Fourteen and a Half Years Later

On Friday night, September 5th, 1997, 1500 people packed 18th and Vine for a black tie gala. After eight years and $26 million, Kansas City celebrated the grand opening of the jazz and Negro Leagues museums and the rebirth of the historic district.

Fourteen and a half years later:

From the west, you enter the 18th and Vine district on Eighteenth Street at The Paseo. Atop a building on the north side of the street, a sign rises, lit at night with giant red, green and blue letters, facing Interstate 70, announcing 18th & Vine District. The sign would better fit Disneyland.

On the south side of the street, you see an original district building. Its door facing Eighteenth Street is boarded and plastered with this notice:

Warning
Dangerous Building
Do Not Enter
Unlawful to use or occupy this building

Continue down Eighteenth Street. On the north side sit buildings erected for the district’s restoration. Once along here you’d have found the Street Hotel, with the original Blue Room nightclub; the Subway Club, where Mary Lou Williams, Lester Young and Ben Webster jammed; and the Shannon Building, with a third floor boxing club where Joe Louis sparred.

But those structures have been gone for decades. The buildings here now mostly replaced grassy lots, and they're full of activity. A new restaurant is moving into the corner space, The 9th Inning Sports Bar & Grill, appropriate a half block from the Negro Leagues museum. From there to Vine Street are offices, the district’s daylight life.

Then turn south onto Vine. Deluxe Night Club, a sign left over from when this street served as the backdrop for Robert Altmans’s film, Kansas City, decorates a building where the ceiling appears to have caved in. Next door, an empty lot, once stood the Kentucky Tavern. The next door down was the Cherry Blossom, where Bill Basie was first billed as Count and where Lester Young, Herschel Evans and Ben Webster brought down Coleman Hawkins in a legendary jam session. It burned in 1984, and only a braced facade remains. Across the street stood the Booker T. Washington Hotel, where musicians like Hawkins and Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra stayed. At the end of the block, the Roberts Building, boarded but standing, was the first black-owned auto dealership in America.

This is one of the most important blocks of 20th century American history anywhere. It’s a mess.

But return to Eighteenth Street. On the corner at Vine, the Lincoln Building is filled with professional offices, and on the first floor a cajun restaurant. Across the street, last Saturday night at The Blue Room, I heard jazz legend Benny Golson. You’ll find live jazz there four nights a week. The club is part of the complex housing the American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Museum. The museums have their critics, but I’m not aware of any other museums in any other cities built to embrace jazz, or the Negro Leagues, as vibrantly or as successfully as the ones here. Across Eighteenth Street, the Gem Theater, also part of the district’s renovation, was filled Saturday for an original play.

Turn south onto Highland and walk towards Nineteenth Street, and you’re on a block undergoing remarkable transformation. The last half dozen single family homes in the district and the Rochester Hotel are in the midst of renovation into senior housing. Highland dead ends at Nineteenth with apartments on the right and a multi-family home development across the street. All of this surrounds Kansas City’s jazz jewel: The Mutual Musicians Foundation, a National Historic Landmark jumping with incredible joy every weekend late night for over eighty years. You can envision it now. When the housing is complete and occupied, this block will be amazing.

Return to Eighteenth Street. At the corner with Highland, an NEA grant has funded planning to redevelop the old Boone Theater as the home for Folk Alliance International. Across the street, between a bar at one corner and the offices of Friends of Alvin Ailey at the next, sit some empty storefronts in buildings erected for the district’s redevelopment. This is where fingers point when exclaiming the development failed. But these are three story buildings. The upper floors are apartments, all occupied.

Yet, across from the apartments stare back false fronts. These are part of the district’s redevelopment, erected to hide the buildings behind them, one the club where Buster Smith taught a young Charlie Parker, which the city accidentally started to tear down in 1987.

