Kansas City. Always did, always will. A lady friend of my dad’s, Holly Fenley, lived over in Brookside and back in the 40’s she had house parties, a thing back then. Only some of hers featured a cat named Basie. He played the piano and imbibed a fair amount of gin, and the joint was jumpin’.
Other names floated in and out, and, as I got a little older, friends and I used to go to Charlie’s Blue Room at 18th and Vine on Thursday evenings for Session Night, late fifties, into the sixties. That’s when the Joint Jumped. Anyone could sit in and they rotated players in and out in a timely manner; drummers, saxophonists, singers, performers of all kinds came and went and it seems, looking back, there was never a lull. Some musicians would play, then they’d be sitting next to us clapping and appreciating the creativity of others who had taken their places.
I believe it was just The Blue Room, as it’s still known in its preserved, official Jazz District form, but we called it Charlie’s as did patrons, in deference to Charlie Parker, who had nothing to do with its ownership that I knew of. He was there, though. His presence. And a lot of other greats who were drawn to KC in the Boss Pendergast days when liquor flowed freely even during Prohibition. All the joints were jumpin’, some 200 clubs and roadhouses in and around Kansas City were honored by the likes of Louis and Big Joe, Ella, Fats, Duke and Count and the high court royalty of world jazz.
We had it good, sitting at The Blue Room, underage and poor, art students nursing mixed drinks and trying to make them last while KC’s best up and comers played for the room like it was Carnegie Hall. And the band played on.
I remember a summer Kenton concert at Swope Park before those Blue Room nights; my first encounter with “modern jazz” and MJQ at another KC venue weeks later. Those were exciting, mind-stretching times.
If you happen upon this vinyl classic, kill to own it…
Much later, when I returned to KC and started an ad agency of my own, we had offices in Corporate Woods, glass and steel and trees. I had met David Basse by then, well on his way to becoming a KC jazz legend, with his City Light Orchestra and a voice that has to be heard to be believed. He out-mels mel. Anyway. I met this dude, and the agency did an album cover for his “Raised Spirits,” a classic jazz vinyl disc. (If you see one, grab that sucker) He played for our opening party and the poster proclaimed “Jazz in the Woods” (I’m guessing that’s where they got the theme for a fund raiser thereafter) and the copy said, at the end, “the woods won’t be so corporate anymore.”
What a night. That’s all I’ll say until statutes of limitations run out. And the band played on. But it was the start of a friendship that continues with jazz running through it and a great deal of awe on my side. What a talent. I left KC again, this time for L.A. (Basse was there wowing crowds a few times) and came back after several years at a big ad agency. Been here well over thirty years this time—think I’ll stick. My dad used to say everyone leaves KC, but, in the end, they all come back—or want to.
Listen to David’s enjoyable and encyclopedic take on jazz, plus a lot of very good music on KPR’s Jazz with David Basse. And if you don’t have his albums, here’s where you can get those. You’ll see and hear why he has such a growing and diverse following.
He’s certainly a reason the joint is jumpin’. Google him, and enjoy.