An area music enthusiast recently insisted my embrace of new music necessarily meant that I no longer cared about the mainstream jazz performed in Kansas City. It’s simply not so. Plastic Sax consistently covers conventional, swing-oriented jazz.
Nonetheless, the April 4 release of Orchid validates my big ears. The tenacity of a small coterie of Kansas City renegades reasserts Kansas City’s status as a meaningful contributor to the adventurous fringe of improvised music. An outline of the album’s backstory follows.
The Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society has hosted dozens of concerts in Kansas City by touring musicians since its formation about four years ago. The collective presented separate concerts by two renowned California based musicians- trumpeter and violinist Dan Clucas and woodwind master Vinny Golia- in 2023. St. Louis percussionist Kevin Cheli of St. Louis is a more frequent participant at these events.
Seth Andrew Davis, a co-founder of the collective, joins those musicians on Orchid, an exhilarating session recorded in Los Angeles 20 months ago. The Kansas City based Mother Brain Records released the album. The mastery of the improvisors make much of Orchid seem composed. Passages of “Cloud” even echo Eric Dolphy and Freddie Hubbard.
Confidently issuing electric glurts and skizzles, Davis clearly belongs among the rarified company. While the free jazz of Orchid is decidedly an underground phenomena, the album is a significant milestone in the annals of Kansas City’s artistic counterculture.