Now's the Time: HoraceScope

Horace Silver died yesterday.  Two of the beloved musician's connections to Kansas City come immediately to mind.  The late trumpeter Carmell Jones, a native of Kansas City, Kansas, recorded with Silver on classic albums including Song For My Father.  In recent years, HoraceScope, a band led by Plastic Sax's 2013 Person of the Year Stan Kessler, has kept Silver's music alive in Kansas City.  HoraceScope performs a rendition of "The Outlaw" in the embedded clip.

Confirmation: Weekly News & Notes

*Guitarist Brian Baggett is the latest area jazz musician to be interviewed by Joe Dimino on Neon Jazz.

*Vine Street Rumble made a television appearance.

*The Kansas City Star reports on a possible new museum dedicated to Negro league baseball in Birmingham, Alabama.  The institution would ostensibly compete for funding and artifacts with Kansas City's Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.  The adjoining American Jazz Museum already faces competition from entities including The Jazz Museum in Harlem.

*The author of a letter recalls an encounter with the late John Elliott.

*The Pitch plugs a performance by the Bram Wijnands Swingtet.

*Jazz pianist Paul Smith has died.  Thankfully for the regional jazz scene, the Kansas City jazz pianist Paul Smith is still very much alive.

*Tweet o' the Week: Brian Scarborough- Standing room only at The Record Bar tonight for People's Liberation Big Band. Great music, great crowd, great band. #kcjazz #fivemoreyears

*Comment o' the Week: Anonymous- I could care less what Stanley Crouch has to say about Charlie Parker. I'm way more interested to read the new Parker bio coming out by Kansas City's own Chuck Haddix!

*Via Anita Dixon regarding The Foundation Big Band: Come hear a fresh new big band in Kansas City's original home for jazz: The Mutual Musician's Foundation.  The band, comprised of KC-area musicians, will perform original works as well as staples of the big band repertoire, including tunes from the Count Basie Orchestra - the lead purveyors of the KC big band sound.  $5 cover goes to the musicians. Come be a part of a new thang in a historic place. (Wednesday, July 10, 7:30 p.m.)

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

Review: Mike Metheny's 60.1

I may never forgive Mike Metheny for making my life a living hell.

The opening track of 60.1, his new album, may be the most infuriating earworm I've ever encountered. It's as if the tormented ghost of Raymond Scott had assumed control of the USC Marching Trojans.

The deliberately annoying march has taken up unwelcome residency in my cranium for the past two weeks. Metheny named the piece "Dubious Melody," but "Crime Against Humanity" would be be a more appropriate title.

It takes enormous talent to be so maliciously awful. At this late date, jazz fans could be forgiven for failing to remember that Metheny was once a major label recording artist and had served as a faculty member at Boston's Berklee College of Music. While Metheny has returned to Missouri and jazz's fortunes have waned, Metheny's prodigious musical gifts have not diminished.

The evil "Dubious Melody" aside, Metheny uses his genius for good on 60.1.

Propelled by drummer Brandon Draper, the title track is absolutely savage. It demonstrates that Metheny is still capable of making a righteous racket that can challenge the testosterone levels of even the most manly fans of Medeski Martin & Wood and The Bad Plus.

"60.1" and a couple additional noisy numbers make the album's relatively conventional mainstream tracks seem tame. It would be a shame, however, to overlook Metheny's gorgeous playing on the Bill Evans ballad "Laurie" and the fine Bob Bowman solo on "C.C. & Water." Other Kansas City-based artists on the album include pianists Paul Smith and Roger Wilder and guitarist Danny Embrey.

Metheny demurred when I asked for permission to post a track. All ten selections are different, he suggested, and hearing only one piece would be inherently misleading. There's some truth to that. Even so, the entirety of 60.1 s characterized by Metheny's artistic restlessness, adventurous spirit and stupendous musicality.

Just don't listen to that first track.

Review: HoraceScope at Jardine's

Joyous and bluesy, the compositions of Connecticut-born Horace Silver have a great deal in common with the soulful swing associated with Kansas City jazz. So it makes perfect sense that several of Kansas City's elite jazz musicians regularly perform Silver's songs under the auspices of HoraceScope.

The group includes trumpeter Stan Kessler, saxophonist Dave Chael, pianist Paul Smith, bassist James Albright and drummer Zack Albetta. (The ensemble lacks a dedicated site, so I'm not entirely certain.) Saxophonist Matt Otto sat in with the band when I caught the group last week at Jardine's.

Silver classics including "Peace" and "The Cape Verdean Blues" were respectfully rendered. But there was a problem.

I had hoped that Jardine's new modest cover charge policy would dissuade idle chatter while musicians were on stage. I was wrong. Many of the 35 people in attendance simply couldn't stop talking.

The cacophony sounded exactly like this. Kessler's solo in the video is lovely. I imagine it would have been even better had he been able to hear himself think.

I would have loved to hear HoraceScope take on "Senor Blues," my favorite Silver song. After thirty minutes, however, both my cash and my patience were depleted.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

Confirmation: Weekly News & Notes

*Joe Klopus acknowledges the flagging support for Kansas City's jazz scene.

*Steve Paul spotlights ten forthcoming jazz shows. (And don't forget the Plastic Sax Event Calendar.)

*A free MP3 by Dojo is available for download at All About Jazz.

*Jardine's' donor appreciation party for prospective and actual members of the "Society For Charter Members of the New Piano" is scheduled for January 11.

*The Pitch took great pictures of Sunday's gig by the People's Liberation Big Band.

*Pianist Paul Smith, unquestionably one of Kansas City's finest jazz musicians, now has a MySpace page. I won't name names, but it sure would be wonderful if a handful of our town's other notable veterans followed suit.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)