Tag: Count Basie

A Black Friday blowout

by thedailyrecord, posted in band feature, Kansas City music scene

(Above: Jazz pianist Mark Lowrey teamed up with local musicians for the second installment of the Mark Lowrey vs. Hip Hop series.)

By Joel Francis
The Daily Record

Mark Lowrey sits behind a grand piano, contemplating using a Thelonious Monk number as an introduction to the rapper Common’s song “Thelonious.” As his fingers coax a signature Monk melody from the keys, bass player Dominique Sanders and drummer Ryan Lee nod in approval.

“I thought it was really obvious at first,” Lowrey admits. “But sometimes obvious is good.”

Two days before Thanksgiving, Lowrey and his rhythm section are sorting through ideas, sketching a musical landscape. They are joined by singer Schelli Tolliver and MCs Les Izmore and Reach. The final vision – a bridging of jazz and hip hop, structured and improvised – will be displayed tonight at Crosstown Station. The Black Friday ensemble takes the stage at 10 p.m. Cover is $10.

“We’ll be doing a mix of originals and covers,” says trumpet player Hermon Mehari, who will also be participating. “We’re playing tribute to some of the great hip hop artists of our time like Talib Kweli, A Tribe Called Quest, J Dilla. Additionally, Reach and Les will both do some originals.”

After a few trials, the Monk number “I Mean You” has been successfully married to “Thelonious.” On “The Light,” another Common song, the band suddenly drops into Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” right after the lyric “It’s kinda fresh you listen to more than hip hop.”

KC MCs Les Izmore (left) and Reach salute Charlie Parker inside the Mutual Musicians Foundation.

“When Les and Diverse played this (‘The Light’) earlier this year they did ‘Unforgettable’ in that spot,” Lowrey says. “Everybody liked that, but we didn’t want to use the same thing. We were tossing out ideas, and someone suggested Michael Jackson.”

That same process informed the playlist. Everyone presented the songs they wanted to do, and the set was culled from what worked and how the band’s reactions. When Reach takes the mic for Notorious B.I.G.’s “Big Poppa” he intersperses short bursts of freestyle around the original lyrics. A later run through of Jay-Z’s “Show Me What You Got” reveals an energy only hinted at on the Top 10 single. As Reach commands the imaginary crowd to wave their arms, Lee goes berserk on his drum kit.

“These shows have a different energy than Hearts of Darkness,” Izmore says of the local Afrobeat group he fronts. “With those shows you’re always trying to keep people dancing and keep the energy high. Here you can chill out and listen.”

Rehearsals will soon move to Crosstown Station, but for tonight the Mutual Musicians Foundation is home. The hallowed hall on Highland, home to Hootie and Bird, Count Basie and Big Joe Turner. The spirit of innovation those musicians introduced to the world via Kansas City is very much on display in the current sextet. Some may scoff that jazz and hip hop may seem to exist on disparate planets, but their orbits collide surprisingly often.

“I grew up on jazz, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Ella Fitzgerald,” Reach says. “She (Ella) very much influenced my delivery and the way I play with cadences.”

Lowrey first toyed with combining rap and hip hop when he invited local MC Kartoon to sit in with his group a couple years ago. Both artists enjoyed the experience and Kartoon put Lowrey in touch with other vocalists in the KC hip hop scene.

“Hip hop has always been influenced by jazz,” Reach says. “Now, because the younger jazz musicians have grown up with hip hop, we are seeing it influence jazz. It’s kind of come full circle.”

In the past year, Lowrey has hosted several Mark Lowrey vs. Hip Hop concerts. The shows are basic, but explosive. Lowrey and drummer Brandon Draper create free jazz textures, as MCs and musicians alike improvise over the ever-changing structure.

“Our arrangements for this show are based in the tradition of jazz where you play the melody, then improvise over the chords before coming back to the head (melody),” Lowrey says. “The only difference is that we’re adding MCs in the mix with the horns.”

At another jazz/hip hop mash-up last February, Izmore and Diverse, a local jazz quartet that includes Mehari and Lee, celebrated the 10th anniversary of Common’s album “Like Water For Chocolate” by rearranging and performing the record in its entirety. The night ended with an encore of the Charlie Parker song “Diverse.”

“I’ve never seen a crowd of non-jazz fans so into the music,” Mehari says. “It’s the perfect example of what we want to do. Bring people in with hip hop and music they want to hear, then take them on a journey to new sounds. Once we’ve earned their trust, they’ll follow us anywhere.”

Keep reading:

KC’s MCs throw down this weekend

Jazz, hip hop collide to celebrate landmark album

Open wide for Mouth

Clark Terry’s Last Stand

by thedailyrecord, posted in Concert review, Kansas City music scene
(Above: A somewhat recent performance of Clark Terry’s signature song, “Mumbles.”)

By Joel Francis
The Daily Record

Perhaps only baseball reveres its heroes of the past as much as jazz. Each year, Stan Musial, Ted Williams or another bygone star is paraded around the field before the All-Star Game. Likewise, the songbooks passed down from Miles, Duke, Satchmo, Monk and others are considered sacrosanct.

Unlike baseball fans, however, jazz traditionalists are loathe to replace their legends with up-and-comers. This makes it frustratingly inconvenient when the links to that halcyon era keep dying.

