Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*The American Jazz Museum has resurrected the Jammin’ at the Gem concert series.  Four concerts have been announced without much fanfare: Najee, December 17; Eric Roberson, February 11; Artemis, March 18; the SFJazz Collective, April 1.  Tickets to each concert are $65 and $75.  Details are available here.

*Joe Dimino shared footage of a performance by the Charles Williams Trio at the Blue Room and ​​interviewed Eddie Moore.

*Libby Hanssen recommends seasonal music by the Count Basie Orchestra and the Kerry Strayer Orchestra for KCUR.

*KCUR’s Up To Date program showcased TJ & The Tattletales’ revival of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

*Tweet of the Week: KU School of Music- Jazz Vespers is THIS THURSDAY at 7:30 PM @liedcenterks! The concert once again features performances of holiday favorites in a jazz and pop setting. Event is free, but tickets required: (link)

*From a press release: (A) follow-up to the 2012 ARC release Keyboard Christmas, and his fifteenth recording as a leader, Michael Pagán presents a program of holiday themed tracks… Keyboard Christmas II finds Kansas City based Pagán again in the solo piano idiom.

Turn Out the Lights

Few things are more illustrative of the reduced role jazz plays in the cultural life of Kansas City than its dramatically diminished presence at the annual Thanksgiving lighting ceremony at the Country Club Plaza.  The featured entertainers at last week’s event were a yacht rock cover band, a cabaret company and an aerialist troupe, sights and sounds that could have been seen or heard in cities from Orlando to Sacramento.  The music associated with Kansas City once received pride of place at the festive ritual.  For 14 years ending in 2009, a jazz ensemble led by the late Kerry Strayer serenaded throngs of holiday revelers.  Event organizers have dismissed jazz like an irrelevant relic of the past ever since.

Album Review: John Armato- The Drummer Loves Ballads

The most emblematic Kansas City jazz album of 2021 is the work of a drummer who currently lives in Sacramento.  John Armato oversees a bevy of prominent Kansas City musicians on his ambitious concept album The Drummer Loves Ballads.

Armato turns to the contacts he made during the years he spent on Kansas City’s jazz scene to realize his imaginative vision.  Two storied outsiders- saxophonist Houston Person and cornetist Warren Vaché- also get in on the action on the project released in May.

A survey of a few highlights reflects the album’s breadth.  Brett Jackson pays tribute to the late baritone saxophonist Kerry Strayer on “Night Lights.”  Lucy Wijnands, the daughter of the Kansas City mainstay Bram Wijnands, croons the dreamy chanson “The Shadows of Paris.”

A duet by vocalists Ron Gutierrez and Molly Hammer is ravishing.  Veteran pianist Wayne Hawkins and clarinetist Lynn Zimmer make sentimental contributions.  An interpretation of “Lonely Woman” features characteristically stunning work from guitarist Rod Fleeman and bassist Gerald Spaits.

The inclusion of so many scene stalwarts on the stylistically conservative, musically impeccable and deliberately hushed The Drummer Loves Ballads makes the album an invaluable document of the mainstream sound that continues to dominate Kansas City’s jazz clubs.

Now's the Time: Lincoln Cemetery

I shot this video at Charlie Parker’s grave in Lincoln Cemetery on August 29, 2010. Alas, turf wars within Kansas City’s jazz community put an end to this birthday tradition years before the global pandemic struck.