Welcome to the 18th and Vine Historic District, fourteen and a half years later. Your greeting defines what to expect: a Disneylandish sign on one side of the street and a condemned building on the other. On Highland, renovation is creating something wonderful. But Vine between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets is history in disgraceful disrepair. Empty storefronts and false fronts dot the district and should not, yet they’re outnumbered by offices and homes and museums and nightlife.

Last week, The Atlantic published an excellent story on the district, The Jazz District Authenticity Problem (here). The next day, NPR’s A Blog Supreme questioned whether jazz is sustainable branding at a time when it’s learned and experienced very differently than during 18th and Vine’s heyday (here).

In Kansas City, it’s not.

But then, jazz never did thrive here on its own. It was part of a culture of gangsters, prohibition-era booze, gambling, prostitution and segregation. In Kansas City, it was the score to sin. Kill that culture and jazz needs new cohorts. Perhaps a sports bar or a folk foundation. Here, jazz alone cannot spark a district. It never did.

18th and Vine in 2012 is an incomplete success. Jazz is a critical element, but it’s one element.

2012 is not 1932. Today, romanticized history supplemented by diversity is more likely to thrive. And that’s what 18th and Vine, fourteen and a half years later, has embraced.

Kansas City in the Early '30s, Part 1

The facade of the Cherry Blossom. The ruins of the hospital. Of all the places and all the people recalled below, that’s all that’s left. 

And the music.

Seventy five to eighty years ago, here, in Kansas City:

“Oh my, marvelous town. Clubs, clubs, clubs, clubs, clubs, clubs, clubs. In fact, I thought that was all Kansas City was made up of, was clubs at one time…. I mean, the cats just played. They played all day and tomorrow morning they went home and went to bed. The next day, the same thing. We’d go to one job we’d play on, then go jamming until seven, eight in the morning.... We never really thought too much about bread. Just wanted to make your rent, something like that. Everybody chipped in. It was good times….”
— Count Basie, Goin’ to Kanss City

“Anybody that came through town, they’d come and get me. If I was home and somebody was in the city, Ben Webster or somebody would come and scratch on the window and say, ‘Come on out, everybody’s jammin’,’ and I’d get up and go out with ’em. [There were] just thousands of clubs. I’ve never seen so many clubs in all my life. On Twelfth Street, there must have been fifty. They were clean clubs, but not anything classy.”

— Mary Lou Williams, Goin’ to Kansas City

“Now Eighteenth Street, from about Charlotte up to Prospect, was mostly joints. You know, booze houses.”

— Charles Goodwin, Goin’ to Kansas City

“The Yellow Front Saloon was at Eighteenth and Lydia, near [Wheatly Provident] Hospital, and sometimes, when things were really jumping in the joints in that neighborhood, you could come in there and there would be musicians leaning out of the windows of the hospital, playing their horns. I’d never seen and heard anything like that in my life.”

— Count Basie, Good Morning Blues

“…We’d go down to the Sunset Club. That was really something, about twelve feet wide and maybe sixty feet long. It was like going down a hallway. They hired a piano player and a drummer to come on at midnight, but we’d get there before that and there’d maybe be ten musicians on the stand. That’s where I first met Prez [Lester Young] and Ben Webster…. They’d fight it out ’till daylight, sometimes to ten o’clock…. Around nine o’clock in the morning, we’d go across to the Sawdust Trail, a dining room with sawdust on the floor, where all the musicians met. The Lone Star, where Pete Johnson was playing, was directly across from the Sunset…. The Sunset was not a bucket of blood, but you might see some fighting in it, and you’d have to break out of there.

“Another place where we had after-hours jam sessions was the Subway, over on 18th Street [1516 E. 18th Street]. Piney Brown ran it and he was a big man in all that black neighborhood, although Felix Payne was actually the boss. Piney was a friend to the musicians and in with the politicians, because he could get you out of jail. Felix Payne had an open lottery right on the street, with a roulette wheel and everything. You could go right in there and gamble, and there was always peace, although that was the area where you found the hustlers and the good restaurants.”

