Album Review: Ken Lovern- Blind Boone: The Musical

Blind Boone: The Musical is Kansas City’s version of Hamilton. As with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical, Blind Boone is a song cycle based on a historical figure. Yet where Hamilton is rooted in hip-hop, Blind Boone is inspired by the sounds created by the titular character, the Missouri musician John William Boone.

Overseen by Ken Lovern, the ambitious project features contributions from a wide swathe of Kansas City’s music community. Listeners expecting nothing but vintage ragtime, blues and jazz will be surprised by Lovern’s frequent nods to classic rock.

“School for the Blind” and “The Natural Order” recall prime Frank Zappa. Aside from Kadesh Flow’s rapping, “Quindaro” might be a 1970s track by the Tubes. "Boone Plays It Back" draws on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. “Brand New Day” is in the vein of Sly & The Family Stone.

A comic book is packaged with physical copies of the album slated for release on September 4. A site dedicated to the project offers a trove of supplemental materials. Here’s hoping the fascinating Blind Boone eventually achieves the full staging it clearly merits.

Now's the Time: River People

Visitors to Rock Island Bridge were recently entertained by a jazz band performing on a small boat. The stunt is reminiscent of the era in which three-hour jazz cruises were a popular Kansas City diversion. Plastic Sax vaguely recalls taking dates on romantic excursions aboard the Missouri River Queen in the 1980s.

Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*Loren Broaddus, Jackie Myers and Henry Scamurra are among the musicians performing this fall in the noon jazz recital series at Johnson County Community College.

*The Count Basie Center for the Arts marks the 122nd birth date of the Red Bank, New Jersey, native with concerts featuring the Count Basie Orchestra, Sutton Foster and Kelly O’Hara this weekend.

Concert Review: Logan Richardson at the Gem Theater

Logan Richardson concluded his appearance at the Gem Theater on Saturday, August 8, with a 20-minute verbal binge. Had the best bits of his talk been condensed to five minutes, the monologue would have been entertaining and instructive. In a similar fashion, the hour-long performance preceding the baffling epilogue veered between unparalleled brilliance and tedious excess.

Richardson, Plastic Sax’s 2019 Person of the Year, is the most prominent jazz musician to emerge from Kansas City this millennium. Fifty people attended an outing billed as “A Living Score: Searching for Charlie Parker.” I expected to pay a cover charge but the volunteer staff insisted I not bother.

Joined by cellist Ezgi Karakus and drummer Zach Morrow, Richardson initiated the outing by queuing ambient electronic-magnetic sounds he later explained were emitted by a tree leaf harvested from the nearby grounds of the Mutual Musicians Foundation. He tinkered with a small bank of electronic gear throughout the evening.

The saxophonist’s wailing over the sound bed occasionally resembled the electro-acoustic outings of Evan Parker and Pharoah Sanders. His piano work fell somewhere between Keith Jarrett and Matthew Shipp. Morrow’s playing was endlessly interesting. Karakaus’ cello was almost inaudible, but her strong vocals added fresh textures.

Richardson, as usual, emphasized innovation. Throughout his consequential career, his characteristic artistic restlessness has led to dazzling highs and disappointing lows. His August 9 outing contained both extremes. He didn’t apologize for not “regurgitating Charlie Parker.” Parker may have been a distant echo at the Gem Theater, but the sounds were pure Richardson.

Now’s the Time: Zoh Amba

Saturday, August 15, is a mixed-up day on Kansas City’s music scene. Rock-and-roller Tommy Stinson performs at the jazz club Ted’s Taproom. Zoh Amba, a sometime jazz musician who trained under David Murray, appears at the rock-oriented venue the Truman.

Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*Ravi Coltrane, Nicole Glover, Kassa Overall and Joshua Redman are among the artists performing at New York City’s Charlie Parker Jazz Festival this month.

Grading the 2026-27 Season of the Folly Jazz Series

The presenters of the Folly Jazz Series have outdone themselves. The six concerts in the small-but-mighty 2026-27 season are the venue’s most artistically compelling set of offerings in years.

Linda May Han Oh
October 10, 2026
Grade: A
Linda May Han Oh is among the most consequential young artists in improvised music. The bassist’s Strange Heavens was Plastic Sax’s favorite jazz album of 2025. Her new album Beneath Lifted Skies consists of duets with saxophonist Melissa Aldana. There’s no word yet about the bassist’s accompanists on October 10.

Julian Lage
January 9, 2027
Grade: A-
Disgruntled people walked out of Julian Lage’s headlining appearance at Jazz Winterlude in 2013. As the innovative guitarist has subsequently become a star, agitated patrons aren’t expected during Lage’s return to the Folly Jazz Series.

Ambrose Akinmusire
February 13, 2027
Grade: A
Easily the most exciting trumpeter to emerge in the past quarter-century, Ambrose Akinmusire is a generational figure. He’s one of very few artists who has successfully fused hip-hop, rock and classical music with jazz.