Fortunately, Clark Terry was up to the task Friday night at the Gem Theater for the American Jazz Museum’s Duke Ellington celebration. The 89-year-old trumpet master played with Ellington for 10 years, led Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show band, and recorded with Oscar Peterson, J.J. Johnson, Thelonious Monk and scores of others throughout his eight-decade career.

Fellow Ellington orchestra alum Barrie Hall, Jr. introduced Terry by reminiscing when he was able to record with his hero on the soundtrack of the “Fabulous Baker Boys.” Stationed in a wheelchair, Terry appears from the backstage recesses of stage right, hidden in the wings.

As the applause built, Terry’s son, standing behind the chair, frantically waves his arms, as if to call the celebration off. The museum’s two-day tribute to Ellington has been building to this moment. Has something gone wrong? Will Terry not be able to appear after all? Killing time, Hall nervously sings a few stanzas of “Do Nothing ‘Till You Hear From Me.”

 

Clark Terry receives the American Jazz Museum lifetime achievement award from museum CEO Greg Carroll in Kansas City, Mo. on April 30, 2010.

Finally, Terry emerged, slumped in his chair, wearing a dark suit and white yachting cap reminiscent of Count Basie’s favorite headwear. A clear tube of oxygen runs beneath his nose, resting atop his albino moustache. A trumpet case is tantalizingly set next to Terry’s wheelchair, but it’s obvious he won’t be able to play even before the announcement is made.

As the band, led by Hall, kicks into “Full Moon at Midnight,” Terry rests his hands on the cane that stands between his knees. He takes in the saxophone solo by Ahmed Alaadeen. The esteemed Kansas City jazz fixture is another Ellington alumnus who received the museum’s lifetime achievement award earlier that evening.

When the song ended it was time for Terry to receive his own lifetime achievement award. His son pushes the wheelchair near the podium. As chief executive officer Greg Carroll reads a biography, Terry fiddles with his wristwatch, seemingly unsure of where he is. When the award is presented, he looks at the miniature bust of Charlie Parker in wonder as Carroll holds it up. Terry’s grip is too weak to clutch the statue.

While the camera flashes fade, Carroll looks at Terry and suggests a song. Terry looks so frail It seems an imposition to ask this much, but he graciously accepts the mic that has to be placed in his right hand. The band launches into “Squeeze Me,” one of Terry’s signature numbers with the Ellington orchestra. His warm voice starts out thin and strained, but grows stronger with each verse. The years fall away as he starts scatting the final verse, his left knee rocking up and down.

The applause is still strong when Hall looks at the band and blasts the intro to “Mumbles.” Terry joins right in and his nonsense spoof of blue singers brings laughter from the audience. He’s into it now, rocking back and forth and even backing his chair up so he can look Hall in the face as he supplies fills on his trumpet. Hall and Terry trade riffs back and forth from voice to horn and back like a jazz version of an Abbot and Costello routine.

The audience jumps to its feet with the final note, and a broad smile beams from Terry’s face. Wheelchair or not, it is obvious that when Terry is put onstage and given the mic he still knows exactly what to do. He has no difficulty conjuring smiles and making everyone happy. As his son wheels him offstage, Terry blows kisses and doffs his hat. A few songs later, Terry’s son and a nurse escort him quietly out of the building.

(Below: Clark Terry blows his horn on the Tonight Show in 1980.)

Keep reading:

Review: Sonny Rollins

Review: Oleta Adams

Review: Kind of Blue turns 50

Remembering Gennett Records

Releasing Jazz from Aspic

KC Recalls: The Coon-Sanders Night Hawk Orchestra

Buck O’Neil: Sweet times, sweet sounds at 18th and Vine

Piano Men: Dave Brubeck, Dr. John and the Jacksonville Jazz Festival

A conversation with Elijah Wald

by thedailyrecord, posted in Author Interview, review
(Above: Although forgotten by both jazz and pop historians today, bandleader Paul Whiteman was a major figure in early 20th century music. A central figure in Elijah Wald’s latest book, “How the Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll,” here is the trailer for Whiteman’s 1930 film “King of Jazz.”)

By Joel Francis
The Daily Record

Author Elijah Wald has dedicated his past two books to stripping away the legend and mythology surrounding two of music’s most iconic figures, and placing them in the context of their times. In “Escaping the Delta,” Wald demonstrates how Robert Johnson was very much a product of his time, and how his deification was established. Wald’s latest book expands that motif, and bears the inflammatory title “How the Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll.”

Wald recently took the time to speak with The Daily Record about some of the themes in his new book and, of course, how the Beatles changed rock and roll.

In the book you talk about how “everything old becomes new again,” and use the Twist to illustrate your point. What are some of the other examples of cyclical trends you discovered?

To be fair, I don’t say everything old can always be recycled. When something new comes along, we tend to look back and find things that seem similar to us. But I think that may be less a recognition of real cycles than a way of making the present seem less strange.

Clearly, things come back, but when they do come back they are different. I’m not sure things are cyclical. It may just be they way we get comfortable with them. When the Twist came around, the way the entertainment industry handled it was to talk with Irene Castle and say “This is like what was happening in 1914, isn’t it?”