— Gene Ramey, The World of Count Basie

“In Kansas City all them big clubs were [run by] them big gangsters, and they were the musician’s best friend. They give you a job, and something to eat, and work regular. We didn’t know nothing about their business, they didn’t know nothing about ours. All they want to do is play the music and keep the crowd happy.”

— Buster Smith, Goin’ to Kansas City

“Some people seem to think the Cherry Blossom was a ballroom, but it was the old Eblon Theater turned into a huge nightclub. It was on Vine Street, between 18th and 19th, directly across the street from the Booker T. Washington Hotel, which had become the most popular one for musicians. Next door to it, on the right, was the Kentucky Tavern, where jam sessions would usually start around two o’clock in the afternoon. ‘Spook breakfasts,’ we called them in Kansas City! Anybody who stayed up all night we called spooks or ghosts. Jay McShann got his name ‘Hootie’ because he’d stay up so late he was up with the hoot owls. They also used to say that he would hoot like an owl when he’d drunk some whiskey!

“I slipped away from school the night Hawk played at the Cherry Blossom. Ben [Webster], Herschel [Evans], Dick Wilson and three or four other local tenors were there, and Hawk was cutting everybody out. Until Prez got him. He tore Hawk apart. He tore Hawk up so bad he missed a date in St. Louis. Hawk was still trying to get him at twelve o’clock the next day. Seemed like the longer Prez played, the longer that head-cutting session went on, the better Prez got. He played more creative things.

"The adage in Kansas City was – and still is – say something on your horn, not just show off your versatility and ability to execute. Tell us a story and don’t let it be a lie. Let it mean something, if it’s only one note, like Louis Armstrong or Duke would do.”

— Gene Ramey, The World of Count Basie

“Kansas City was a musicians’ town, and there were good musicians everywhere you turned. Sometimes you just stayed at one place, and sometimes you might hit maybe two or three or more, but you could never get around to all the jumping places in that town in one night. There were just too many.”

— Count Basie, Good Morning Blues

It Hurts

Let’s not kid ourselves about this.

Yes, The Blue Room is booking great jazz acts as often as ever. And Benny Golson there, later this month, Jardine’s would not have had that.

True, Take Five is a marvelous new venue in a location where I never thought jazz could thrive. But there it is, showcasing jazz several nights a week, and about to add even more jazz.

Absolutely, the former speakeasy in the Majestic is seeing some of its largest crowds, as jazz fans re-discover what a wonderful music space it is (even though it’s mid-February and they still don’t have this month’s schedule online, for chrissake).

Yes, even though it’s mostly a blues bar now, you can find jazz at the Phoenix occasionally. Same for The Buzzz, which is changing names, in Johnson County. WestChase Grille is mostly restaurant, but can be counted on for jazz four nights a week. The Record Bar chips in a couple Sundays each month. There’s hotel bars here and there. Last Friday you could catch Alaturka on a new stage on Main Street. And never forget the Mutual Musicians Foundation every Friday and Saturday late night.

You can still find jazz in Kansas City.

But let’s not kid ourselves. With Jardine’s dark for two-and-a-half months, its name stripped from the building, its loss has had a significant impact on the availability of Kansas City jazz. Sure, food there was inconsistent and overpriced. Service could be good or mediocre. Last summer, parking was a challenge. But losing a place where you knew you could find live jazz seven nights a week, where you knew every month you could hear Shay and Mark and Megan and Ida and Sons of Brazil, losing that hurts.

Rumors say a couple parties could be interested in purchasing and reopening Jardine’s. And this city has a recent history of closed jazz clubs successfully changing hands. The Phoenix’s doors were locked for more than a year before the current operator took control. The Majestic was closed for six months. Following that path, Jardine’s could be dark for months to come and still pick right up where it left off, right?

Such a resurrection is becoming increasingly tough to envision.

