Confirmation: Weekly News & Notes

*Hermon Mehari was interviewed by Laura Spencer of KCUR.

*Eddie Moore appears on The People of 2020, a recording on which “40 composers from the NYC music community and around the globe, seeking a way to deeply speak about the times, collaborated to write and record an album... over a 14-day period.”  The project will be released on Friday, June 19.

*A politically-oriented arts site considers the cultural implications of Charlie Parker’s association with “Cherokee.”

*The Shawnee Mission Post reports on the cancellation of the Prairie Village Jazz Festival.

*Joe Dimino interviewed Deborah Brown and Tim Whitmer

*Vine Street Rumble will perform at a virtual version of the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival in July.

*Tweet o’ the Week: The Folly Theater- Did you catch our Executive Director on @fox4kc this morning? Gale chatted with @markalfordkc about our reopening and upcoming concerts! (link)

*From The American Jazz Museum: The American Jazz Museum is excited to reopen on Tuesday, June 16th, 2020. Come celebrate the Jazz Experience again! We have taken careful precautions to keep our visitors, staff, and volunteers safe. Following the guidance from health agencies at the local, state, and federal levels, we have partnered with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the KC Culture Cares group to welcome visitors back to the Museums at 18th & Vine. (Details are available here.)

*From a press release: Burnett Music Foundation is pleased to announce it has received a $5,900 grant from the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission. These funds will support the August 22, 2020 Bird Boot Camp that is also an official program of the annual Spotlight Charlie Parker festivities.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

Tuned Out

Complaining about terrestrial radio in 2020 is akin to railing against the decimation of the typewriter industry in 1990.  It’s a hopelessly irrelevant subject.  Yet I continue to see musicians and jazz institutions pouring time and money into the sham.

The enterprise is a Potemkin village erected by duplicitous publicists and brazen programmers.  Examine the total weekly plays and the corresponding number of stations on the most prominent chart.  Furthermore, the majority of the reporting stations are obscure.  Only one of the stations occasionally featuring jazz in the Kansas City market even registers as a blip in the ratings.

The content of the jazz chart is even more jarring.  There’s nothing wrong with any of the individual albums.  I happen to love a few of the recordings in the current Top 50.  Yet taken collectively, the grouping presents a picture of jazz as a fossilized remnant of the past.

At a time when innovative and socially relevant jazz is being made by the likes of Ambrose Akinmusire, Terri Lyne Carrington, Robert Glasper, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Matana Roberts, the anodyne tone of the majority of jazz radio programming (there are, of course, plenty of wonderful exceptions to the bland predictability) is designed to pacify rather than inspire active engagement.  Maybe it’s a good thing so few people hear it.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

Now's the Time: Bennie Moten

Bennie Moten was 40 when he died in 1935 following a botched tonsillectomy in his hometown of Kansas City.  Ninety-one years after it was recorded, the embedded “Spanish stomp” still sounds like a vibrant party-starter.

Confirmation: Weekly News & Notes

*A recording of a purportedly lost interview with Charlie Parker recently surfaced.

*Joe Dimino interviewed Leslie Maclean and Dave Panico.

*Tweet o’ the Week: Tony’s Kansas City- Kansas City After Hours Argument Sparks MASS SHOOTING INURING FIVE PEOPLE In The Historic 18th & Vine Jazz District: (link)

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

EP Review: Hermon Mehari- A Change For the Dreamlike

Hermon Mehari’s reverence for jazz tradition was evident during his performances while he was based in Kansas City.  Even when he led tribute bands dedicated to reviving the rambunctious sounds of Miles Davis’ electric period, Mehari was resolutely dedicated to faithful recreations.

A Change For the Dreamlike, Mehari’s new 24-minute missive, shows the continued and entirely welcome expansion of his sonic palette during his ongoing residency in France.  Each of the seven tracks showcases intriguing ideas and textures.

The elegiac meditation on the wistful melody of “Shenandoah” opening the EP is followed by a jolt of contemporary production accents on “Let’s Try This Again.”  Mehari riffs over the spoken cadence of a family member on “Conversation With My Uncle,” a concept also effectively deployed by musicians including pianist Henrique Eisenmann.  The tale of a dangerous transnational journey makes the experiment the recording’s most essential track. 

“Eritrea” is an electro-acoustic groove in the vein of Lionel Louke while the chamber-jazz of “I Cry” evokes the innovations of Ambrose Akinmusire.  “All Alone” and “Dreamscapes” are moody soundscapes not unlike the recent work of Kendrick Scott Oracle and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah.

Mehari’s signature plaintive trumpet tone- a trait causing him to sound like Miles Davis’ sensitive great-grandson- provides a sense of continuity amid the disparate sounds of A Change For the Dreamlike.  Mehari's insightful statement of purpose for the project is here.

(Original image of Mehari performing in 2011 by Plastic Sax.)

Now's the Time: Jimmy Rushing

The Oklahoma native Jimmy Rushing sang in Kansas City based bands led by Walter Page and Bennie Moten before rising to fame through his association with the Count Basie Orchestra.  Known as Mr. Five by Five for his stout build, Rushing is supported by an auspicious cast of geniuses in the embedded video.

Confirmation: Weekly News & Notes

*The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra created a social isolation rendition of the Clint Ashlock composition “Solitary Confinement.”

*2019 Fellows, an album recorded under the auspices of Kansas City Area Youth Jazz, is available on Bandcamp.

*The 2020-21 season at The Lied Center includes concerts by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Sherman Irby and Charenée Wade.

*Joe Dimino interviewed Ryan Anselmi, Brett Jackson and Eddie Moore.

*Tweet o’ the Week: Clint Ashlock- I play Black American Music. I wouldn’t have the career and life I have if it weren’t for great black Americans. To say I condemn racism doesn’t seem significant, but I do, and I’m trying to educate myself, figure out how best to make things better from my small part of the world

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)