Why do you call “Rhapsody in Blue” the “Sgt. Pepper’s” of the ‘20s?

This is really the germ of the whole book. I was reading how people in the people in the 1920s wrote about “Rhapsody in Blue” and noticed how similar it was to what was said about “Sgt. Pepper’s” in the 1960s.

(In the 1920s) everyone was saying how until now jazz was a lot of noise and music for rowdies and kids, but now this had turned it into a mature art form. This is exactly what happened with “Sgt. Pepper’s.” Leonard Bernstein said he was excited about it and Lennon and McCartney were compared to Schubert. Just as “Rhapsody in Blue” created a respectable thing that could still be called “jazz,” “Sgt. Pepper’s” created something respectable that was still considered rock.

 

Who was Paul Whiteman and what was his impact on music? Why has he largely been forgotten today?

I spend a whole chapter in the book on this, but in a nutshell, Paul Whiteman was the most popular bandleader of the 1920s. He was the man who transformed the perception of jazz from noisy, small groups into large orchestras who played not only fun dance music, but also at Carnegie Hall.

I think Whiteman is largely forgotten because he didn’t swing by and large and was resolutely white. We have understood the history of jazz to largely be a history of African-American music. Whiteman tried, for better or worse, to separate jazz from that heritage.

In many ways, the 1940s parallel today, in that there is fear new technology will usurp the traditional way artists got paid. Then it was a fear of jukeboxes and radio’s reliance on pre-recorded music and today, of course, the dominant issue is digital piracy. What are some of the similarities and differences you’ve observed between these two decades?

The huge difference is that all the things we talked about in the ‘40s did involve musicians getting paid, just different musicians. It was R&B and country musicians getting paid instead of big bands. A lot of people previously neglected became huge stars.

What’s happening now is really dangerous, in terms of musicians continuing to be able to make a living. It is exciting, in terms of everyone being able to make their music available to millions of listeners, but it is getting harder and harder to make a living in music. It’s more like a lottery – win and become a star or lose and go on to something else.

There are skills you develop as a professional musician that we’re seeing less and less of because people don’t perform as much. Everyone in my book went through an apprenticeship playing seven nights a week for four or five hours a night. Those opportunities no longer exist. There’s no way to build those kinds of skills today.

Explain the difference between hot and sweet combos. Why have the hot survived while the sweet are dismissed?

A lot of people will say this is a false dichotomy. Everyone played some sweet and some hot, but the best way to explain the difference to people of my generation is to go back to the British Invasion. In the U.S., we thought of both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as belonging to the same genre. In England, however, the Beatles were called pop and the Rolling Stones were called R&B, and it’s easy to understand why.

The way we look at it today, hot bands played for boys who were into music as fans and listeners, while sweet bands were for sappy girls. That’s not the way I would phrase it, but it’s not necessarily wrong. Women have always been the determining pop buyers, because they like to dance, but men have always been the main critics. In any case, in the 1930s the two extremes were Guy Lombardo on the sweet end and Count Basie as hot, but most bands were in the middle.

One reason the hot bands live on is because by and large the only people listening today are jazz fans and they always liked the hot bands better. There’s also the racial component I mentioned earlier. I don’t disagree that what is exciting in American music was largely taken from African-American music—I would argue that it’s more complicated than that, because they are always interchanging, but as a listener I am certainly more excited by Basie than by Lombardo. As a historian, though, I am interested in both, and well aware that in their era Lombardo was far more popular.

What is the connection between swing and rock and roll?

It was the hot dance music, youthful, noisy dance music. We think of these worlds as separate, but a lot of the same musicians crossed over. The first house band for Alan Freed’s rock party was the Count Basie Orchestra. Bill Haley and the Comets all did their apprenticeships playing swing. Musically, there was a lot of overlap.

How did the success of the Beatles and other late-‘60s rock bands segregate the music industry? What are the lasting effects of that segregation?

Two things happened at once. One, the Beatles arrived when the industry was moving very heavily toward black music. The myth is the Beatles rescued us from Frankie Avalon, but they really rescued us from Motown and girl groups. If you look at the charts, black groups had so completely taken over, they actually stopped having separate charts.

The Beatles and British Invasion bands were exciting, but their rhythm sections were old fashioned. In a world of Motown and James Brown they played archaic styles. Black kids were not much interested in the British bands, because they weren’t as much fun to dance to—and it was not just black kids, but everyone who was dancing to Motown, which included a lot of white kids, especially white girls.

At the same time, the discotheque craze was hitting, so people didn’t have to have live bands. The lasting effect of that is that you no longer had to have one band who could play every style of music. Before you couldn’t have a band play only black or white music, because people wanted to dance to and hear the full range of current hits. In the ‘60s, though, you could have one band only play one kind of music, because when you wanted to hear a different kind you could just change the record.

In the epilogue you discuss how rock and dance music gradually began playing to divergent audiences. Do you think they will intersect again?

Today we don’t have bands that have to play anything, period. It’s a sad reality that if you listen to hit records – or even records that aren’t hits, by little-known, local performers – the number of records where the group on the album plays regularly is vanishingly small. The number of hits that can be recreated without recordings is virtually none.