Jardine’s spent years building a name as the place to find jazz in Kansas City. But the explosion of boycotting musicians and unpaid staff which slammed shut its doors sullied the public perception. Its equity as a club to which people will gladly return diminishes each day those doors remain locked, and a swirl of glue on the front brick wall, where a plaque once proclaimed Jardine’s, tells every passing motorist, move on, there’s nothing to see (or hear) here.

One report says back rent may be approaching $30,000 due. What other debts hang over the club? Is that a nut it makes business sense to absorb?

I know nothing about the legalities involved. I know nothing about what the lease on the space stipulates or allows. But I wonder at what point it makes sense not to negotiate with the business owner but with the landlord. I’d assume, if rent is left unpaid, the landlord regains control of his property. I’d assume at some point a new restaurant and club, with a different name and owned by a different legal entity, could open there, without the baggage now bundled with Jardine’s.

And why couldn’t that restaurant and club feature jazz which has, after all, proven to work in that space?

Jardine’s holds a 3 a.m. operating license and, outside of the downtown loop, those are hard to obtain anymore. There is some value in purchasing the business. But at what point has the business value diminished to where it just isn’t worth pursuing?

I’ve said this before: Kansas City can support another jazz club. We have an abundance of jazz talent ready to perform. We have an audience which for decades paid high prices for inconsistent food and service so we could hear that music. You can depend on us. In the right location, we’ll do it again.

The right location may be on Main Street just north of the Plaza, or it may be somewhere else. But as the larger crowds re-discovering The Majestic prove, we’ve waited long enough, thank you. We’re ready to again hear Shay and Mark and Megan and Ida and Sons of Brazil every month, in a jazz club open seven nights a week. And we don’t really give a damn what the place is called.

I remember walking into Jardine’s about 11 p.m. one Saturday night last summer. Ida McBeth had played the dinner shows, and the room was still packed. I squeezed into a spot at the bar. Shay Estes was on stage with her group, with Mark Lowrey on piano. The jazz was wonderful. I stayed until 1:30 a.m., and there were still plenty of us buying drinks and soaking up the jazz.

Summer is approaching. Baseball’s All-Star game is in town this year, adding gobs of visitors, some looking for live jazz.

So, I have a question:

Who wants our money?

The Rest of Winterlude…Well, Much of It

Not everything, but I did capture more than one group.

The last post showcased photos of Matt Otto’s remarkable group. But Johnson County Community College’s Jazz Winterlude, on January 20th and 21st, offered plenty more jazz than that. I didn’t catch it all, but I had the chance to photograph many of the exceptional acts over the weekend.

For instance, Sam Wiseman’s Crosscurrent, playing music by and inspired by Lennie Tristano, was a Friday night favorite, with Sam on drums, Matt Otto and Steve Lambert on tenor sax, T.J. Martley on piano and Ben Leifer on bass.

The Jazz Disciples opened Saturday with Gerald Dunn on tenor sax, guest Jason Goudeau on trombone, Everett Freeman on piano, Bill McKemy on bass and Michael Warren on drums.

The Brandon Draper World Jazz Quartet followed with Brandon on drums, Peter Sclamb on vibraphone, Rich Wheeler on tenor sax, and Jeff Harshbarger on bass.

Later on Saturday, the Will Matthews Quartet featured Will on guitar, Charles Williams on piano, James Ward on bass, and Ryan Lee on drums.

Photos of all are below. As always, clicking on a shot should open a larger version of it.