Billy Childs
March 7, 2027
Grade: B+
Billy Childs’ gentle melodicism makes the pianist one of the most accessible mainstream jazz pianists of the past fifty years. Now 69, Childs is at the height of his powers.

A Tribute to Kevin Mahogany featuring David Basse with the Dave Stryker Trio and Lisa Henry
March 27, 2027
Grade: B
Kansas City’s jazz community took great pride in Kevin Mahogany’s major label albums in the 1990s. The lustrous vocalist died in 2017. Gregory Porter is Mahogany’s contemporary equivalent.

The Branford Marsalis Quartet with Dianne Reeves
April 24, 2027
Grade: A-
A 2025 concert by the Branford Marsalis Quartet at the Folly Theater was stupendous. The sublime vocalist Dianne Reeves is joining the band on tour in support of Dedicated to You, a September 18 release reinterpreting the beloved 1963 album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.

An assessment of the previous season is here.

Now’s the Time: New Jazz Order

The big band New Jazz Order performs Tuesdays at Westport Flea Market. The embedded video serves as a mission statement for the institution.

Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*The retro-soul band the Freedom Affair headlines The Prairie Village Jazz Festival on September 12.

*A television news feature notes the annual celebration of the birth of Charlie Parker.

*Kansas City magazine relays an optimistic vision for the latest public investments in the Jazz District.

*Michael Pagán would like Plastic Sax readers to know that he’s “humbly proud to announce the publication and release of my dad's collection of lead sheets in fake book/PDF format: The Ricardo Pagán Fake Book. There are over 275 tunes written in his hand between 1960-1990. The book is free - please PM me with your email address if you'd like a copy.”

*From a press release: Internationally acclaimed saxophonist, composer, and visionary Logan Richardson returns to his hometown for an extraordinary evening of music, storytelling, and artistic exploration in A Living Score: Searching for Charlie Parker on Saturday, August 8, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. at the historic Gem Theater... “This is far more than a concert. It is an exploration,” describes Richardson. He explains the performance is a search through sound, memory, place, and possibility inspired by some of Kansas City's most celebrated cultural icons, including Charlie Parker, Ben Webster, Big Joe Turner, Burt Bacharach, and even Walt Disney.

Plebiscite

A friend rhapsodized about his plan to make professional recordings of Kansas City jazz artists a couple weeks ago. As he spoke, a quartet expertly covered smooth jazz and soul-jazz standards for a paid audience of less than ten at a listening room. I told him that identifying worthy musicians is easy. Finding an audience for the prospective recordings presents a bigger challenge.

At a different venue later that night, three world-class Kansas City based musicians played daring original material for an audience consisting of myself and three saxophonists at a no-cover gig. The two dozen other people in the room ignored the trio. That’s par for the course.

Given the harsh climate for jazz in Kansas City and elsewhere, I remain enormously grateful for the intrepid musicians diligently documenting their work. A rich bounty is produced by Kansas City artists every year. Two recently published polls highlight their challenges and accomplishments on the international stage.

Four-hundred-and-sixty-one new albums received at least one vote in the mid-year edition of the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. Kansas City is represented by new albums by Pat Metheny (81st place with three votes) and Steve Cardenas (82nd place with three votes). My ballot is here.

DownBeat recently published the results of its extensive 74th Annual Critics Poll. A tally of Kansas City artists making appearances follows. Individual voter ballots aren’t published.

• Bob Brookmeyer: Hall of Fame (22nd place)

• Pat Metheny: Artist of the Year: (22nd place); Album of the Year: (26th place); Group of the Year: (21st place); Guitarist of the Year: (6th place); Composer of the Year: (9th place)

• Mike Dillon: Vibraphonist of the Year (21st place)

• Samantha Fish: Blues Artist of the Year (12th place); Blues Album of the Year (4th place)

• Hermon Mehari: Rising Star Trumpeter (14th place)

• Eldar Djangirov: Rising Star Pianist (24th place)

• Brittany Davis: Rising Star Keyboardist (19th place); Rising Star Female Vocalist (8th place)

• Chris Hazelton: Rising Star Organist (15th place)

• Peter Schlamb: Rising Star Vibraphonist (9th place)

Now’s the Time: Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock, 86, has been among jazz’s most persuasive ambassadors for decades. Yet basking in the presence of the icon may not be the best reason to attend Hancock’s return to Muriel Kauffman Theatre on Thursday, August 6. The caliber of his band- trumpeter Terence Blanchard, guitarist Lionel Loueke, bassist James Genus and drummer Jaylen Petinaud- is explosive. The embedded video is pulled from a 52-year-old television appearance.

Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*The piano bar Uptown Lounge, a venue that once regularly featured jazz, closes August 1.

*An editorial in The Kansas City Star suggests the American Jazz Museum “continues to struggle with many of the same issues: financial sustainability, organizational stability, audience growth, community confidence and a coherent long-term strategy.”

*Café 333’s concept is reiterated at a local outlet.