Don’t get me wrong; hip hop couldn’t exist in a world where you had to play everything live and I think hip hop is exciting. Overall, however, the world of live music is becoming extinct. There are certainly plenty of people for whom live music is important, and I’m sure there always will be, but they are increasingly a minority.

Keep reading:

Review – “How the Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll”

Talking King Records with author Jon Hartley Fox

Review – “King of the Queen City”

Talking Motown with author Bill Dahl

Key King Artists

The True Story of Cadillac Records

The Temptations – “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg”

by thedailyrecord, posted in Motown

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The Temptations – “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg,” Pop #13, R&B #1

By Joel Francis

If you’re not hooked in the first five seconds of this song, you haven’t been paying attention. All the elements attack immediately: the drum roll coupled with the insistent clanging cymbal, the knuckle-roll piano riff and, of course, David Ruffin’s raspy vocal. The stinging staccato guitar that shows up later in the initial verse is a direct homage to James Brown. Throw in the glorious backing vocals from the rest of the Temptations and a stellar horn line and you’ve got not only an incredible song, but a definitive snapshot of Motown in full glory.

“Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” would be no less a masterpiece if the story stopped there, but remarkably the song almost didn’t get made.

After a few of Smokey Robinson’s productions for the Temps failed to take hold on the charts, hotshot Norman Whitfield wanted the chance to sit behind the boards with the group. Whitfield was a long shot to topple Robinson’s incumbency, but Whitfield thought he had a number that could give him control. Enlisting songwriting help from Edward Holland, Jr. of the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, Whitfield had the Funk Brothers lay down the backing track to one of Motown’s funkiest numbers to date. The Temptations then added their vocals and Whitfield submitted the single to be auditioned at the Motown Quality Control meeting.

Quality Control meetings were the result of Berry Gordy’s days on the Detroit assembly line. Each week, the label’s top creative minds would meet, listen to music and decide what should be released. Surprisingly, “Ain’t To Proud To Beg” didn’t make the cut. It didn’t make the cut the second week, either. Politics could have been at play – Robinson and Gordy were so close that Robinson named his son Berry – but Gordy asserted that the number simply needed more work.

So Whitfield went back into the studio and moved the melody for the vocal line just out of Ruffin’s range. The straining singer’s vocals added the needed muscle and desperation to the song, and the number was once again submitted to Quality Control.

This time, however, the song had unexpected competition in the form of “Get Ready,” a Temptations number Robinson had written and produced for the band. Since Robinson was the Temps’ established producer “Get Ready” went out while “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” stayed on the shelf. Whitfield was so upset that Gordy promised him “Beg” would be the next single if “Get Ready” failed to reach the pop Top 20.

Gordy kept his word and the song was finally released in May, 1966, eventually reaching No. 1 on the R&B charts. When Whitfield found success with the Temptations following two singles he was instated as the group’s main producer, a role he guarded fiercely until 1974.

Around the same time Whitfield was leaving Motown and the Temptations to form his own record label, the Rolling Stones found No. 17 pop hit with their cover. Through the years, the number has also yielded interpretations by Ben Harper, the Count Basie Orchestra and, even more strangely, Rick Astley, who also made it a Top 20 hit (albeit on the Adult Contemporary charts) in 1988.

15 jazz greats to emerge in the last 20 years (part three)

by thedailyrecord, posted in Album review, Industry commentary, Kansas City music scene
(Above: Savion Glover does his thing with plenty o’ swing.)

By Joel Francis
The Daily Record

Continuing The Daily Record’s look at the state of jazz today, here is the final of three installments shedding light on 15 jazz greats to emerge in the last 20 years. Note that these musicians are not necessarily the 15 greatest jazz artists to arrive since 1990. A brief listen to any of them, though, should more than persuade the most ardent purist that jazz is alive and well.

Eldar Djangirov

Eldar Djangirov is the continuation of the great line of pianists to emerge from Kansas City, Mo. that stretches back to Count Basie and Jay McShann. The three have more than an adopted hometown in common, though. Although none were born in Kansas City, all experienced significant musical growth while living there. Unlike Basie and McShann, though, Eldar’s formation started before puberty. He performed at a Russian jazz festival at age 5 and at age 12 became the youngest guest ever on Marian McPartlan’s Piano Jazz radio show. Though his latest album is straight-up smooth jazz, Eldar’s earlier work has a breadth that recalls everyone from Ahmad Jamal to Art Tatum. Albums to start with: Eldar, Live at the Blue Note

Christian McBride

Bass player Christian McBride was mentored and hailed by no less an authority than Ray Brown before starting off on his own. McBride works comfortably in the traditional vein on his early albums like “Fingerpainting,” the excellent tribute to Herbie Hancock performed in a bass/guitar/trumpet setting. He gets more funky and touches on fusion with his three-disc live set recorded at Tonic and studio albums “Sci-Fi” and “Vertical Vision.” In 2003, McBride collaborated with hip hop drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson of the Roots and keyboardist Uri Caine for a spectacular collaboration known as the Philadelphia Experiment. McBride has also worked extensively with Sting and Pat Metheny. Albums to start with: Fingerpainting, The Philadelphia Experiment.

