Kansas City Jazz; A Little Evil Will Do You Good; Chapman

Con Chapman [+–]

Music writer

Con Chapman is the author of Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Jonny Hodges (Oxford University Press, 2019), winner of the 2019 Book of the Year Award by Hot Club de France, and a 2020 Certificate of Merit for Best Historical Research from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. His writing on jazz has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, Syncopated Times, and Brilliant Corners, among other publications.

Nominated for the 2024 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research
Nominated for the 2024 Jazz Journalists Association Book Awards in the category History/Criticism/Culture

The brand of jazz that developed in the Kansas City area in the period from the late 1920s to the late 1930s is recognised as both a distinct stylistic variation within the larger genre and a transitional stage between earlier forms of African-American music, such as ragtime and blues, and later, more modern forms, up to and including bebop. Kansas City’s brand of jazz has been described as “the most straightforward and direct style which has been developed outside New Orleans,” by Hughues Panassié and Madeleine Gautier in their Dictionary of Jazz. Kansas City jazz has inspired the creation of a museum and has been the subject of a feature-length film, Robert Altman’s 1996 “Kansas City,” and even a sentimental rock song, “Eternal Kansas City” by Van Morrison.

The first comprehensive work on the subject in over 15 years, this book draws on new research to delve deeper into music of the American Midwest that evolved into Kansas City jazz, and includes profiles of individual musicians who developed very different styles within or beyond the framework of the sub-genre. Kansas City Jazz focuses on the broader themes and the stories of the major personalities whose individual talents came together to create the larger whole of Kansas City’s distinctive brand of jazz.

Series: Popular Music History

Prelims

Preface ix-x

Chapter 1

Roots: Ragtime, Minstrelsy and Tent Shows [+–] 1-20

The roots of the music that came out of the Southwest and flowed into Kansas City are described. First is the tradition of minstrelsy, which originally consisted of white entertainers in blackface imitating African-Americans’ music. After the Civil War, freed Blacks began to replace white performers, and the prior musical styles performed in minstrel shows—“thinly disguised Irish reels, hornpipes and English country dances”—disappeared as African-American musicians introduced their own original music to the entertainment form. Second, the piano style known as “ragtime”—because of its “ragged” syncopated rhythm—developed into a national craze as Americans responded to its contrasting beats in the treble and bass. The principal practitioners of this style came from the Southwest, particularly Texas, Oklahoma and southwest Missouri, and gravitated towards Kansas City, Sedalia, and St. Louis, Missouri, where the opportunities to profit from their compositions through publication of sheet music were greater than in rural areas. Third, circuses developed “side show” bands that featured African-American musicians apart from the “Big Top” tent where the main attractions performed. These bands were featured along with minstrel performances and developed a musical tradition of their own that combined the typical brass bands of the 19 th century enhanced by African-American musical touches of their own, such as syncopation.

Chapter 2

From Stomp to Swing: From Tuba to Bull Fiddle [+–] 21-44

African-American music of the Southwest was described by its composers and those who danced to it as having a “stomp” rhythm, a term that occurs in New Orleans jazz, particularly in works by “Jelly Roll” Morton, whose travels through the region—including Kansas City—has been largely overlooked in the past. This rhythm came to characterize Kansas City jazz as the bass horn as the “bottom” voice in brass band music gave way to the string bass, also known as the double bass or “bull fiddle.” Walter Page, whose band Bill Basie heard out his hotel window, is generally credited with the development of this instrument as the foundation of the jazz that would originate in the region, and in shifting the rhythmic structure of the region’s jazz from the two-beat foundation of New Orleans to a four-beat structure that would underlie the music that came to be known as “swing.”

Chapter 3

Bennie Moten and his Competitors [+–] 45-72

The political changes that created the environment in which jazz thrived in Kansas City are described; in 1920, America embarked on an experiment in self-restraint, banning the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages, a reform that came to be called “Prohibition.” People didn’t stop drinking, however, and illegal bars known as “speakeasies” sprang up around the country to serve alcohol surreptitiously. Kansas City was controlled by a politician—Tom Pendergast—who had owned saloons and a wholesale liquor business before prohibition, and he continued his operations after Prohibition more profitably than before as illicit liquor sales weren’t taxed. Americans patronized speakeasies and, since jukeboxes hadn’t been developed yet, a need for live music to accompany the flow of liquor was filled by musicians who came to Kansas City where nightclubs stayed open due to Pendergast’s control of law enforcement while they were closed elsewhere. One musician—pianist Bennie Moten—became the most successful bandleader in Kansas City on the basis of his ties to Pendergast, his organizational and business skills, and his sense of musical tastes shifting from the two-beat structure of ragtime to a more fluid four-beat structure. Moten’s principal competitors in the early days of Kansas City jazz are identified, and the reasons—both substantive and idiosyncratic—why he prevailed over them are explored.

