Dwight Frizzell: Plastic Sax’s Person of the Year

The indefatigable enthusiasm possessed by a young Dwight Frizzell made him a persuasive guide for jazz appreciation in the early 1980s. As a clerk at the flagship location of Penny Lane Records, Frizzell consulted the teenager who would become the author of Plastic Sax on decisions such as which Miles Davis albums to purchase in CBS Records’ occasional Nice Price three-for-$10 promotions.

Frizzell also insisted I build my Sun Ra collection and buy cassettes documenting his own Sun Ra-inspired projects. The experimental sounds altered my worldview. Without the influence of Frizzell more than forty years ago, Plastic Sax might not exist. Frizzell was probably dismissed as a puerile eccentric by many people in the 1980s. Yet Frizzell has retained all of his effervescent energy. And his devotion to Sun Ra has only grown.

Four installations in Charlotte Street Foundation’s Sonic Art Series this year demonstrated how Frizzell continues to hone his vision. Well beyond mere homages to his lodestar, Frizzell’s immersive sonic works advanced the imaginative oeuvre of Sun Ra. By remaining true to his uncommon artistry, Frizzell is Plastic Sax’s 2024 Person of the Year.

The previous recipients of the designation are Matt Otto (2023), Seth Davis and Evan Verploegh (2022), Rod Fleeman (2021), Charlie Parker (2020), Logan Richardson (2019), Peter Schlamb (2018), John Scott (2017), Eddie Moore (2016), Larry Kopitnik (2015), Deborah Brown (2014), Stan Kessler (2013), Doug and Lori Chandler (2012), Jeff Harshbarger (2011), Mark Lowrey (2010) and Hermon Mehari (2009). Bobby Watson was named the Plastic Sax Person of the Decade in 2009 and again in 2019.

The Top Performances of 2024

The Top Jazz Performances of 2024 by Kansas City Musicians
1. Peter Schlamb at the Ship
Plastic Sax review.

2. Rev. Dwight Frizzell’s Bridge at Charlotte Street Foundation
Instagram clip.

3. Rev. Dwight Frizzell’s Heliophonie at Charlotte Street Foundation
Plastic Sax review.

4. Steve Cardenas, Forest Stewart and Brian Steever at Westport Coffee House
Plastic Sax review.

5. WireTown at Green Lady Lounge
Instagram clip.

6. Seth Davis, Kwan Leung Ling, Aaron Osborne and Evan Verploegh at 7th Heaven
Instagram clip.

7.  Jackie Myers, Matt Otto and Bob Bowman at the Market at Meadowbrook
Instagram snapshot.

8. Alber at Charlotte Street Foundation
Instagram snapshot.

9. Ernest Melton, Parker Woolworth, Jordan Faught and Jalen Ward at In the Lowest Ferns
Plastic Sax review.

10. Rod Fleeman Trio at Green Lady Lounge
Instagram clip.

The Top Performances of 2024 by Touring Musicians
1. Makaya McCraven at Liberty Hall
Plastic Sax review.

2. Trond Kallevåg at the Folk Alliance International Conference
Instagram clip.

3. David Lord at Farewell
Plastic Sax review.

4. Willow at the T-Mobile Center
There Stands the Glass review.

5. Trap Jazz at Concourse Park
Instagram clip.

6. Mike Baggetta and Peter DiStefano at the Ship
There Stands the Glass review.

7. Damon Smith at Westport Coffee House
Instagram clip.

8. Phill Smith and Kyle Jessen at Charlotte Street Foundation
Instagram clip.

9. Síomha at the Kansas City Irish Festival
Instagram clip.

10. David Menestres at the Bunker Center for the Arts
Instagram snapshot.

Last year’s survey is here.

Concert Review: Heliophonie at Charlotte Street Foundation

Adventurous passengers traveled the spaceways at Charlotte Street Foundation on Thursday, October 3. Heliophonie, the second of four performances in the Sonic Art Series overseen by Sun Ra adherent Dwight Frizzell acted as a celestial excursion.

Sound effects virtuoso Tony Brewer and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Alonzo Conway served as the centrifuge of the spaceship. Four additional musicians- saxophonists Frizzell, saxophonists Thomas Aber and Norbert Herber and cellist William Plummer- were positioned outside the concentric seats commandeered by sonic pilgrims.

