Review: Lisa Henry and the Kansas City Jazz Quintet at KCKCC

The multi-generational ensemble of saxophonist Jim Mair, trumpeter Hermon Mehari, pianist Charles Williams, bassist James Albright and drummer Michael Warren intrigued me, but the real reason I attended the closing concert of the Jazz Summit at Kansas City Kansas Community College was a rare opportunity to hear Lisa Henry. Yes, that Lisa Henry.

The vocalist has appeared infrequently in Kansas City in the last couple years. Her performance proved that area audiences have been deprived of a very fine talent. Approximately 50 people took in the sophisticated concert at the sonically pristine Performing Arts Center on Friday, April 27.

Like Deborah Brown, my pick for Kansas City's best jazz vocalist, Henry is clearly influenced by Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln. Yet Henry's voice isn't as rich and lustrous as Brown's. Henry compensates with an exceedingly intelligent approach. She knows precisely how to use her airier voice to pull songs through. Her "choo choo" scat on "Take the 'A' Train" never seemed cloying.  A knowing interpretation of "Body and Soul" injected new life into the stale standard.

Henry may have been the featured attraction, but the remainder of the band also shone. Henry repeatedly featured Albright in playfully competitive duets. Warren's elegant drumming elevated every selection. Mair's faultless solo on "Confirmation"- he introduced it as "a tune from Charlie Parker's sacred songbook"- reminded the audience of his immaculate tone. Mehari's brilliantly constructed solo on "Cherokee" proved that the media attention he's received in recent years hasn't impeded his development as an extraordinary jazz instrumentalist. (Here's an early example of the hype surrounding Mehari.) Williams' bluesy solos on "Summertime" opened the evening with flair.

The concert marked the conclusion of the week-long education-oriented Jazz Summit at KCKCC. Henry performs again Friday, May 4, at the Blue Room.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

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.)

Review: Todd Clouser at the Record Bar

Don't call it fusion.

While jazz and rock were equally represented during Todd Clouser's gig Sunday at the Record Bar, Clouser's innovative approach delineated a new way to reconcile the styles. He and his three-piece band played pure jazz with the aesthetic sensibility of rock musicians.

Rendered as jazz standards, Nirvana's "All Apologies" and Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression" sounded no less out of context than excellent Clouser originals like "Serenity Now." All were played with feeling rather than with flash. A friend noted that it was refreshing to hear a guitarist play so slowly. Similarly, Adam Meckler allowed his trumpet to squeak tentatively as he interpreted the lyrics of Kurt Cobain's "All Apologies."

Alas, my highfalutin' theorizing and lavish advance praise isn't good for much. Only about 25 people attended. Clouser's gambit isn't the only promising path to reclaim a vibrant audience for jazz. It is, however, one of the most rewarding.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

Against the Crosscurrent

Sam Wisman calls Crosscurrent a "nerdy little jazz band." I beg to differ.

I last raved about Crosscurrent in January. I suggested that they're "fiendishly good" and that they perform "music from a cocktail lounge that specializes in absinthe." And in his preface to a stunning photo essay of Crosscurrent, KCJazzLark called them "one of the best jazz groups in town." He's right.

I caught Crosscurrent last Wednesday at the Power & Light Grill. The establishment's enormous glass windows and concrete floor played cruel tricks on the band's sound. Their interpretation of Lennie Tristano material lost much of its nuance. The sound of saxophonist Matt Otto, one of Kansas City's most significant voices, almost resembled the processed style of David Sanborn. Weird.

Steve Lambert's reeds, T.J. Martley's keyboards, Zach Beeson's bass and Wisman's drums also echoed around the large room. There simply weren't enough bodies to absorb the sound. In the ninety minutes I spent at Power & Light Grill, the audience bottomed at 15 and peaked at 30.

Why were there so few people there? It was like a secret gig. Outside of Otto and Lambert's sites and the members' Facebook accounts, Crosscurrent is invisible on the internet. It's staggering that such brilliant musicians can't bring themselves to provide even a bare minimum of self-promotion. They're heard it from me before- I've addressed the matter privately and publicly with some of the guys. Their music- and Kansas City's jazz audience- deserves much better.

Crosscurrent plays Jardine's on September 24. You'll find the date listed on the Kansas City Jazz Calendar.

















(Original images of Crosscurrent at the Power & Light Grill by Plastic Sax.)

Will Matthews: Swing Purist

Some say the true test of character is how a person behaves when no one's looking.

Very few people were on hand to witness to Will Matthews' Friday matinee performance at the Mutual Musicians Foundation. He's celebrated for his impeccably tasteful work as the guitarist in the Count Basie Orchestra. So it would have been completely understandable- even expected- if Matthews cut loose with some funk and rock riffs.

Yet Matthews never strayed from his genteel, sophisticated style. It was a sublime performance, ably assisted by keyboardist Dan DeLuca and an unidentified drummer.






















A couple of vocalists sat in with Matthews. That's Bryan Hicks and his disturbing hand brace crooning here. (Hicks' home page is listed in the right column, but beware- it's infested by noxious pop-up ads.)

A quick reminder: The Foundation's "Rush Hour" shows take place every Friday. There's no cover, no smoking and no excuse for jazz lovers not to attend. (Details can be found at the link above.)