Joshua Redman

Expectations have been high for Joshua Redman since winning the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991. While Redman hasn’t fulfilled those unrealistic expectations by taking his instrument to the heights achieved by Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, he has built a strong career on his own terms. Redman’s early quintets helped launch the careers of Christian McBride and Brad Mehldau and his work as musical director of the San Francisco Jazz Collective paired him with legends like Bobby Hutcherson and new artists like Miguel Zenon. Redman’s catalog is adventurous enough to include covers of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” with guitarist Pat Metheny and funky experiments that recall Eddie Harris. Albums to start with: Spirit of the Moment, Back East.

Savion Glover

Jazz tap may have died with the golden age of big-budget Hollywood musicals, but Savion Glover is trying his best to bring it back. He has appeared in televised concerts with Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra, collaborated with poet Reg E. Gaines and saxophone player Matana Roberts for the John Coltrane-inspired improve “If Trane Was Here,” appeared in Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled” and was a cast member of “Sesame Street.” Glover hasn’t recorded any albums, but his live performances are a potent reminder that jazz isn’t the exclusive province of those with a horn or a voice.

Bad Plus

Combining rock and jazz is nothing new, but the piano/drums/bass trio Bad Plus have done it in an acoustic setting that resembles Medeski, Martin and Wood more than Weather Report. Their early albums were filled with original material that split the difference between Oscar Peterson and Ben Folds, tempered by occasional arrangements of Pixies and Black Sabbath classics. Unfortunately, recent releases have steered sharply away from new compositions and saturated the increasing covers with more irony. While the concept of their newest album – all covers with a female vocalist – makes one wary, their early material should not be overlooked. Albums to start with: Give, Suspicious Activity.

Keep Reading 15 Jazz Greats to Emerge in the Last 20 Years

Part One

Part Two

Five Legends Still Adding to Their Legacies

KC Recalls: The Coon-Sanders Night Hawk Orchestra

by thedailyrecord, posted in Kansas City music scene, Music history, review

coon

(Above: Joseph Sanders, left, and Carleton Coon.)

By Joel Francis

The music Carleton Coon and Joseph Sanders made for a dozen years together helped put Kansas City jazz on the map. Their Nighthawk Orchestra may have broken up in 1932, but it’s two bandleaders have been silently reunited for 40 years at Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Kansas City.

Coon and Sanders first met at a downtown Kansas City music store in 1918. Tall, handsome and quick-tempered Sanders, was an amateur baseball player on leave from the Army. He was practically the antonym of the pudgy, extroverted Coon. Despite their physical and temperamental differences, both men quickly found they shared a love of jazz and complementary tenor voices.

The following year, when Sanders got out of the Army, the two teamed up, formed a jazz combo and started booking gigs around Kansas City. With Coon handling business, Sanders writing songs and city boss Tom Pendergast ignoring prohibition with his “wide open” bars, clubs and brothels, the Coon-Sanders Novelty Orchestra was soon one of town’s in-demand outfits.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, 1922, the orchestra was booked to play on radio station WDAF. The success of that performance helped launch their weekly show, broadcast from 11:30 p.m. until 12:30 a.m. When the announcer let slip that “anyone who’d stay up this late to hear us would have to be a real night hawk,” thousands of listeners spread across Canada, Mexico and most of the United States let him know that they were proud to be “night hawks.”

Sanders quickly penned a theme song “Night Hawks Blues” and the pair rechristened their ensemble the Coon-Sanders Original Night Hawk Orchestra. In 1924, they recorded for the Victor record label in Chicago and agreed to let burgeoning Chicago promoter Jules Stein book a four-week tour. Stein parlayed his profits from that tour into his own booking company, which he called Music Corporation of America, or MCA.

On the strength of that tour, the Night Hawk Orchestra relocated to Chicago where their performance opening the Balloon Ballroom of the Congress Hotel was broadcast on KYW. Two years later, they moved to the Blackhawk Restaurant where fan Al Capone frequently left $100 tips for the band. On the strength of WGN radio broadcasts and reputation built playing around Chicago (including Capone’s Dells supper club in Morton Grove, Ill.), the Coon-Sanders Orchestra relocated once again in 1931.

Broadcasting weekly from Terrace Room in the Hotel New Yorker on CBS radio, Coon and Sanders found themselves in the same Big Apple circles as Bing Crosby and Guy Lombardo. Coon loved the night life, frequenting the Cotton Club and other Harlem jazz clubs, and making friends with Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington.

Sanders, on the other hand, was less enamored. He longed for the Midwest and made his sentiment plain the final number recorded by the Coon-Sanders Original Night Hawk Orchestra, “I Want to Go Home.”

Unfortunately, circumstances forced the bandleaders’ hands. Popular taste was shifting away from the Caucasian stylings of Coon and Sanders and toward all-black ensembles like the Ellington, Calloway and Kansas City’s Bennie Moten orchestras.