Each four-minute and 48-second component of the suite opened and closed with the tolling of a gong and was augmented by dramatic lighting and video projections. The Sun Ra-inspired grooves featuring bass clarinet duets, Frizzell’s EWI saxophone and a plethora of Brewer’s noisemakers compelled one fellow traveler to noodle dance.

In his introductory remarks, Frizzell suggested Heliophonie is a religious work. The sacred rite invoking the sun god Ra was convincing. For a transcendent hour in the cosmic spaceship, I worshiped like an ancient Egyptian.

The Kansas City Jazz Scene's Top Stories and Trends of 2022

1. Full Swing

It’s almost as if nothing happened.  On the surface, Kansas City’s post-pandemic jazz scene now looks just as it did in 2019.

2. Got It Covered

In spite of- or maybe even because of- the $5 cover charge instituted last year, Green Lady Lounge is packed on any given night.  It makes sense: Green Lady Lounge is the only place in Kansas City at which jazz is performed every evening.

3. Frequent Freakouts

Fans of free jazz and experimental music no longer need to leave Kansas City to hear those sounds.  Thanks to the strenuous initiatives of members of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society, innovative music made by notable touring musicians and local artists is regularly performed in Kansas City.

4. A Man Called Adam 

The dynamic presence of Adam Larson continues to elevate Kansas City.  The saxophonist’s two new albums- with a third on the way- requires skeptical outsiders to reassess the vitality of Kansas City’s scene.

5. For the Record

It’s an extraordinarily productive year when a lovely album featuring Bob Bowman can’t squeeze into a list of the top ten Kansas City jazz albums of 2022, 

6. Don’t Call It a Comeback

While they never went away, the innovative veterans Dwight Frizzell and Arnold Young reemerged as prominent bandleaders with active performance schedules.

7. Fest or Famine

The one-stage, single-day, storm-plagued Prairie Village Jazz Festival notwithstanding, the Kansas City area hasn’t hosted a true jazz festival since a “stellar but ill-fated” event in 2017.

8. Outside Validation

Jazz at Lincoln Center created a fetching tradition-oriented video portrait of Kansas City.

9. Meanwhile, Back at the Museum

Had it done nothing but present Nduduzo Makhathini at the Blue Room in June, the American Jazz Museum would have provided an invaluable cultural contribution to the city in 2022.  Yet its noontime concerts and the resumption of the Jammin’ at the Gem series were similarly encouraging developments.

10. An Awkward Anniversary

Another year passed without an appearance by Pat Metheny.  The hometown hero last played in Kansas City in 2012.  Although he continues to tour extensively, ten years have passed since a Metheny concert transpired in his old stomping grounds.

Last’s year’s installment of this annual series is here.

Concert Review: Alter Destiny at Charlotte Street Foundation

Dwight Frizzell asked “what is reality” during the debut performance of Alter Destiny at Charlotte Street Foundation on Thursday, October 27.  Members of the audience of about three dozen were likely pondering the same question.  

After all, it seems impossible that Frizzell is still at the top of his game well into his sixth decade of making music in Kansas City.  Frizell has challenged assumptions about how improvised music in Kansas City might sound since the 1970s.

Alter Destiny, Frizzell’s theatrical new trio with guitarist Julia Thro and percussionist Allaudin Ottinger, is a fresh twist on the interplanetary jazz the musicians create with the Kansas City institution Black Crack Revue.  The larger ensemble observed its fortieth anniversary with a celebratory concert in August.

The trio shares BCR’s enthusiasm for traveling the spaceways blazed by Sun Ra.  Improvisations over a recording of the aurora borealis were enhanced by a video backdrop of celestial spaces and bursts of theremin from guest artist Kat Dison Nechlebová.  Quadraphonic sound furthered the interstellar experience.

The immersive sensibility wasn’t limited to the loudspeakers surrounding the audience.  Frizzell and Ottinger roamed the room during an inventive jam and Frizzell occasionally exhorted the audience to unleash their minds in an effort to “alter destiny.”  

Thro’s raw electric guitar riffs prevented Frizzell’s woodwinds and electronics and Ottinger’s airy rhythmic pulses from developing excessive ethereality.  Even so, Alter Destiny stretched credulity throughout an unreal performance that was beyond belief.

Album Review: Second Nature Ensemble- Second Nature

The notes accompanying Second Nature, the astounding debut album of the Second Nature Ensemble, include text from The Anarchist Library.  While the music implies extreme polemics, the cerebral sounds of the recording are a more appropriate soundtrack for analyzing subversive texts than for throwing bricks through windows in a riot.