Chapter 4

Rhythm: From Banjo to Guitar, Two Drums to Trap Set [+–] 73-88

The evolution of the typical rhythm section of a Kansas City-style jazz band are described. The banjo was abandoned in favor of the guitar, which could be used to produce more varied tones; Eddie Durham, who would collaborate with Count Basie as composer/arranger for Bennie Moten, played an important role in the electrification of the guitar which allowed it to be heard over other instruments and to displace the hackneyed rhythmic accompaniment that the banjo produced. The use of drums in African-American music evolved from the two-drummer format of New Orleans bands (one bass, one snare), with the invention of the bass drum foot pedal. The development of the “hi-hat”—a contraption by which two cymbals mounted on a pole could be manipulated by a drummer’s foot and played either by itself or with drumsticks–expanded the rhythmic foundation of Southwestern bands and allowed for more varied effects.

Chapter 5

From Bennie to Basie [+–] 89-102

The Moten band breaks up following his death in 1935 in a botched surgery, and the musicians he employed foundered for a time; Bennie’s nephew Ira “Bus” Moten tries to keep the band together, but Bill Basie attracts many of them to follow him. His group slowly grows by accretion and its music is spread by late-night radio station broadcasts from the night club where he secures a steady engagement. Basie attracts drummer Jo Jones and tenor sax Lester Young, and a wealthy young East Coast heir named John Hammond becomes a critical and financial supporter when he hears the band on a radio broadcast in Chicago, and by the fall of 1936 they are ready to take their sound to the national stage with a tour of the East coast.

Chapter 6

Riffs and Jams [+–] 103-113

The culture of Kansas City jazz grew out of the late-night (and early morning) jam sessions that bar and nightclub owners used to provide music at a low cost to their patrons. “Jamming” was a term born in the circus sideshows where musicians blew freely and without orchestration, improvising in a competitive environment against other musicians. Jam sessions in turn generated “riff” tunes; that is, spontaneous compositions based on phrases that emerged from the mind of one musician, and were picked up and repeated by others in the ensemble, then combined into with other phrases to make a musical whole. A highly-rhythmic piano style known as “boogie-woogie” developed in the Southwest, emerging from the small “barrelhouse” bars where music was provided in a rude setting only by a piano at first, with drummers added as the style developed. The foremost practitioner of this style in Kansas City was Pete Johnson, who learned his trade at rent parties, that is, parties in residences where payments for food, drink and admission were used to pay the host’s rent. Johnson teamed up with a singer named Joe Turner, and the two would eventually make their way to Carnegie Hall under the auspices of John Hammond as a feature at his “Spirituals to Swing” concerts. Other lesser-know boogie-woogie pianists are profiled in this chapter as well.

Chapter 7

From Boogie-Woogie to Bop [+–] 114-125

Two distinct styles on the tenor saxophone developed out of the Southwest; the first, a harsh, gruff approach favored by tenors such as Herschel Evans, was the musical progeny of Coleman Hawkins, the first great jazz tensor saxophonist. The other, lighter in tone, was the creation of Lester Young, a native of New Orleans who traveled extensively in his youth throughout the west and southwest as a member of his family’s band. Basie would play the two styles off against each other in “tenor” battles when Evans and Young were members of his band, and Young’s style would serve as the model for Charlie Parker on alto sax that would bring the development of Kansas City jazz to a close with the emergence of bebop.

Chapter 8

Tenor Legacy [+–] 126-140

Chapter 9

Shouters and Singers [+–] 141-159

Just as there was a contrast between the rougher, Coleman Hawkins imitators and the followers of Lester Young, Kansas City vocalists used two approaches; shouting and singing. The shouting style was a form of sung speech, as practiced by Joe Turner who learned by imitating blind street singers whom he assisted in his youth; these singers typically accompanied themselves on blues guitar. Singers such as Jimmy Rushing, by contrast, were more polished and came out of middle-class backgrounds where the themes and lyrics of blues were looked down upon while the rhythmic core of the music was retained. The heirs of these two traditions down to the recent past are profiled.

Chapter 10

Trumpets [+–] 160-180

It is St. Louis, not Kansas City, that is known as a trumpeter’s town in the State of Missouri, an accident of history based on its location upriver from New Orleans and its high number of German immigrant residents. Nonetheless, a Kansas City style emerged from the Southwest in the persons of, among others, Lammar Wright and Oran “Hot Lips” Page, two Texas natives who gravitated to Kansas City and wrought blues-based changes to a brass instrument that, on the other side of the state, was used in a more conventional European style. Other notable trumpeters associated with the Moten-Basie tradition such as Buck Clayton and Harry “Sweets” Edison are identified and placed in context.

Chapter 11

Trombones [+–] 181-199

The trombone was a comic feature of circus sideshow bands, but it shed its novelty character as a result of its development by leading practitioners such as Jack Teagarden, an admirer of Louis Armstrong who brought a blues sensitivity to the instrument. He was a white man but could play in a Black mode, as attested to by the affinity that developed between him and Jimmy Harrison and Leo “Snub” Mosley, two leading African-American trombonists. Two Basie trombonists, William “Dicky” Wells and Dan Minor, are discussed along with other lesser-known trombone players from the region such as Thurston Maupins and Thamon Hayes.

