Results for "Kansas City"

Coleman Hawkins

Born: November 21, 1904

Coleman Hawkins single-handedly brought the saxophone to the prominence in jazz that the instrument enjoys. Before he hit the scene, jazz groups had little use for the instrument. One player (forgot who) said, "with all due respect to Adolph Sax, Coleman Hawkins invented the saxophone." Hawkins, or "Bean", as he was known as, started playing cello at a young age before switching to the saxophone. He was a lifelong listener of classical music, and as a result, his knowledge of music theory was far ahead of his peers. Whereas Louis Armstrong improvised his solos based on the melody, Hawkins based his on the harmony and had a strong sense of rhythm. Hawkins hit New York at the age of 20 and quickly established himself, as he became the star of the Fletcher Henderson band

Herschel Evans

Born: March 9, 1909

Herschel "Tex" Evans was an American tenor saxophonist who worked in the Count Basie Orchestra. He had also worked with Lionel Hampton and Buck Clayton. He is also known for starting his cousin Joe McQueen's interest in the saxophone. Life and career Evans was born in Denton, Texas, United States, but spent some of his childhood in Kansas City, Kansas, where his cousin Eddie Durham was a trombonist and guitarist. Durham persuaded him to switch from alto to tenor saxophone, the instrument that ultimately established Evans's reputation. After perfecting his craft in the jam sessions held in the jazz district between Twelfth and Eighteenth streets in Kansas City, Evans returned to Texas in the 1920s and joined the Troy Floyd orchestra in San Antonio in 1929

Buck Clayton

Born: November 12, 1911

Buck Clayton first rose to national fame as the lead soloist with the first great Count Basie band that roared out of Kansas City in late fall, 1936. Ironically, while Clayton’s understated, bell-like sound is associated with the hard swinging Kansas City style, he actually spent little time in Kansas City. By the time he arrived at the famed Reno Club, a small dive on 12th Street, Clayton had already led a colorful career as a band leader, ranging from Los Angeles to Shanghai. Born in Parsons, Kansas, Clayton grew up in a musical family. Clayton’s father, a minister, taught him the basics of music

Jimmy Rushing

Born: August 26, 1899

“Mr. Five by Five” Jimmy Rushing established a style of singing that epitomized swing: he created a wonderful tension between band and vocalist by singing ahead of or behind the beat and toyed with the rhythm. He was a blues singer and a jazz singer, and his ability to work within both styles had an incalculable influence on succeeding generations of popular music vocalists.

Jimmy Rushing was born on August 26, 1902, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His father, Andrew Rushing, and his mother, Cora Freeman, were both musicians, and they were a big influence on him. The first instrument he learned was the violin. While at Douglass High School, he studied music theory. Through the encouragement of his uncle Wesley Manning (who played and sang at a local sporting house), Jimmy took up playing piano. He also sang in school and church choirs and spent his summers traveling throughout the Midwest.

Count Basie

Born: August 21, 1904

Bill Basie studied music with his mother as a child and played piano in early childhood. He picked up the basics of early ragtime from some of the great Harlem pianists and studied organ informally with Fats Waller. He made his professional debut as an accompanist for vaudeville acts and replaced Waller in an act called Katie Crippen and her Kids. He also worked with June Clark and Sonny Greer who was later to become Duke Ellington’s drummer. It was while traveling with the Gonzel White vaudeville show that Basie became stranded in Kansas City when the outfit suddenly broke up. He played at a silent movie house for a while and then became a member of the Walter Page Blue Devils in 1928 and ’29

Karrin Allyson

"If there's a choir in heaven, someday the exquisite vocalist Karrin Allyson will lead it. She's such an otherworldly talent that the creator probably already has her on heavy rotation." —The Houston Press Well, no worries, mate, Karrin Allyson will be part of this earthly choir for a very long time. But she is moving on, after a jam-packed career with Concord Jazz—thirteen albums, four Grammy nominations, and a recent self-produced holiday album, Yuletide Hideaway that won four stars from Downbeat. In May of 2015, as part of a new agreement with Motéma Music, Karrin headed back into the recording studio for a very intimate look at the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, accompanied only by a rare and distinctive pairing of Kenny Barron on piano and John Patitucci on bass

Mike Metheny

Born: August 28, 1949

Trumpet/flugelhorn soloist Mike Metheny is a native of Lee's Summit, Missouri and has degrees from the University of Missouri/Columbia (B.S. in Music Education) and Northeast Missouri State University (Masters in Music Education). His teachers included Keith House and John Alexander. From 1971 to 1974, he was a trumpeter in the U.S. Army Field Band in Washington D.C., and in 1976 he became a faculty member at Boston's Berklee College of Music, a position he held for six years. At Berklee, Mike taught private trumpet, music theory and jazz improvisation and, while in Boston from 1976 to 1989, led his own Boston- based jazz quartet, appearing in numerous club, concert and festival settings across New England and the U.S. Mike is a recipient of the "Outstanding Brass Player" award at the annual Boston Music Awards. He has also appeared on numerous jazz recordings as a sideman and has released twelve albums as a leader/producer. Today, Mike is a freelance performer, educator and music journalist in the Kansas City area and has written liner notes for such notables as jazz vocalist Marilyn Maye (Supersinger: A Tribute to Johnny Carson). He has also contributed to KC Magazine, Jazziz, and The DaCapo Jazz & Blues Lover's Guide to the U.S. and is the former editor of Kansas City's Jazz Ambassador Magazine (JAM), a position he held from 1994 to 2003.

John Yao, Chris Potter, Clark Terry and More

by Joe Dimino
February 2, 2020

This week we open with John Yao, one of the best kept secrets in the world of jazz, featuring his group Triceratops with a cut off his latest album How We Do. And best kept jazz secrets is one of the themes of this episode. We also look into the world of accomplished jazz cats Chris ...

Roberto Fonseca, Christian McBride, King Oliver and More

by Joe Dimino
January 26, 2020

This week's show is book-ended by Latin jazz, as we take off with the talented Roberto Fonseca and we land with the multi platinum-selling Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass. In between, we focus on new releases by Christian McBride and Kansas City's own Todd Wilkinson as well as on the music of forward looking artists ...

Logan Richardson’s Blues People Present: Searching For Charlie Parker In Partnership With Jazz Sister Cities To Celebrate Charlie Parker’s Centennial

January 24, 2020

Searching for Charlie Parker is a year-long international performance to honor Kansas City’s most celebrated Jazz artist during the year of his centennial. More than any other figure, Charlie Parker changed the sound of Jazz, and one hundred years later he continues to impact Jazz artists and the art-form today. Throughout 2020, in Searching for Charlie ...