Moments before purchasing a $25 online reservation for Loren Broaddus’ Aquarius at The Black Cat on Friday, October 2, I received an unsolicited offer for a free pass from the new jazz venue in a south Kansas City strip mall. Shortly after taking a seat near the door of the small room, I overheard an exchange between the owner and a patron.
“I object to such a high cover,” a woman said. “It’s the highest in the city.”
Twenty dollars at the door and $25 for online bookings is indeed pricey by Kansas City standards. Ten dollar cover charges- and, as is more often the case- no cover charges for jazz performances by locally based musicians are the rule. Does the Black Cat’s premium price reflect a premium experience? My initial thoughts follow.
The good: The location in what’s long been a jazz desert could be an asset. A diverse community of more than 100,000 people live within five miles of the club. The bookings are arguably the most interesting of any jazz-oriented room in the city. It shouldn’t be necessary to applaud the absence of televisions and screens, but the Black Cat is thankfully free of the all-too-common vibe-killers.
The in-between: The lone server on October 2 was green, but an enthusiastic and talented bartender compensated for the shaky service.
The bad: The formidable door charge isn’t accompanied by a corresponding no-talking policy. Half of the eighteen people who heard Aquarius shamelessly babbled over the music. And Broaddus’ French horn occasionally overwhelmed the sound system, resulting in unintended distortion.
What about the performance? Broaddus is among Kansas City’s most exciting young musicians. His band Aquarius consists of the similarly brash keyboardist Elliot Chael, bassist Truman Methena and drummer Blu Noyes. The mix of strong original compositions and covers is rendered with wild abandon.
Ardent jazz enthusiasts will marvel at the esoteric outside material Aquarius’ chose to interpret: Joe Zawinul’s “Directions,” Charles Tolliver’s “Lynnsome,” Clifford Jordan’s “The Highest Mountain,” Gerald Wilson’s “In the Limelight,” Harold Land’s “Deliberation” and Stanley Cowell’s “Abscretions.”
Aquarius’ performance was so good that I’d consider paying significantly more than $20 to hear the quartet at the Black Cat again. There is, of course, one condition attached to this hypothetical scenario: the deleterious chatter that often spoils jazz performances in Kansas City jazz clubs would need to be muted.