Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*Max Roach died August 16. The drummer's contribution to the development of jazz- including a major role in Charlie Parker's career- is inestimable. (That's Roach in the video above.) At my music blog, I recalled Roach's visit to Kansas City in 1997. Many jazz fans would do well to consider Roach's response when asked why he chose to collaborate with free jazz artists:

"A person like an Anthony Braxton is more like Charlie Parker than a person who plays like Charlie Parker. Bird was creative and different and looked inside himself. He knew what Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter and the rest of them had laid down. That was the foundation. Bird built on that foundation. Now you have people like Phil Woods who preserve the tradition. And then there are people who push forward, who perpetuate the continuum by trying out things. Cecil Taylor is more like Art Tatum than a guy who plays like Tatum. It may not always come off, but that's what creativity's about. Anyway, by now people accept me for what I am."


*Trumpeter Herb Pomeroy, who also played with Charlie Parker, died August 11.

*Kansas City mayor Mark Funkhouser blogged about the Wall Street Journal piece I referred to last week.

*Jazz received short shrift in a recent USA Today piece about Kansas City's "renewal."

*Jason at the Pitch commented on my open letter to the American Jazz Musem posted at Plastic Sax last week.

*A nice Star profile of Marty's Blues Cafe indicates that jazz may be in the club's future.

*I'm desperately trying to avoid getting into the "Jazz Calendar" business. The Jazz Ambassadors already do an excellent job with the thankless task. But I'm still compelled to point out a few unique events happening this week:

8/23 Dr. Lonnie Smith gets funky at the Blue Room
8/24 New American Jazz Museum director Greg Carroll sits in with Angela Hagenbach at Jardine's
8/25 Greg Carroll sits in with Angela Hagenbach at a $28 dollar benefit at CocoBolos at 151st and Nall
8/25 Snuff Jazz makes scary noise at All Souls Unitarian Church
8/26 Charlie Parker Gravesite Memorial Service, Lincoln Cemetery 1pm
8/26 "Charlie Parker's Birthday Party" at Mutual Musician's Foundation