Kansas City Jazz

Where Jazz grew up.

Kansas City jazz is a style of jazz that developed in Kansas City, Missouri, during the 1920s and 1930s, which marked the transition from the structured big band style to the musical improvisation style of Bebop. The hard-swinging, bluesy transition style is bracketed by Count Basie, who in 1929 signed with Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra, and Kansas City native Charlie Parker, who ushered in the Bebop style in America. “While New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz, America’s music grew up in Kansas City.”

Kansas City in the 1930s was very much the crossroads of the United States, resulting in a mix of cultures. Transcontinental trips at the time, whether by plane or train, often required a stop in the city. The era marked the zenith of the power of political boss Tom Pendergast. Kansas City was a wide-open town with liquor laws and hours totally ignored, and was called the new Storyville. Most of the jazz musicians associated with the style were born in other places but got caught up in the friendly musical competitions among performers that could keep a single song being performed in variations for an entire night. Often, members of the big bands would perform at regular venues earlier in the evening and go to the jazz clubs later to jam for the rest of the night.

Jay McShann told the Associated Press in 2003:

“You’d hear some cat play, and somebody would say, ‘This cat, he sounds like he is from Kansas City.’ It was Kansas City Style. They knew it on the East Coast. They knew it on the West Coast. They knew it up North and they knew it down South.”

Claude “Fiddler” Williams described the scene:

Kansas City was different from all other places because we’d be jamming all night. And [if] you come up here ... playing the wrong thing, we’d straighten you out.

Kansas City jazz is distinguished by the following musical elements:

• A preference for a 4 feel (walking) over the 2 beat feel found in other jazz styles of the time. As a result, Kansas City jazz had a more relaxed, fluid sound than other jazz styles.

• Extended soloing. Fueled by the non-stop nightlife under political boss Tom Pendergast, Kansas City jam sessions went on well past sunrise, fostering a highly competitive atmosphere and a unique jazz culture in which the goal was to “say something” with one’s instrument, rather than simply show off one’s technique. It was not uncommon for one “song” to be performed for several hours, with the best musicians often soloing for dozens of choruses at a time.

• So-called “head arrangements”. The KC big bands often played by memory, composing and arranging the music collectively, rather than sight-reading as other big bands of the time did. This further contributed to the loose, spontaneous Kansas City sound.

• A heavy blues influence, with KC songs often based around a 12-bar blues structure, rather than the 32 bar AABA standard, although Moten Swing is in this AABA format.

• One of the most recognizable characteristics of Kansas City jazz is frequent, elaborate riffing by the different sections. Riffs were often created - or even improvised - collectively, and took many forms: a) one section riffing alone, serving as the main focus of the music; b) one section riffing behind a soloist, adding excitement to the song; or c) two or more sections riffing in counterpoint, creating an exciting, hard-swinging sound. The Count Basie signature tunes “One O’Clock Jump“ and “Jumpin’ at the Woodside“, for example, are simply collections of complex riffs, memorized in a head arrangement, and punctuated with solos.

Jesse Stone and his Blue Serenaders were active from about 1920 to 1928 in Kansas City and the Southwest. He cut his first record, “Starvation Blues”, for Okeh Records in 1927. For the next few years, he worked as a pianist and arranger in Kansas City, recording with Julia Lee, among others, and then in the 1930s, he organised a larger orchestra. Coleman Hawkins got his professional start with Stone’s Blues Serenaders as a saxophonist when he was a teenager. Count Basie wrote in his autobiography that Stone had the reputation as the best piano player in Kansas City.

Julia Lee (October 31, 1902 – December 8, 1958)was an American blues and dirty blues musician.] Her inclusion in the latter category is mainly due to a few numbers she performed, e.g., “King Size Papa” and “Snatch and Grab It”, and “I Didn’t Like It The First Time (The Spinach Song)”. However, it would be misleading to characterise her music as always being in this vein. Born in Boonville, Missouri, Lee was raised in Kansas City, and began her musical career around 1920, singing and playing piano in her brother George Lee’s band, which for a time also included Charlie Parker. She first recorded on the Merritt record label in 1927 with Jesse Stone as pianist and arranger, and launched a solo career in 1935.

Walter Sylvester Page (February 9, 1900 – December 20, 1957) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist and bandleader, best known for his groundbreaking work as a double bass player with Walter Page’s Blue Devils and the Count Basie Orchestra .The Blue Devils were an early Kansas City Jazz band; several members of this band would go on to play in Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra and the Count Basie Orchestra. The founder of the Blue Devils was Walter Page. The band started in Oklahoma City in 1925. The Blue Devils played in the Southwest, and traveled by car, playing small clubs and dance halls. In 1928, Jimmy Rushing and Bill “Count” Basie joined the band and would play with them until the following year, when Bennie Moten lured Basie away from the band. Shortly after Basie’s departure, Durham quit, and later Rushing and Lips Page would also join Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra. The Blue Devils regrouped and hired Lester Young and Druie Bess, but Moten ended up absorbing most of the Blue Devils, even including Walter Page. After a series of misadventures in 1933, the Blue Devils found themselves stranded in Virginia, without instruments or money. They hopped a freight train back to St. Louis.