Jazz Disciples. Left to right: Jason Goudeau, Gerald Dunn, Everett Freeman, Bill McKemy, Michael Warren

Count Basie Orchestra guitarist, former president of the Mutual Musicians Foundation and leader of the Will Matthews Quartet: Will Matthews

Crosscurrent. Left to right: Steve Lambert, T.J. Martley, Matt Otto, Ben Leifer, Sam Wiseman

Leader of the Brandon Draper World Jazz Quartet: Drummer Brandon Draper

Jazz Disciples bassist Bill McKemy

Brandon Draper World Jazz Quartet. Left to right: Jeff Harshbarger, Rich Wheeler, Brandon Draper, Peter Schlamb

Jazz Disciples pianist Everett Freeman

Brandon Draper World Jazz Quartet saxophonist Rich Wheeler

Jazz Disciples rhythm section: Everett Freeman, Bill McKemy and Michael Warren

Crosscurrent saxophonist Steve Lambert

Charles Williams, pianist with the Will Matthews Quartet

Brandon Draper World Jazz Quartet vibraphonist Peter Schlamb

Crosscurrent: T.J. Martley on piano and Ben Leifer on bass

Matt Otto Quartet at Jazz Winterlude

I came to an infatuation with jazz through Basie. And I’ll be the first to admit I was dragged to contemporary jazz by the nose hairs. Some of it remains too extreme for my tastes, and I’m convinced some is transitory. But some of the best jazz being produced today is, indeed, contemporary. And none is better than the music of the Matt Otto Quartet supplemented by voice and piano.

I spent most of a couple weekends back at Johnson County Community College’s Jazz Winterlude. Club-sized crowds enjoyed some of the best jazz in Kansas City today, a mix of traditional and modern music. But of every group I heard, Matt’s stood out as the most extraordinary.

Matt Otto and Gerald Dunn, either of whom could play sax for anyone (Matt on tenor, Gerald on alto), here are at once complementary and competitive, each clearly admiring the other’s solos. Backed by Jeff Harshbarger on bass and Michael Warren’s drums, the base quartet presents Matt’s complex compositions as both supremely engaging and completely accessible. Now add T.J. Martley’s smart and inventive piano. Then layer on Shay Estes’ remarkable vocals. She isn’t singing songs. This is the voice as an instrument, but unlike any instrument played by manipulating keys.

I’m groping for words to explain the wonder which filled the theater. Simply, I have not heard another group like this.

I wrote about and photographed the Matt Otto Quartet last year, here. But I’m so taken by their music, here they are again, from their Jazz Winterlude performance on January 21st. As always. clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.

The Matt Otto Quartet. Left to right: Gerald Dunn, Matt Otto, Jeff Harshbarger, and Michael Warren

Matt Otto on tenor sax

Gerald Dunn on alto sax

The front line with Gerald Dunn on alto, Matt Otto on tenor and Shay Estes vocalizing

Michael Warren on drums

Jeff Harshbarger on bass

The Matt Otto Quartet plus two. Left to right: T.J. Martley, Gerald Dunn, Matt Otto, Shay Estes, Jeff Harshbarger, Michael Warren

Shay Estes, vocals

T.J. Martley on piano

Jeff solos as Shay admires

The saxes: Gerald and Matt

Shay Estes vocalizing. Behind her, Jeff Harshbarger.

No, It's Marketing

It’s not the J word.

Last week, our friend Plastic Sax identified the reason Nnenna Freelon’s Folly Theater show failed to draw more than some 400 people (here). “To a large extent, the barrier was antipathy to the j-word,” he wrote. “The jazz label may have drawn three-quarters of the existing audience, but it repelled even more potential ticket-buyers.”

Jazz the Repeller? Is a new super-villain threatening Gotham?

Is this a job for the Magic Jazz Fairy?

Well, maybe. Because it’s all about marketing.

Plastic Sax opines, “Music lovers of all stripes who appreciate Stevie Wonder, Amy Winehouse, Luther Vandross, Frank Sinatra or Mary J. Blige would have loved Freelon's performance.”

I don’t doubt a word of that.

Now, will somebody let those music lovers know?

With the rare exception of shows starring a name with established crossover appeal, the Folly jazz series seems to draw 400 patrons a show, give or take. That’s what happens when you market to the same audience through direct mail and newspaper ads. You’re reaching your core, and that’s important. But so is expanding your core.

