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Kansas City: the Crossroads of Jazz

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Kansas City: The Crossroads of Jazz Kansas City, Wilbur Harrison, 1959 • What makes Kansas City Jazz different from all the other styles of Jazz and Swing? • Riff Based melodies and background figures • Blues coming back to the forefront of the music • Featuring Virtuoso soloists • Driving rhythm always with a sense of motion • Use of head-arrangements: memorized structures embellished on the fly by the musicians; a sort of ensemble based improvisation. • What are the factors that allowed Kansas City Jazz to come to be? • Political/Economic factors such as a lax attitude towards prohibition • Geographical factors such as Kansas City’s central location • Musical factors such as a strong musicians union and well developed music education programs. Tickle Toe, 1940 The Early Bands Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra 1925 Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra Vine Street Blues, 1924 • Probably the most influential bandleader in Kansas City Jazz, Pianist Bennie Moten led the most successful of the Kansas City bands. Nearly everyone who would become an important member of the Kansas City bands came though his organization at one point or another. • Early on the scene, with recording dates as early as 1923, Moten was the most established and financially successful of the early Kansas City bands, which enabled him to successfully poach talent from the other KC and territory bands, such as Walter Page’s Oklahoma Blue devils. • This included luminaries such as Count Basie (just known as Bill Basie then), Eddie Durham, Hot Lips Page, Jimmy Rushing, and eventually Walter Page himself. • Hired Bill Basie to play piano because he was too busy with the business side of running his band to always be at the keys. Basie would play while Moten was dealing with club owners or other important money figures. • Died in 1935 from a botched Tonsillectomy, and after a short period was replaced as bandleader by Bill Basie, who soon acquired the nickname “Count” Moten Swing, 1932 George E. Lee and His Novelty Singing Orchestra Paseo Street, 1929 • Vocalist and Saxophonist George E. Lee’s band was the main competition for Bennie Moten’s band in the 20s. • The members of the band that would go on to the most acclaim would be his sister Julia Lee as a vocalist, and the pianist Jesse Stone. Down Home Syncopated Blues, 1927 • His band was absorbed by Bennie Moten in 1933, and after a brief attempt to come back following Moten’s death in 1935 he ended up retiring from music. • His sister Julia would continue a successful music career until the 50s. Coon Sanders Nighthawks Orchestra High Fever, 1926 • Founded by Drummer Carleton Coon and Pianist Joe Sanders. • Operated from 1919 to 1932 • Highly successful white dance band, one of the pioneers of band focused radio shows. • Collapsed in 1932 with the death of Carleton Coon from a jaw infection which festered. Jesse Stone and his Blues Serenaders Boot to Boot, 1927 • Jesse Stone was a talented pianist, composer and arranger. Count Basie himself would later state in his autobiography: “Jesse Stone, as everybody knows, was one of the best arrangers in Kansas City.” • In addition to leading his own bands, Stone would move in and out of many bands in his career as an arranger and musical director: George Lee, Thamon Hayes, Harlan Leonard, even Earl Hines in Chicago. The previously exampled pieces from the George E. Lee band were Stone compositions. • Stone’s first professional band included a young saxophone player named Coleman Hawkins, who would eventually become one of the two most influential tenor saxophone players of the era. • The Blues Serenaders were a complete show, they included a number of vaudeville style stage acts inside their very tight and rehearsed band. Starvation Blues, 1927 Walter Page’s Blue Devils Blue Devil Blues, 1927 (Jimmy Rushing) • Walter Page played a multitude of Bass instruments as was common in the day, but the instrument he would most be associated with is the double bass. He was ten when he moved to Kansas City, and was educated in music at Lincoln High School by Major Smith. • Page is commonly considered the originator of the eight beats over two bars walking bass line technique • The Blue Devils was a territory band originally based out of Oklahoma, but would eventually be very closely associated with the early days of the Kansas City sound. The band members consisted of such aforementioned luminaries and workhorses of the to come Basie Band as Lester Young, Hot Lips Page, Jo Jones, Buster Smith, Eddie Durham, Jimmy Rushing, and Bill Basie himself. Squabblin’, 1927 Local 627 The Colored Musicians Union 627 Stomp, Pete Johnson, 1940 • Formed in 1917, The Local 627 was the African-American musician’s union, and provided both a spiritual