Bennie Moten started making music from an early age and developed as a pianist, pulling together other musicians in a band. His first recordings were made (for OKeh Records) on September 23, 1923, and were rather typical interpretations of the New Orleans style of King Oliver and others.

They signed with Victor Records in 1926, and were influenced by the more sophisticated style of Fletcher Henderson. More often than not, their pieces featured a hard stomp beat that was extremely popular in Kansas City. Moten continued to be one of Victor’s most popular orchestras through 1930.

Moten’s popular 1928 recording of “South“ on Victor V-38021 (itself a remake of the first version on OKeh from late 1924) stayed in Victor’s catalog over the years.

By 1928, Moten’s piano was showing some boogie woogie influences, but the real revolution came in 1929, after he recruited Count Basie, Walter Page, and Oran ‘Hot Lips’ Page. Walter Page’s walking bass lines gave the music an entirely new feel compared to the 2/4 tuba of his predecessor Vernon Page, colored by Basie’s understated, syncopated piano fills.

Their final session showed the early stages of what became known as the “Basie sound,” four years before Basie recorded under his own name. (They made 10 recordings at Victor’s Camden, New Jersey, studios on December 13, 1932. By this time, Ben Webster and Rushing had joined Moten’s band, but Moten himself did not play on these sessions. These sides were mostly arranged by Eddie Durham, and they include several tunes that later became swing classics:

During a stay in Chicago, Basie recorded with the band. He occasionally played four-hand piano and duet piano with Moten, who also conducted

When the band voted Moten out, Basie took over for several months, calling the group “Count Basie and his Cherry Blossoms.” When his own band folded, he rejoined Moten with a newly reorganized band. A year later, Basie joined Bennie Moten’s band and played with them until Moten died in 1935 from a failed tonsillectomy. When Moten died, the band tried to stay together but couldn’t make a go of it. Basie then formed his own nine-piece band, Barons of Rhythm, with many former Moten members, including Walter Page (bass), Freddie Green (guitar), Jo Jones (drums), Lester Young (tenor saxophone) and Jimmy Rushing (vocals).

The Barons of Rhythm were regulars at the Reno Club and often performed for a live radio broadcast. During a broadcast, the announcer wanted to give Basie’s name some style, so he called him “Count.” Little did Basie know this touch of royalty would give him proper status and position him with the likes of Duke Ellington and Earl Hines.

Basie’s new band, which included many Moten alumni, with the important addition of tenor player Lester Young. They played at the Reno Club and sometimes were broadcast on local radio. Late one night with time to fill, the band started improvising. Basie liked the results and named the piece “One O’Clock Jump.”[According to Basie, “we hit it with the rhythm section and went into the riffs, and the riffs just stuck. We set the thing up front in D-flat, and then we just went on playing in F.” It became his signature tune.

Another very popular Kansas City band was Andy Kirk’s Clouds of Joy. Though not reaching the fame of Basie or Ellington, they were a very good band and reached considerable success in their day between the early 30’s and the 40’s. They had several top-ten hits and employed many top-rate musicians, including Mary Lou Williams and a young Charlie Parker.

Next, let’s take a listen to some of the jazz musicians who originated in KC.

Foremost must be Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas. He was the only child of Charles Parker and Adelaide “Addie” Bailey, who was of mixed Choctaw and African American background. He attended Lincoln High School, where he played in the college band, in September 1934, but withdrew in December 1935, just before joining the local musicians’ union to pursue his musical career full-time

In late spring 1936, Parker played at a jam session at the Reno Club in Kansas City. His attempt to improvise failed when he lost track of the chord changes. This prompted Jo Jones, the drummer from Count Basie’s Orchestra, to contemptuously throw a cymbal at his feet as a signal to leave the stage. However, rather than discouraging Parker, the incident caused him to vow to practice harder, and turned out to be a seminal moment in the young musician’s career.. He returned as a new man a year later. In 1938, Parker joined pianist Jay McShann’s territory band. Parker made his professional recording debut with McShann’s band. I’m going to play a track from what was probably his first solo recording made at Vic Damon Studios in Kansas, September 1942. Charlie Parker( alto sax), Efferge Ware(guitar). Here are his comments on this recording: “I couldn’t stand the stereotyped harmonies that were being used so often. I kept thinking there had to be something different. Sometimes I could hear something, but I couldn’t play it... Yes, that night I improvised for a long time on Cherokee. As I did so, I realised that by using the higher intervals of the chords as a melodic line, and by placing new, fairly similar harmonies underneath them, I was suddenly playing what I had been feeling inside me all this time. I was reborn.” (Charlie Parker)

Among the other KC-based musicians with whom Parker must have jammed was Coleman Hawkins. Here they are playing a number called Ballade in 1950. Parker looks very happy.

Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. Not nearly as well-known as many of the male musicians who came from KC, she was a great influence in jazz. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and LP versions).[Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was a friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Oran Thaddeus “Hot Lips” Page (January 27, 1908 – November 5, 1954) was another KC-born jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader. He was known as a scorching soloist and powerful vocalist. His career covered a large part of jazz history.

Page was a member of Walter Page‘s Blue Devils, Artie Shaw‘s Orchestra and Count Basie‘s Orchestra, and he worked with Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Ida Cox.[He was one of the five musicians who opened Birdland with Charlie Parker in 1949.1

Robert Edward “Bob“ Brookmeyer (December 19, 1929 – December 15, 2011) was an American jazz valve trombonist, pianist, arranger, and composer. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Brookmeyer first gained widespread public attention as a member of Gerry Mulligan’s quartet from 1954 to 1957. He later worked with Jimmy Giuffre, before rejoining Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band

Brookmeyer began playing professionally when in his teens. He attended the Kansas City Conservatory of Music, but did not graduate. He played piano in big bands led by Tex Beneke and Ray McKinley, but concentrated on valve trombone when he moved to the Claude Thornhill orchestra in the early 1950s. He was part of small groups led by Stan Getz, Jimmy Giuffre, and Gerry Mulligan in the 1950s. During the 1950s and 1960s, Brookmeyer played in New York clubs and on television. He never forgot his early days in KC and in 1958 produced an album called Kansas City Revisited with Al Cohn and introducing blues singer Big Miller, and featuring tunes originating from KC.

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Ben Webster was considered one of the “big three” of swing tenors, along with Coleman Hawkins (his main influence) and Lester Young. He had a tough, raspy, and brutal tone on stomps (with his own distinctive growls), yet on ballads, he would turn into a pussy cat and play with warmth and sentiment. After violin lessons as a child, Webster learned how to play rudimentary piano (his neighbour Pete Johnson taught him to play blues). But after Budd Johnson showed him some basics on the saxophone, Webster played sax in the Young Family Band (which at the time included Lester Young). He had stints with Jap Allen and Blanche Calloway (making his recording debut with the latter) before joining Bennie Moten’s Orchestra in time to be one of the stars on a classic session in 1932. Webster spent time with quite a few orchestras in the 1930s (including Andy Kirk, Fletcher Henderson in 1934, Benny Carter, Willie Bryant, Cab Calloway, and the short-lived Teddy Wilson big band).

In 1940 (after short stints in 1935 and 1936), Ben Webster became Duke Ellington’s first major tenor soloist. During the next three years, he was on many famous recordings, including “Cotton Tail” (which in addition to his memorable solo, had a saxophone ensemble arranged by Webster) and “All Too Soon.” After leaving Ellington in 1943 (he would return for a time in 1948-1949), Webster worked on 52nd Street; recorded frequently as both a leader and a sideman; had short periods with Raymond Scott, John Kirby, and Sid Catlett; and toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic during several seasons in the 1950s. Although his sound was considered out of style by that decade, Webster’s work on ballads became quite popular, and Norman Granz recorded him on many memorable sessions. Webster recorded a classic set with Art Tatum and generally worked steadily, but in 1964, he moved permanently to Copenhagen, where he played when he pleased during his last decade. Although not all that flexible, Webster could swing with the best, and his tone was a later influence on such diverse players as Archie Shepp, Lew Tabackin, Scott Hamilton, and Bennie Wallace

Finally, in 1997, Robert Altman produced a film recreating KC in the 1930’s.

Jazz ’34 was conceived as an exploratory footnote to Altman’s 1996 narrative feature, Kansas City, reusing its sets and some of its cast to fashion a memory piece based on the director’s boyhood recollections of his hometown’s hottest clubs. Harry Belafonte narrates, but mostly stays out of the way of the performances, which need no elaboration. Employing some of the finest jazz interpreters of the ’90s (including Joshua Redman, James Carter, Geri Allen, and David “Fathead” Newman) as stand-ins, surrogates, and reanimators of the ’30s sound, If you want to watch the actual recording, I suggest you go to YouTube. Copyright restrictions