The core is not limited by an act being labeled jazz. Plastic Sax himself proved it, last month, in his alternate guise as mild-mannered Business Manager of The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra (KCJO).

KCJO’s December concert sold over 1000 tickets. How? In part by selling about 400 seats through new media, through Groupon.

There’s good and bad to Groupon. A business forgoes substantial cash in the promotion. And businesses debate how many of those deal-chasing customers will return at regular price. Each Groupon is effectively a non-scientific data collection experiment.

But, more importantly, through Groupon, KCJO marketed beyond the core. They marketed beyond the 4000 people who receive every postcard. They reached beyond we old fogies who catch their ads in the newspaper. They reached out to a younger and broader demographic.

So did that younger and broader demographic realize they were buying a ticket to something called (horrors!) jazz?

They were buying a ticket to see The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra.

Yep, I’m fairly certain they knew this was jazz.

Will all return for another show? No. Will there be some level of stickiness? Yes, absolutely.

This was a jazz concert in Kansas City which sold over 1000 tickets. So don’t tell me a jazz concert in Kansas City can’t sell 1000 tickets.

For December, KCJO’s guest was to be Kevin Mahogany (who, unfortunately, couldn’t attend due to an injury). No doubt many came to hear Kevin. He grew up in this area. Kansas Citians know him. But is his appeal inherently broader than a properly-marketed Nnenna Freelon? Of course not.

It’s incumbent on both her management and the presenting theater to make her appeal known. If she really could attract “music lovers of all stripes who appreciate Stevie Wonder, Amy Winehouse, Luther Vandross, Frank Sinatra or Mary J. Blige,” why doesn’t somebody tell them? Why doesn’t somebody market her performance through new media, with links to song snippets and videos where a potential ticket buyer can hear the appeal for himself? Were there advertisements in media where lovers of Stevie Wonder and Luther Vandross would hear them? Were there efforts to expose an audience beyond the core to Nnenna Freelon’s music?

Was the marketing geared towards telling the core, hey, guys, we’re having another jazz concert, wanna come? Or did anyone try to market Nnenna Freelon, the Event? Because if it’s the former, don’t plan on needing to accommodate more than 400 people, give or take.

This year’s Rhythm and Ribs Festival drew, by my estimation, 7000 fans. Last year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival was rained out, but organizers claim the 2010 event attracted a similarly-sized crowd. KCJO sold over 1000 tickets to their December concert. And everyone attending all of those events knew they were predominantly (or completely) jazz.

You could argue that festivals are events and are seen and sold differently than a monthly music series, so my comparison isn’t fair. I’ll argue that you pick concerts in your series that can be sold as events and promote them as events to fill the house. And I’ll argue that nearly every show must be marketed beyond the core audience.

Isn’t a street-definition of stupidity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? There’s nothing stupid about marketing to your core. Never ignore them. Never take them for granted. But if you market only to your core, why would you expect different results? If you market only to your core, why would you expect a larger audience?

Some jazz products will only appeal to that core. Know which those are and don’t spend marketing dollars unwisely. But others will reach more broadly. Recognize them.

The word jazz itself is no super-villain. But never attempting to reach beyond the base? There’s the threat.

Jazz Winterlude 2012

On this, I am unabashedly biased.

Because I first worked with Doreen Maronde when I was a volunteer organizing jazz festivals and she was with our partner, Kansas City Parks and Recreation. She left that post for Johnson County Community College (JCCC). She’s since retired from there, but not from organizing jazz festivals. For the third consecutive year, this retiree is organizing Jazz Winterlude. It happens this Friday through Sunday, January 20th through 22nd.

Friday’s music starts a 6 p.m. with the Bill Crain Quartet, followed by Crosscurrent, then headlined by Dave Brubeck’s sons with the Brubeck Brothers Quartet.