Chapter 12

The Clouds of Joy and the Lady Who Swung the Band [+–] 200-217

Andy Kirk’s band grew out of Terrence Holder’s Dark Clouds of Joy, and it was the first Kansas City-based group to achieve national prominence. Known for their “sweet” sound, the most noteworthy musician to emerge from their ranks was Mary Lou Williams, who as her play became more experimental began to chafe at the tight rein that Kirk imposed on his musicians in order to maintain their popularity. She would eventually leave him despite his group’s success to explore more innovative musical territory with musicians such as Thelonious Monk that would develop into bebop.

Chapter 13

Buster Smith and Other Altos B.B. (Before Bird) [+–] 218-230

The foundation for the development of Charlie Parker is laid by earlier altos in the Southwestern tradition, including Alvin “Fats” Wall and Henry “Buster” Smith, who would become a musical mentor to Parker. Smith was a member of the Blue Devils who became a partner with Count Basie in an early iteration of the group that morphed into Basie’s big band, but he and Basie parted ways before the latter achieved national fame in another might-have-been in the history of Kansas City jazz.

Chapter 14

The Rockets That Didn’t Quite Take Off [+–] 231-241

The Kansas City Rockets, a band that was formed by trombonist Thamon Hayes but was taken over by fellow Bennie Moten alumni Harlan Leonard, is depicted as one of the missed opportunities of Kansas City jazz. Both Hayes and Leonard were dismissed from Moten’s band when Count Basie’s favored musicians replaced them, and as a result the Rockets carried a chip on their shoulders that motivated them to become respected heirs to the Kansas City “stomp” rhythm tradition. They bested Moten in a battle of the bands and had a shot at a big hit when they recorded “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire,” but their producer persuaded them to play the song in an up-tempo arrangement rather than as a tender ballad. They were also thwarted by union rules that kept them from expanding from their Kansas City base into Chicago.

Chapter 15

Bird Takes Flight [+–] 242-250

Charlie Parker takes the lessons he learned memorizing Lester Young solos and re- invents jazz, combining the blues of Kansas City and the Southwest with advanced harmonic principles he learns playing with innovators such as Tadd Dameron and William “Biddy” Fleet to write an outline for jazz’s next chapter. Parker’s development into a protean improviser and creator of a new jazz syntax is not a sure thing, as he overcomes personal problems and rough treatment by the elder statesmen of jazz to become one of the greatest innovators in the history of the music.

Chapter 16

Jay McShann and the Last of the Great Kansas City Bands [+–] 251-275

The development of Jay McShann from a natural on the piano to the leader of the group that threatened to displace Count Basie as the city’s top dance band is detailed. McShann’s group was innovative and provided Charlie Parker with his first recording opportunity, but they were pigeon-holed by success backing rhythm and blues vocal numbers and as a result their more innovative bop-flavored music did not receive the attention it deserved. The band broke up when McShann was inducted into the U.S. Army during World War II, a fate he could have avoided had he responded to induction notices as he would have been medically disqualified due to flat feet.

Chapter 17

A Little Evil Will Do You Good [+–] 276-288

The decline and fall of the Pendergast political empire is described, along with the concomitant end of Kansas City’s distinct jazz style as nightclubs and bars are closed by reformers following Pendergast’s conviction for tax evasion. Musicians who had made the city their home scattered as jobs disappeared, and without the critical mass necessary for the development of an indigenous regional variation, jazz itself moved on to the next big thing, bebop, which had been birthed in the city by a native, Charlie Parker.

End Matter

Acknowledgements 289

Notes 290-346

Select Bibliography and Abbreviations 347-349

Index 350-358

Reviews

Scrupulously researched and deftly organized, Con Chapman’s Kansas City Jazz both synthesizes and enhances our understanding of jazz in this formative location. The information about Jelly Roll Morton is particularly welcomed, but every chapter provides valuable discussions from both musical and historical contexts. Chapman has a gift for simultaneously humanizing legendary figures and elevating awareness for so-called minor players, and the result is a fluid, energized jam session.
Sascha Feinstein, editor of Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature

The jazz that emerged in Kansas City in the 1920s and 30s was as beloved as it was influential. In the neighborhood of 18th and Vine, Bennie Moten, Count Basie, Mary Lou Williams, and Charlie Parker pioneered a style that would set the tone for the Swing Era—and well beyond. With great thoroughness, Con Chapman brings to life the music and personalities of these and other figures who once called Kansas City home.
John Check, Professor, University of Central Missouri

A fresh and enlightening look at the jazz of the American Southwest that reached its culmination in Kansas City in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, with new historical research into the origins of the music that developed out of ragtime into bebop.
Terry Teachout, author of Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington and Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong

Chapman profiles some of the most important and under-credited figures in ragtime, blues, and jazz music to come out of our home state. The book also places the development of jazz music into a greater historical context, taking into consideration how gender and race dynamics and ideas of propriety in the U.S. at the time were challenged by the new genre.
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A Little Evil Will Do You Good

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