and physical center for Kansas City musicians to congregate. • The Lincoln Theater, a popular venue with union bands, joined the Theater Owners Booking Association, known as TOBA, in 1923. TOBA was a network of theaters stretching from the East Coast to Kansas City, and headquartered in Nashville, TN. • TOBA was responsible for many of the artists getting brought into the Kansas City scene on touring circuits, including Bill Basie • In 1928, William Shaw was elected president of the Union, and created a system of discipline which improved the reliability of the local musicians and created accountability within their ranks. • Forced to merge with the Local 34, the “White” musicians union in 1970, the spirit of the 627 lives on in the Mutual Musicians Foundation. Lincoln High School and Major N. Clark Smith • Lincoln High School began just after the civil war as a preparatory school for blacks. • Until the 1950s it was the only public high school black students could attend. • Major N. Clark Smith was an influential music teacher, who instructed many of Kansas City’s most famous musicians: Walter Page, Harlan Leonard, Lamar Wright, and many more. • His influence on the music program of Lincoln High would serve to create a long lasting strength for the program that would generate many other outstanding musicians, including Charlie Parker. • Still exists as Lincoln College Preparatory Academy, and remains a top level school nationwide, with a strong music program. The Pendergast Dynasty The Golden Era of Kansas City Jazz Tom Pendergast • Democratic party boss in Kansas City and the surrounding counties from 1925-1939. • Born July 22nd, 1872. • Brother James was city councilman of the First Ward of Kansas City, near the river and stockyards and mostly Irish and Italian immigrants. Manual laborers were the main population. Pendergast brothers supported poor workers with food and job connections in exchange for voting for the candidates they promoted. • Became the KC superintendent of streets in 1900, and in 1910 after his brother James died, stepped in to control the First Ward. One year later, he was elected to the city council. • After prohibition, he retained control of alcohol businesses he had controlled prior to the Volstead Act (1919), but moved them to technically illegal settings. Due to control of many levels of KC politics, prohibition was never enforced in any real way. Alcohol sales were tremendously profitable because of the lack of taxation, and provided a solid foundation for the profitability of jazz venues. • One of his many political underlings was Harry S. Truman, who would of course go on to be the president of the United States. Pendergast would die before Truman was sworn in as president. • Indicted for tax fraud in 1939, he pled guilty to two counts of tax evasion and was sentenced to 366 days in prison. While in prison, reform agents rose to power and “cleaned up” Kansas City, leading to the end of the heyday of Kansas City entertainment. The last of the great Kansas City bands departed for New York, and the smaller, weaker bands folded. The Swing Era Bands Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy Until the Real Thing Comes Along, 1936 • Andy Kirk was born in Kentucky but raised in Denver, Colorado where he studied music under Wilburforce Whiteman, father of Paul Whiteman of New York City dance band fame. • Kirk started on the tenor saxophone, but soon switched to Bass saxophone and sousaphone and would continue to play bass range instruments for the rest of his career. • The Twelve Clouds of Joy was more tightly and carefully arranged than many of the other Kansas City style bands, probably due to the educated backgrounds of Kirk and their chief composer and arranger, Mary Lou Williams • Mary Lou Williams was born in Georgia and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. She joined the Clouds of Joy in 1929 and provided many of their most memorable compositions. Originally hired as a staff arranger at the urging of saxophonist husband John Williams, she became the lead pianist for the group when the main pianist, Marion Jackson, failed to show up for a band audition and the rest was history. • Featured Vocalist Pha Terrell. Mary’s Idea, 1936 Harlan Leonard and His Rockets Dameron Stomp, 1940 • Harlan Leonard and his Rockets grew out of the earlier Thamon Hayes and his Kansas City Rockets after Hayes departed the band. • Charlie Parker was fired from this band for being inconsistent. This would not be unusual. • Featured vocalist Myra Taylor, who would continue to perform as a jazz singer until her death in 2011. I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire, 1940 The Count Basie Orchestra One O’Clock Jump, 1937 • Bill Basie took over as co bandleader with Buster Smith of the remnants of the Bennie Moten band after Moten’s untimely death in 1935.
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