Saturday’s music starts at 12:30 p.m. with the Jazz Disciples. Also this day: the Brandon Draper World Jazz Quartet, Lynn Zimmer and the Jazz Band, the Matt Otto Quintet, the Will Matthews Quartet and the Kansas City Brass Quartet. Finally, Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Jazz Band headline Saturday night.

On Sunday, join a jazz brunch with pianist Roger Wilder leading a trio while you eat.

Friday actually starts early for 250 students participating in daylong clinics. Members of the Brubeck Quartet are hosting four of those sessions. And anyone can come and observe. One of the most intriguing sessions: At 4:30 p.m. Friday, Chris and Dan Brubeck host, Growing Up a Brubeck.

All this takes place inside JCCC’s wonderful Carlsen Center (with attached covered parking). Tickets are available at the Center’s box office, or by calling 913-469-4445, or online here. Any students with a current ID gets in for just $5 each day. More info on the festival is here. The weekend’s schedule is here.

Still don’t believe this will be a great weekend of jazz in Johnson County? Then take a look at the photos below from last year’s fest (clicking on one should open a larger version of it).

Millie Edwards Quartet. Left to right: Michael Pagan on piano, Bob Bowman on bass, Mille Edwards, vocals, Ray DeMarchi on drums

Diverse Trio. Left to right: Hermon Mehari on trumpet. Ben Leifer on bass, Ryan Lee on drums

Bram Wijands

Westport Art Ensemble with Gerald Spaits on bass, Dave Chael on saxophone and Todd Strait on drums (not pictured: pianist Roger Wilder)

Singer Megan Birdsall and saxophonist Steve Lambert with the New Jazz Order Big Band

Kim Park Quartet. Left to right: Joe Cartwirght on piano, Zack Beeson on bass, Kim Park on saxophone, Tommy Ruskin on drums

Hermon Mehari

Bram Wijands Trio. Left to right: Bram Wijnands on piano, Rod Fleeman on guitar, Tommy Rusklin on drums

New Jazz Order Big Band

So You Want to Own a Jazz Club

It can be done. I’ve done the research. I’ve written the business plan. I’ve prepared a five year budget showing annual profits while projecting less business than experienced consultants said it would draw, because I wouldn’t invest my own money unless the numbers worked with a cushion.

So I know it can be done.

1911 Main started as a jazz club and was gone in a proverbial flash. Jardine’s has been buried in high profile turmoil for most of the last month-and-a-half. That’s it. What more proof do you need that a jazz club cannot survive today in Kansas City? You want to own a jazz club? It would be easier to just throw your cash into a bonfire.

Bull. I know it can be done.

It takes a knowledgeable operator, the right location, solid marketing, sufficient operating capital, and a tight business plan.

I wrote a business plan to open a new jazz club in Kansas City over two years ago. I retained consultants who own and operate successful restaurants and clubs in Kansas City and other markets.

Research revealed two basic operating models for a successful jazz club: Turn the room twice a night with a high cover charge (used by clubs in New York and Seattle, and by Jardine’s on weekends) or open for lunch, not just at night, to generate sufficient revenue.

I found an ideal location within the downtown loop. Four other businesses on the street open for lunch, suggesting meaningful foot traffic. Research identified over 20,000 workers in walking-distance offices. And it was adjacent to two residential areas.

The space could be adapted to the character of a classic jazz club. The address was simple and memorable. Supported by professional operation and marketing, this location could draw music fans for dinner and drink at night and turn a profitable lunch operation during the day. The consultants saw enough potential that they offered to reduce their fees in return for an ownership stake.

Now consider 1911 Main.

I looked at that location. I saw a space that, with some tweaking, could become an ideal jazz club. But minimal weekday foot traffic in an area with less densely-packed offices limited its opportunities. True, other nearby restaurants have established solid daytime business (Grinder’s and the Cashew), but I was concerned it would take an establishment building an identity as a jazz destination too long to match their lunchtime success. More importantly, rent was nearly half again as much as the downtown locale.