These circumstances, coupled with the Great Depression, forced the Night Hawks back to Chicago in April, 1932, for an engagement at the College Inn. Sander’s delight to be back in familiar territory was tempered when Coon was admitted to the hospital in critical condition. He died a few weeks later from blood poisoning from an abscessed tooth.

kc-graves_coon1

Coon’s 1932 funeral was one of the largest Kansas City had seen. Although his procession carried on for miles, his band’s legacy did not stretch so far. Less than a year after Coon’s death, Sanders dissolved the group and moved to Hollywood to write movie scores. Although Sanders was active in music for the rest of his life, he never regained the popularity he found with the Nighthawk Orchestra. In 1965, he died after having a stroke and was buried about 200 yards sound of his friend, Carleton Coon, at Mt. Moriah Cemetery.

Today, the Coon-Sanders Original Night Hawk Orchestra is a footnote in the Kansas City jazz story that includes big bands lead by Bennie Moten, Count Basie, Andy Kirk and Jay McShann, and soloists like Big Joe Turner, Mary Lou Williams, Walter Page and, of course, Charlie Parker. But Coon and Sander’s early triumphs helped paved the way for all who followed them out of Kansas City.

Ironically, the Night Hawks are most celebrated in Huntington, West Virginia, where the Coon Sanders Nighthawks Fans’ Bash has been held on the weekend after Mother’s Day for 39 years.sanders

Reunion bands: Ain’t nothing like the real thing

by thedailyrecord, posted in Industry commentary
(Above: The two original members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and five other guys play “Free Bird.”)

By Joel Francis

When the Temptations and Four Tops took the stage Saturday night with only one original member in each ensemble, it raised questions of truth in advertising. Can a band be billed by its legendary name if only one of its musicians is an original legend?

Few bands are as fortunate as Los Lobos and U2 to have retained the same personnel since their debut. Some bands, like Wilco, have a different lineup on nearly every album.  But the reunion craze has accelerated hiring ringers to fill in for dead or uncooperative musicians.

When Journey played the Midland a few weeks ago, longtime singer Steve Perry had been replaced with Filipino Arnel Pineda, who was 8 years old when the band’s first album came out. No one complained, but Pineda’s job is essentially to sound like Perry while founding guitarist Neal Schon and the rest of the band deliver their signature sound.

Similarly, Yes were primed for a 40th anniversary tour when lead singer Jon Anderson fell ill. Rather than cancel the tour, the remaining members, who include Oliver Wakeman, son of original keyboardist Rick Wakeman, recruited a new singer off YouTube.

The majority of fans will tolerate a minor substitution. There were no grumbles when bass player Eric Avery sat out Jane’s Addiction’s second go-round. Most fans will recognize that age and time will prevent everyone from taking part. But when the skeleton of the original crew drag new faces out under the old name, it starts to take advantage of the people who kept the hunger for a reunion alive.

There’s also a slight double-standard in play. Few Beatles fans would be satisfied with a Beatles “reunion” featuring Paul, Ringo, Julian Lennon and Dhani Harrison, but The Who have completed not one but two successful (read: lucrative) tours minus the late John Entwistle and Keith Moon. Of course a true Fab Four reunion never happened, while The Who have launched a handful of “farewell” tours, but the rhythm section of Moon and Entwistle defined The Who’s sound just as much as John and George did for the Beatles.

Swapping drummers and bass players is one thing, but the road to finding a new frontman is fraught with peril. INXS failed miserably in their reality TV quest to carry on after the premature death of Michael Hutchinson. However, 14 years after Freddy Mercury died, Queen – minus drummer John Taylor – reconvened with former Free and Bad Company vocalist Paul Rogers. Many of the band’s East Coast concert date sold out quickly.

When Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger hired Cult singer Ian Astbury to hit the road as The Doors they were faced with a lawsuit from drummer John Densmore and forced to tour as Riders on the Storm. The moniker didn’t alter any setlists, but it at least let the fans know they weren’t getting the same guys that worked together in the ‘60s.

Then there are the jazz orchestras that continue to tour despite the death of their bandleader. The Count Basie and Glenn Miller orchestras draw decent crowds when they visit the area, despite Miller’s disappearance during World War II and Bill Basie’s death a mere 25 years ago. The Gem Theater will host a Jazz Messengers reunion concert on October even though bandleader Art Blakey died in 1990.

The reason why a musician will resurrect his old band with ringers is obvious: Billy Corgan will sell a lot more tickets and albums as the Smashing Pumpkins than he would alone. And while there’s no clear-cut solution, I think this is a rare example of capitalism and artistry joining forces to provide the ultimate answer.

If a band’s catalog is strong enough, fans won’t mind shelling out $30 to $50 as they did Saturday night at Starlight to hear someone else sing “My Girl” and “Baby I Need Your Loving.” On the other hand, if bands plug on minus crucial components, they might be confined to the state fair/town festival circuit Three Dog Night and the Guess Who have been riding for years.

Buck O’Neil: Sweet times, sweet sounds at 18th and Vine

by thedailyrecord, posted in Kansas City music scene

Buck O'Neil

Sweet times, sweet sounds at 18th and Vine
An Interview With Buck O’Neil

By Joel Francis

(Note: This 1998 interview was published in 2001 by The Independence Examiner newspaper.)

Q: I’d like to talk about the jazz scene in Kansas City, be cause you talked a little bit about that in your book, and I think that’s an exciting aspect of our town that people may not hear about as much, especially when they think of you. What was Kansas City like in the 1930s and ’40s?

