Al Pearson at the KCK Street Blues Festival

It's awfully nice of the organizers of the Kansas City Kansas Street Blues Festival to feature a handful of jazz artists at their event.

Dozens of working blues bands in town would be honored to play at the free two-day showcase. With the absence of a proper jazz festival in Kansas City this year, I wasn't about to let hellish heat prevent me from catching a bit of Saturday afternoon's jazz segment.

Well aware that the audience of about 250 was largely composed of beer-guzzling boogie fanatics, veteran jazz trumpeter Al Pearson turned on familiar material like Spyro Gyra's "Morning Dance," James Brown's "Cold Sweat" and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On."

It wasn't high art, but given that the heat index was in the three digits, Pearson's approach was just right.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)