Michael Eaton (saxophones, flute, and clarinet), Seth Andrew Davis (guitar), Dwight Frizzell (wind controller and alto clarinet), Ben Tervort (bass), Alan Voss (drums) and Tim J Harte (electronics) are seemingly unlikely collaborators.  Plastic Sax published an enthusiastic missive about the (mostly) Kansas City musicians’ generational and stylistic clash at a performance at Westport Coffee House last year.

The discordant tone of Second Nature is established on the 19-minute opening track "Alchemy".  A work of sublime beauty is forged from a lethal slurry of abrasive analog and digital sounds.  Intentionally erratic swing does battle with galactic static on the 16-minute “Large/Large II”.  Tervort’s improvisation is among the individual solo features interspersed among the group tracks.

The prolific output of individual members of the collective make it impossible to cite a single release as representative.  Yet in sifting through a myriad of styles ranging from swing to industrial noise, the expansive Second Nature is a good place for lawless agitators, scholastic Marxists and even cutthroat capitalists to begin exploring the most astringent sounds emanating from Kansas City’s improvised music scene.

Concert Review: Black Crack Revue at Westport Coffee House

Just how weird can 100 Midwestern baby boomers get?  Very weird, if the assemblage at Westport Coffee House for the 40th anniversary concert of Black Crack Revue is any guide.  The free-spirited people who paid $15 for entry on Thursday, August 4, provided an outlandish visual counterpoint to the extraordinarily accomplished and often absurdist music of BCR.

The lack of inhibition displayed by fans of the self-proclaimed “Afro-nuclear wavabilly funk swing reggae Turska” band is rooted in the era prior to cell phones and social media.  BCR, an ensemble partially inspired by an extended Kansas City residency of the Sun Ra Arkestra in the early 1980s, acted as inspiring ringleaders.

The current edition of the interstellar jazz and alternative pop ensemble consists of original members including Thomas Aber and Dwight Frizzell as well as more recent additions like Pat Conway and Julia Thro.  The accomplished woodwind specialist Michael Eaton  joined the large cast during the 95-minute opening set.

BCR is just as inspiring and energetic as it was in the early 1990s when it was a fixture on the calendars of Kansas City nightclubs.  Then as now, the ensemble is best during its astral jazz excursions, but wacky pop-leaning songs such as “Teenie Boppers in Atlantis” and “Rappin' Kierkegaard” filled the dance floor on an extraordinarily peculiar night to remember.

Concert Review: Second Nature Ensemble at Westport Coffee House

Second Nature Ensemble’s revelatory performance at Westport Coffee House on Sunday, June 27, provided a glimpse into a possible future of a viable form of jazz in Kansas City and acted as a reminder of the significance of a couple of long-standing components of the scene.  Four takeaways follow.

1. Plugged in

Second Nature Ensemble is hardly the first band to fuse electronic-generated sounds with analog avant-garde improvisations, but no locally based ensemble executes the concept with more cultivated acumen.  The music created by Michael Eaton (tenor saxophone), Dwight Frizzell (EWI), Seth Davis (electronics and guitar), Ben Tervort (acoustic and electric bass) and Evan Verploegh (drums) was worthy of comparison to the work of innovative stalwarts like Evan Parker.  The distinctive talent of each of the five men prevents the group from being mere copycats.  Here’s a brief sample.

2. The Reverend

A founding member of BCR, Frizzell is the grand doyen of left-of-center improvised music in Kansas City.  Yet I hadn’t heard Frizzell perform in an improvisational context in years.  Wielding an electronic wind instrument with enthusiastic abandon, Frizzell displayed more boyish energy than his younger collaborators.  I almost expected him to achieve levitation at any moment.

3. Beatdown

Verploegh, a recent Kansas City transplant, is an exciting addition to the local scene.  Intense and unpredictable, he often resembled an angry version of the cheerful Kansas City drummer Brian Steever.

4. Caffeinated

The approximately 25 people who passed through the doors during the two-hour performance were silent.  Their reverent appreciation and the superlative amplification resulted in the most pristine sound I’ve encountered at a post-quarantine concert.  The refreshed layout of the theater below Westport Coffee House and adjacent to Green Room Burgers & Beer indicates the space is still the most advantageous small listening room in Kansas City.