A: Outstanding. See, Kansas City was a wide-open town and all the restaurants would have live music hotels would have live music, bars live music, and so it became easy to get a gig here. So musicians flocked here and played. Kansas City was a town that closed up at 1 o’clock (a.m.), at least the legitimate places. And so the musicians would flock to this area (18th and Vine) and we had a place called the Subway.

All the musicians would come after they got through working and, oh, they would jam all night, have jam sessions, yeah. You wouldn’t be surprised to see Basie there, or Joe Taylor, Georgia Thomas and musicians from all over the country. You would see them down there at this thing jammin’, just having a good time they were having a good time. Or Charlie Parker would drop in, or a blues singer maybe Big Joe Turner, somebody would drop in. All of these things were happening here, just a couple blocks from here; (it was) very alive.

Q: You were obviously a big part of the baseball scene. Why were baseball and jazz so closely linked together?

A: We played the same circuit, man. We’d go to Chicago to play. We’d be playin’ on the South Side and they would visit our ball games and we would go to the jazz joints. It was the same thing, not only there, also in New York City. We would play ball in the afternoon, say Sunday afternoon in New York City, Sunday night go down to Sugar Ray’s, the Apollo we were catchin’ all the acts there or the Baby Grand. All of this live music, it was just jazz. They were playin’ jazz all over. We did this at all of the places we would play. At matinee shows all of the theaters had bands. In Harlem, like I said, we would go to the matinee and maybe we would catch Cab Calloway, see? And we would go from there to Washington, D.C., and the Howard Theater. Maybe Ma Mabley was there and we would catch her, or Duke Ellington, or Fletcher Henderson. Everyplace that we went to play, the jazz people went, too. This was during the days of segregation, so we probably stayed at the same places, and we got to know them and they knew us.

Q: How would you describe the Kansas City style of jazz?

A: Exciting. Different. It was different that New Orleans. And right out of Kansas City, we come up with Charlie Parker, blowin’ notes nobody’d heard before. This is a brand new thing! These were the kind of things you could hear at that Subway. Here come a new dude, come in blowin’ something you hadn’t heard before a different note. Where did this come from? Where did this sound come from? It was a brand new sound.

And the good thing about it was that the musician was telling a story and it was his story to tell. They were playing the same song, but when it was his turn to come up and blow, it was different. And you could see the other musicians listening and coming in, you know. This drummer’s going to change the beat now. He’s got to change that. You could hear it if you’re listening; you could hear the change. This guy’s playin’ “Ain’t Misbehavin'” a little different than the other guy did. He’s puttin’ a little something of him in there. You could listen to a new story. The guy would blow notes, you knew who it was without seeing him, you know what I mean? You knew it was Armstrong. You didn’t have to be in there. You knew it was Ben Webster. You knew all these things. A little jazz. So many things were happening all over the country.

Q: Like what?

A: The music was live and the whole country (was) changing. A top musician would go to, maybe, Paris and when he came back from Paris, this was his style, but he had picked up something else. Or he might go to Egypt Cairo, or something like that. And here was a guy doing something on the bongos that was just different than they were doing in Harlem. You added a little something to what you were doing. You would take a little of this, a little of that.

And the jazz singers (did this with their) different phrasing styles. Like, nobody phrased like Billie Holiday. She could just open her mouth and hey, that’s Billie. You knew because nobody did it like Billie. You could hear the different phrasing and all of it was so clean, so clear.

This is the only thing I have against a lot of the things they play now. It’s hard to understand, because a lot of the words, the way they’re sayin’ them, I don’t get. But they were so clear. Like the tones they were playin’. The tones were so clear, you could hear it, you knew it; you weren’t confused. I like rap. I like to hear rap if the guy is distinct and I can understand what he’s saying. But if he jumbles it all together where I can’t understand it, it ain’t good. This is why music then, anyone who sang it, (sang) a clear note. You could understand it. You like to know what they’re doing and where they’re going from there. They will lead you around through this thing if you listen. Music is a great medium.

Q: What role did Tom Pendergast and his political machine play in the development of jazz in Kansas City?

A: It provided a place for them to play it was a job. It was in that era they had the speakeasy they had everything goin’ on and you had to provide entertainment with it.

Q: So did Pendergast turn a blind eye to it?

A: No. If there was a blind eye, it may have been the government turning a blind eye to Pendergast. There wasn’t anything illegal about jazz, but the things Pendergast was doing could have been illegal.

Q: Did any of Pendergast’s illegal activities help the jazz scene grow?

A: It just may have, because you know you’ve got to entertain the people you’re selling whiskey to, or the people going to gamble. Right now, we’ve got the boats, and gambling is legal. Whereas it wasn’t legal during that day and you had to entertain people. This was good entertainment.

Q: If speakeasies were illegal, how did people know where to go to hear the music?

A: Pendergast was running the city. When you say illegal, if I am the boss of the city and I am running the city this way, it wouldn’t be illegal. What would have been against the law was this: If you were running a club and instead of closing at 1 o’clock, you stayed open ’till 3 o’clock. If you stayed open at 3, you were doing the same things at 3 you were doing at 10, but the law was you had to close at this time. And the places would close, the musicians would come down here and go into that Subway and play and jam. And somebody down there would be doing something illegal, because somebody would be selling some whiskey. A lot of these things were happening before prohibition.

