Confirmation: Weekly News and Notes

*A monumental shift in the Kansas City jazz scene is scheduled to take place this Saturday night. Jardine's, long associated with its solid but conservative booking policy, features Snuff Jazz from 11:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. The collective's leader, Mark Southerland, is the most visible representative of Kansas City's underground experimental jazz scene. An editorial in the club's weekly newsletter addresses the adventurous booking. "Come out and hear something new," they implore. "You may hate it, or you may have a really really good time." The times they are a-changin'. Plastic Sax is very pleased.

*Sunday's Star offered the exciting news that a ballet featuring vintage Kansas City jazz is in the works. Here are the details.

*Steve Penn writes that Friday marks the 100th anniversary of Claude "Fiddler" Williams' birth. A celebration will be held at the Mutual Musicians Foundation. I sure do miss Claude.

*It's official- KKFI now offers only ten hours of dedicated jazz programming a week. Look for the thin strip of pink (of all the nerve!) on the station's color-coded programming guide.

*Plastic Sax's counterpart in St. Louis previews concerts by Michael Wolff and Terrell Stafford, both of whom are also on their way to Kansas City.

*A tourist from Michigan blogs about his impressions of the American Jazz Museum and other Kansas City institutions.

*Wichita's smooth jazz advocate goes nuts over a New York radio station's format change.

*Don't forget to be Plastic Sax's MySpace friend. My shameless marketing campaign at the social networking site, incidentally, has been effective. More than three people now visit this site daily.

(I omitted the Majestic from my virtual jazz tour, but it's a memorable destination in downtown Kansas City. Photo by Plastic Sax.)