the '40s yielded the series of classic "songbook" albums, in which Fitzgerald
interpreted the great songwriters -- including Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer
and George Gershwin. In the '50s she appeared here often with the Jazz
at the Philharmonic tours. One of the earliest, in 1950, teamed her with
a stellar lineup that included Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Oscar Peterson,
Ray Brown and Buddy Rich.
Hometown: Kansas City, Kan.
Along with Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious
Monk, Parker is responsible for creating bebop, the cerebral jazz style
that supplanted the more dance-inducing swing. Parker may have been the
most influential musician in jazz. Parker hung out in Kansas City jazz
clubs from an early age. By the time he left for New York in the 1940s,
he had developed a musical aesthetic of his own based largely on fast tempos
and melodic invention. His sheer creativity on his alto sax made Parker
an iconic figure. But his interest in music extended beyond jazz, to classical
music and other forms. He caused controversy when he released a "with-strings"
album, which has since been acknowledged as one of his most successful
works. Parker's life was cut short by drug abuse. But the standard he set
for excellence and innovation in jazz inspires musicians to this day.
Hometown: Lawrence
Watson, an alto saxophonist, parlayed
his talents into a high-profile stint with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers
(playing alongside Wynton Marsalis). On his own, the saxophonist has released
albums on Columbia and Blue Note as well as on smaller labels. Straight-ahead
jazz is his specialty, but with a modern edge and a sense of fun that pulls
audiences into the music. Watson has also distinguished himself as a composer
and record producer. Arguably, his most artistically successful albums
are the Columbia releases "Present Tense" (1992) and "Midwest Shuffle"
(1994).
Hometown: Lee's Summit
One of the few jazz artists to secure
mainstream popularity without abandoning the music, guitarist Metheny played
his first gigs in Kansas City. His career got a boost in 1974 when he was
discovered by vibist Gary Burton, who invited him into his band. The guitarist
founded his own, rock-influenced Pat Metheny Group in 1978. Over the years
Metheny has maintained a balance between his popular work with that band
and projects with such cutting-edge artists as saxophonist Ornette Coleman
(with whom he recorded the ground-breaking album, "Song X") and guitarist
Derek Bailey.
KEVIN MAHOGANY (b. 1958)
Hometown: Kansas City
Mahogany is one of the few male
jazz vocalists to have a major impact in recent decades. His albums for
the Enja and Warner Bros. labels have earned him mainstream attention.
The singer learned his art through long years on the Kansas City scene,
including some work as an r&b singer. His sound nods to tradition while
incorporating contemporary influences. In a given set, Mahogany may sing
"Body and Soul" and a Stevie Wonder tune. His success is due not
only to musical talent, but to an enthusiasm for jazz that makes the music
that much more accessible. He appears as a Joe Turner-like figure in Robert
Altman's "Kansas City."
KARRIN ALLYSON (b. 1962)
Hometown: Great Bend, Kan.
Allyson is one of the more impressive
jazz singers to emerge in the 1990s. She grew up in Omaha, Neb., and the
San Francisco Bay area. Her singing career started in Minneapolis, but
she is best known for her work on the Kansas City scene and her recordings
on the Concord label. Allyson has a clear, sunny voice, a varied repertoire,
a knack for scat singing and a talent for pulling even the most stalwart
jazz skeptic into the music. Her live shows are engaging and effervescent.
She respects the jazz tradition, but there's nothing musty or outdated
about her performances.
--Robert Trussell and Calvin Wilson
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