Now's the Time: Snarky Puppy

Snarky Puppy is well on its way to accomplishing something few other jazz or jazz-adjacent acts have achieved in recent years: selling 1,800 premium-priced concert tickets in Kansas City.  The group’s Kansas City debut at Muriel Kauffman Theatre on Tuesday, June 11, is almost sold out.  The Kansas City Star named the show one of the top ten concerts of the summer.

Confirmation: Weekly News & Notes

*Julie Denesha created a feature about ragtime’s legacy in Sedalia for KCUR.

*Mike Dillon recalls his time in Kansas City in an extensive intereview at Relix.

*E.E. Pointer of River Cow Orchestra chatted with Joe Dimino.

*The Kansas City Star previewed Saturday’s somewhat incongruous American Jazz Walk of Fame concert.

*The Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Squirrel Nut Zippers will perform at Muriel Kauffman Theatre on February 1, 2020.

*Tweet o’ the Week: Magic 107.3- This is #IndigoHour at the @americanjazzmuseum Blue Room (video)

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

Concert Review: Der Lange Schatten at the Blue Room

It takes a lot of planning to be spontaneous. That’s the paradoxical takeaway of a performance by Der Lange Schatten at the Blue Room on Monday, May 20.  More than three dozen people heard the German trio’s carefully orchestrated form of experimental chamber jazz at the free show presented by Goethe Pop Up Kansas City.  Der Lange Schatten’s avant-garde explorations were moored by written arrangements.  Even during the wildest moments, reedman Michael Thieke, pianist Håvard Wiik and bassist Antonio Borghini scrutinized sheet music.  I documented a frenetic solo by Thieke and an example of Wiik’s unconventional approach at Instagram.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

Now's the Time: Charles Williams

The elegant pianist Charles Williams accompanies Eboni Fondren at the Phoenix on Thursday, May 23.  Williams will lead a trio at Eddie V's on the second, third and fourth Sundays in June.  Plastic Sax reviewed Williams' fine 2018 album Flavors of Jazz.

Confirmation: Weekly News & Notes

*KCUR shares a notification from The Kansas City Business Journal that Ralph Caro has been named as the new interim director of the American Jazz Museum.  Elizabeth Orosco interviewed Caro for Northeast News.

*KC Studio reports that a play about the late Myra Taylor will have “a possible late fall premiere” in Kansas City.

*Tweet o’ the Week: AstroGirlBunny- At Blue Room jazz night club in Kansas City Missouri listening to a jazz band they flew in from Berlin Germany. Fantastic! #jazz #music #KansasCity #berlin #Germany

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

Ghosts in the Machine

Kansas City’s jazz scene isn’t merely haunted by its illustrious history.  The formidable legacy of past masters often seems to suffocate the musicians of today.  That’s one of the takeaways from an exercise I conducted at my nondenominational music blog There Stands the Glass.

The examination of Spotify’s monthly listeners metric for artists associated with Kansas City offers intriguing insights into the consumption of jazz recordings.  Half of the artists in the top ten and 24 of the top 100 are jazz musicians.  Pat Metheny, Karrin Allyson, the jazz-adjacent Oleta Adams and the smooth jazz stars Norman Brown and Julian Vaughn are the only living jazz artists in the top 50.  And the gulf between the iconic Charlie Parker (#10, 495,000 monthly listeners) and his present-day successor Logan Richardson (#99, 1,000 monthly listeners) is astounding. 

The absence of many of the artists regularly documented at Plastic Sax is glaring.   I note at the original post that “many ostensible hometown heroes are streamed by only a few hundred users each month.”  Streaming isn’t a zero-sum game- just because someone streams Charlie Parker doesn’t mean they’re not also streaming Logan Richardson- but the extreme imbalance between old and new is frightening.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)

Now's the Time: Christian Swan

Christian Swan will perform at the Blue Room on Friday, May 17, and at Westport Coffeehouse on Sunday, May 19.  The keyboardist recently announced that he’s moving from Kansas City to Chicago.