The Royal Scam: Sam Yahel Opens for Steely Dan

"Where's 'Kid Charlemagne'?" a heckler shouted Thursday evening at Starlight Theater. "C'mon!"

I was pleased when I first learned that Steely Dan had tapped Sam Yahel's organ trio to serve as its opening act for a portion of its current tour. I was eager to see if fans of a jazz-influenced classic rock band would be receptive to a genuine jazz artist. Alas, the answer is a resounding no.

"Organ?" a guy near me grumbled. "It's like being at church."

Rarely have I been so discouraged. I'd long hoped that Steely Dan's aging audience would come to embrace jazz. I'd counted on that demographic- relatively affluent 40-to-60 year-olds with a taste for sophisticated pop music- to eventually acquire an active interest in jazz. The behavior of Thursday's audience indicated that my hope was little more than a naive pipe dream.

Yahel and his colleagues- Adam Small on bass and Joe Strasser on drums- displayed an interesting array of concepts during their 30-minute set. Their smart and funky approach was closer in spirit to the music associated with Larry Young than Jimmy Smith. It didn't matter. The constant chatter of at least two-thirds of the early arriving audience of over 5,000 occasionally drowned out the trio. Revelers took selfies, socialized and shouted greetings to friends sitting several rows away. To be fair, very few of the concertgoers had heard of Yahel, nor did they expect an opening act of any kind.

Unfortunately, the boorish behavior continued when Steely Dan opened its set with Duke Ellington's "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo." Steely Dan's ongoing homage to jazz didn't end there. It played "Parker's Band", a 1974 tribute to Bird and Kansas City. Jazz-based solos were featured on most songs. During these segments, the majority of the audience- at least the majority in the back third where I was seated- were clearly disinterested in everything but singing along to the choruses of the band's biggest hits. If a 45-second solo by Walt Weiskopf on a track from the multi-platinum album Aja bored them, there's not much of a chance of them willingly attending a Joshua Redman concert. (Elgin Smith and Tim Finn reviewed Thursday's show.)

Asking a respected jazz act serve as an opener was an incredibly commendable move on Steely Dan's part. The noble experiment failed. My ongoing ambition of finding new ways to develop the audience for jazz took another hit. I suppose that any major dude could have told me.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

An Immodest Proposal

I've written extensively about the vast disparity between the size of the audience for "new" jazz and the quality of the music being performed in Kansas City. Too many times the musicians on stage outnumber the members of the audience. That's not right. And I wish someone would do something about it. In spite of the following exercise in futility, that person isn't me.

Here's my dead-on-arrival idea. I propose a three-day multi-venue "new jazz" festival featuring left-of-center jazz by (mostly) Kansas City-based musicians. I've given the ambitious event the working title of Curtis Got Slapped. Are you with me so far?

It's not entirely outside the realm of possibility. Just last month thousands of music fans purchased tickets to the inaugural Middle of the Map festival in Kansas City. The accomplishment was all the more remarkable because the rock-based event lacked any big stars. (Of course, it's all relative. Appearances by festival headliners Cursive, for instance, attract a few hundred people. That's not much in the rock world, but it'd be a huge for a jazz act.)

It's precisely fans of indie rock acts like Cursive that I'd like this festival to reach. The music featured at CGS will be more appealing to fans of TV On the Radio than to fans of Stan Getz. Perhaps by presenting these alternative jazz acts in a semi-coherent fashion, Pitchfork-obsessed hipsters will realize that they've been missing out on a compelling scene.

Here's my proposed schedule for CGS. (Rather than drag unsuspecting venues into this theoretical discussion, I changed the names of the clubs.)

Midtown Depot, downstairs stage
Thursday
800 Mr. Marco's V7
1000 NewEar
1200 Quixotic featuring Brandon Draper (conceptual jazz-oriented collabo)

Friday
800 Snuff Jazz
1000 BCR
1200 Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey

Saturday
800 Logan Richardson
1000 Bobby Watson's 29th Street Saxophone Quartet (reunited for GGS!)
1200 The People's Liberation Big Band


Midtown Depot, upstairs stage
Thursday
800 Andrew McGhie Quartet
1000 Loren Pickford (triumphant return)
1200 Mark Lowrey with Drums

Friday
800 Harold O'Neal
1000 CrossCurrent
1200 Alaturka

Saturday
800 Popes of Dope
1000 Mike Metheny
1200 Battle of the Big Bands: Clint Ashlock's New Jazz Order vs. Dirty Force Brass Band (The concept: Ashlock's band, seated, and DFBB, marching, alternate selections in a vicious cage match.)


Gardens on the Plaza
Thursday
800 Shay Estes and Mark Lowrey
1000 Matt Otto Quartet
1200 Sir Threadius Mongus

Friday
800 Charles Gatschet
1000 Jerry Hahn
1200 Black House Improvisors Collective

Saturday
800 Chris Burnett
1000 Roger Wilder Quartet
1200 Diverse

Vinyl Pub
Thursday
800 BeardKCrazy
1000 Hearts of Darkness
1200 The Dead Kenny G's

Friday
800 This Is My Condition
100 Phonologotron
1200 Mouth

Saturday
800 Miles Bonny
1000 Mark Lowrey vs Hip Hop
1200 Garage a Trois

Just look at all that talent! And I left out a lot of excellent artists. KC, as my rapper friends like to say, is the town. Tickets prices, artist compensation and promotional efforts will have to be worked out by a much better person than me. Good luck with that.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

Sponsored

I attend several live music events every week.

Even so, it's startling when performances like Friday's jazz event at the Gem Theater are preceded by a lengthy acknowledgment of various sponsors. In this case, they included the ArtsKC Fund, the City of Kansas City, MO, the Institute of Museum & Library Services, the National Endowment of the Arts, the Missouri Arts Council and the Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund.

I don't begrudge the American Jazz Museum or anyone else involved with Friday's excellent event for accepting those funds, but I can't help but wonder exactly how these sponsorship decisions are made.

Why does the majority of funding seem to be dedicated to classical and jazz events? Would last week's jazz concert at The Gem and the classical performances at The Folly have transpired without the assistance of taxpayer dollars? And if these events can't validate themselves through intrinsic audience support should they even take place?

I suspect that the owners of Jardine's, The Phoenix and Soho 119 could make an argument that the jazz they featured Friday also had great artistic merit. Yet these private sector businesses were competing directly against government favoritism.

And what about other genres? Both The Czar Bar and The Record Bar offered bills loaded with acclaimed rock and folk-rock artists on Friday night. Are they any less deserving of government support?

Are members of the local underground hip hop scene eligible for money? How about bluegrass musicians? Gospel acts?

I'm not entirely comfortably with this use of federal, state and city tax dollars. And as much as I adored Friday's jazz show, I honestly can't say it was superior to the self-sustaining hip hop and rock shows I attended in the last week.

Fire away...

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)