Q: So did Prohibition help the jazz scene?

A: Yeah, sure. Actually it opened it up all over the country. Wherein you had to go just to certain spots before, now you’re (playing) in Manhattan, you’re playing in Times Square. You’re playing now all over the country, even going to universities to play. Before you were playing in speakeasies, but now you’re playing in clubs.

Q: What were some of the hot jazz clubs in Kansas City at that time?

A: The Milton was strictly jazz. They had so many different clubs in Kansas City and … music was everywhere. During that time, just like a band comes to the Starlight and plays now, every weekend it was some band at the Municipal Audi torium. That doesn’t just mean Count Basie or something like that, but Benny Goodman would play; everybody would come. I’ve seen so many wonderful bands down there.

Q: What are some of your favorite bands you’ve seen play there?

A: I like Duke. To really jump I like Lionel Hampton. I was a very good friend of Count Basie; I like Basie. I like Goodman. The Jazz Philharmonic that was the top musicians put together and they traveled all over the country. Oh man, you talk about some music! You’d hear these great artists play. I like Armstrong. They had a girl band called the Sweethearts of Rhythm; they could play. First of all you were going because it was a girl band and you wanted to see them, but they could play.

There was another one called Tiny Davis. She blew that trumpet Louis Armstrong-style; she could play. Bob Burnside played the sax he could play the bell off of that horn! It was the era of the Mills Brothers. They were one of the first singing groups, the Platters and a whole lot of others came behind them.

Q: I couldn’t go too far in this interview without mentioning Satchel Paige.

A: He was an outstanding athlete.

Q: What did Satchel think of the jazz scene?

A: He loved it. He used to play the ukulele. He would play on the bus and we would sing along. Satchel Paige, yeah, we had a lot of fun.

Q: Did Satchel go with you to all the concerts at Municipal?

A: Yes, yes he would go. We all would go as a team. They (jazz musicians) would come out to the ball game in the afternoon and at night we would go down to the jazz concert. That was a couple of musts. If you lived in Kansas City, it was a must on Sunday afternoon to go to the Monarchs and see baseball, and it was a must after that to go to the Municipal Auditorium and hear these bands.

Q: Did they ever bring any of the Monarchs onstage and introduce them as celebrities?

A: Actually they would introduce the teams, because if we were playing the Chicago American Giants here, they would be going too. All of us would be there.

Q: Did both teams sit together?

A: Sometimes.

Q: What did your managers think about the jazz scene?

A: They were there. What do you mean “what did they think,” they were with us! (Laughs).

Q: Did they impose any rules about drinking and things like that?

A: You knew that yourself. You knew you couldn’t drink too much. We were there, but we didn’t drink that much. Everybody drank a little maybe, but you didn’t drink that much because you knew you had to play ball the next day.

Q: I’d like to name off some jazz performers and have you tell me some memories about them. A lot of these we have mentioned already. Let’s start with Bennie Moten.

A: Bennie Moten, that was early. That’s when I first met Count. Count was playin’ with Bennie Moten. A good musician.

Q: Lionel Hampton.

A: I made him first base coach for the Monarchs. It was just for a show. They were playing here that night and I put him in a uniform. His wife said that he kept that uniform and had it on an easel he kept in one room. He would tell everybody about that uniform.

Q: Count Basie.

A: Basie was a Yankee fan, and I’m a Dodger fan, see. And we would bet every year on the Yankees and Dodgers. You know he beat me most of the time, but we had a lot of fun.

Q: Duke Ellington.

A: Duke was sophisticated and clean. Clean music. Like with Lio nel, you wanted to dance, Duke you wanted to listen.

Q: Charlie Parker.

A: Oh, now you got a new step. You could start dancin’ a different way because you got a different beat. Charlie, he used to blow here at that Subway. He’d drop in as a kid, blowin’ that horn, making those new sounds.

Q: How did his death at such a young age affect you?

A: It wasn’t too much of a shock because of the way he was going. You knew the things happening to him, so it wasn’t a shock.

Q: Louis Armstrong.

A: That was music you could listen to, and you could laugh with Louie because Louie had a kind of a laughing horn, you know. When he blew that horn you’d laugh about the different notes he’d play. The thing about it is, you know that handkerchief he had to cover up so nobody was coppin’ those things. Quite a fella. Baseball nut too; he liked baseball.

Q: What was Satchmo’s favorite team?

A: It would be, more or less, the Black Yankees.

Q: What do you think caused the decline in the jazz scene in Kansas City?

A: It’s coming back now, and that’s all over the country. Different listeners are coming and they’re looking for new sounds. This is our last progress in anything and it’s something new, something different.

Q: What does jazz mean to you?

A: It has afforded me a lot of pleasure. I listen to it now and I like all music. There’s something about music. With television, I have to look, but I can do anything I want to do and listen to music. Every once and awhile somebody’s going to hit a note or something and I’m going to stop and listen to what they’re playing. Music can put me to sleep at night or it can wake me up. It’s a soothing thing, but it can be very exciting too.