Album Review: Marilyn Maye- The Magic of Marilyn Maye: Live at Jazz at Lincoln Center

The announcement of Marilyn Maye’s return to The Folly Theater on September 25 spurred me to revisit the music of the iconic vocalist. I was surprised to discover The Magic of Marilyn Maye: Live at Jazz at Lincoln Center was surreptitiously released on January 16.

The recordings are culled from performances at three venues at the Lincoln Center complex in 2017 and 2018. Four tracks recorded at Dizzy’s feature a backing quartet featuring the Kansas City based guitarist Rod Fleeman.

Fleeman also is part of a big band supporting Maye at the Appel Room on six selections. Maye is accompanied by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at Rose Theater on the opening track.

Maye is effervescent throughout. Anyone who has had the good fortune of catching a Maye performance this millennium will be familiar with the material. The last old-school saloon singer standing, Maye, 98, is more magical than ever.

Now’s the Time: Wendy Eisenberg

Wendy Eisenberg will make their Kansas City debut when they open for the anarchic art-rock veterans Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at recordBar on Friday, July 24. Once a jazz-based, guitar-forward artist, Eisenberg has evolved into a somewhat more conventional singer-songwriter.

Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*News reports about a man trapped in the waste compartment of a portable toilet in the Jazz District went viral last weekend.

*E.E. Pointer chatted with Joe Dimino.

Concert Review: Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society’s “A Convocation of Exoplanets” at Charlotte Street Foundation

Kansas City’s experimental music scene might never have recovered had the massive celestial sounds generated at Charlotte Street Foundation on Wednesday, July 15, managed to transport the art space to a different galaxy. Several dozen people attended the free event.

The conclave of 21 musicians guided by Aaron Osborne included a significant portion of the region’s most notable talent. A single “long-form improvised music composition (drew) inspiration from how planetary objects align and their relationships to each other in space.” The initiative lasted almost an hour, providing plenty of time for cosmic forces to intervene.

Each of the four groupings of musicians dubbed “Chthonian Planet,” “Terrestrial Habitable,” “Gas Giant” and “Rogue Pulsar” were triggered by overhead lighting cues. The sound ranged from intergalactic roars to lonely tones generated by the “Rogue Pulsar” represented by Kelley Gant.

Not only was the cumulative effect of the sprawling opus magnificent, the stellar aggregation of locally based talent was intrinsically momentous. Here’s hoping someone had the foresight to organize a formal group portrait. The image would document one of the most auspicious assemblies in the history of Kansas City jazz.

From the program notes: 

The planetary types and groupings are as follows:

Chthonian Planet (lava): Cliff Dunn (bass flute), Elena Collins (bass Clarinet, Clarinet), Michael Eaton (sax, flute), Zak Pischnotte (saxes), Nick Howell (trumpet), Loren Broddeus (cornet), Sam Hughes (bari sax), Rosie O’Brien (tuba)

Terrestrial Habitable: Dwight Frizzell (windjammer), RJ Schultxe (percussion), Pat Conway (percussion), Shanté Clair (prepared guitar), Shawn Hansen (piano), Jackson Graham (vibes)

Gas Giant: Stephanie Priddy (viola), Cliff Hoitt-Lange (viola), Jeff Harshbarger (bass), Spencer Reeve (bass), Seth Davis (guitar), Brooke Knoll (harp)

Rogue Pulsar: Kelley Gant (vocals whistling electronics)

Now’s the Time: Jon Batiste

Plastic Sax reiterated the fraught history of Jon Batiste in Kansas City in a concert preview last year. The star returns to the area for an appearance at Starlight Theatre on Friday, July 17.

Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*Ken Lovern released a second music video in advance of the release of Blind Boone the Musical.

Album Review: Matt Otto- Ephemeral

I swooned the first time I heard Matt Otto showcase his new composition "Rachel". The second time felt equally momentous. Having spent three weeks with Otto’s sublime new album Ephemeral, “Rachel” now plays on repeat in my head.

Ephemeral’s other seven selections are almost as insinuating. “Twilight,” a track with an exquisite guitar solo by Alex Frank, is similarly gorgeous. Frank, bassist Jeff Harshbarger and drummer John Kizilarmut sound like world-beaters on “Elliot” and “Wadada.”

Andrew Ouellette’s dreamy keyboards help make “Scroll” sound anything but doom-laden. Eddie Moore’s freaky keyboard work enhances the haunting “Sobule.” Amid a large cast of Kansas City and Los Angeles musicians, Otto, as always, plays impeccably.

Yet it’s the addition of Peter Schlamb’s plugged-in vibraphone on the title track and “Dune Town” that makes Ephemeral the probable Kansas City album of the year. Far from ephemeral, Otto’s tour de force is a permanent marker of the best Kansas City has to offer in 2026.

Now’s the Time: David Lord

David Lord returns to Farewell on Tuesday, July 14. The iconoclastic guitarist’s 2014 performance at the venue was astounding.