I ran the numbers. 1911 Main would have been relatively inexpensive to move into, and that was attractive. But cold analysis said that once open, I could not project sufficient business to support a profitable jazz club there.

1911 Main Restaurant and Lounge, during its short jazz club life, eschewed cover charges and opened for lunch. Its choice of business model was clear. But I'd projected more than two years ago that at that location, that business model would not work.

Add to their woes poor marketing (ads in The Pitch, except during First Friday events, reached the wrong demographic) and start-up pains (twice when dining there I returned silverware covered with water stains) which discouraged business.

Success takes a knowledgeable operator, the right location, solid marketing, sufficient operating capital, and a tight business plan.

The Blue Room was recently recognized as one of the premiere jazz clubs in the country, and deservedly so. Jardines, if rumors are to be believed, will rise again. The Majestic showcases jazz in a space that was once a speakeasy. Take Five is pushing jazz to conquer the suburbs. The Phoenix has morphed into more of a blues bar, but still highlights nights of jazz.

Yet this area will support another jazz club. I’m certain of it.

The right location is one research says will support noontime business. The right operator is one experienced in the service industry, or one who employs operators with never-a-water-stain-on-the-silverware experience (the role my consultants would have fulfilled). The owner will have the capital to operate at least ninety days as he or she builds the business. And that business will be built through word of mouth, sustained with astute marketing, including strategically placed ads and a day-one online and social media presence.

The consultants told me, based on their operational experience, the business my jazz club would do in year one. I reduced their projections by $100,000 and still showed a profit. I then projected four to four-and-a-half percent annual growth and showed investors earning an eighteen percent return on their investment after five years.

Sadly, the recession bit a key investor and the club never happened. The space I targeted is no longer available. I’ve since resumed a career in advertising.

Any new business involves risk. But starting another jazz club in Kansas City, done right, need be no money bonfire. I have a business plan which says so. Other ideal locations exist.

I know it can be done.

In Lieu of 1000 Words: A Metheny Celebration

This waited two months because Pat was on tour, and his mother insisted it not interrupt work. That’s how she was, he explained.

Lois Metheny was mother to two of Kansas City’s – okay, Lee’s Summit’s – most celebrated musicians, Mike and Pat Metheny. Mike lives in the area (and, as I’ve repeatedly told him, needs to perform more often). Pat you may know from his 18 Grammy awards. Or, you may know Pat from his years growing up here.

Lois encouraged both in their music careers. She passed in October. But one of her last requests was a Celebration of Life jam session and party. As Mike put it, “It was her wish to go out on an upbeat note rather than with a sad funeral, so we are going to make sure it happens that way.”

Two days after Pat finished an 80 city tour, it did.

On December 11th, at the Arrowhead Yacht Club at Lake Winnebago, musicians, family and friends gathered. Mike and Pat led the jam session. Among the other musicians participating were Paul Smith, Bob Bowman, Tommy Ruskin, Gerald Spaits and Marilyn Maye.

Sometimes with jazz, you’re fortunate to be at the right place, right time, and hear something special. When Marilyn Maye and Pat Metheny – who may have won Grammys for more exotic music, but who grew up in Kansas City’s jazz community – performed a vocal and guitar duet, we heard magic.

As afternoon turned to dusk, we stepped outside. Lake Winnebago was a location where Lois asked her ashes be spread. Mike, Pat and Pat’s wife and children walked towards the end of the dock. Red tinged the clouds. The setting sun glazed the lake, beautifully.

Then Pat called out, “We’ve never done this before! We don’t know what we’re doing!”

They figured it out.

Mike suggested I bring my camera. The photos below are from the celebration’s jam session. As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.

Pat and Mike Metheny. Mike is playing the E.V.I., or Electronic Valve Instrumement.

The jam session. Left to right: Pat Metheny, Tommy Ruskin, Mike Metheny, Bob Bowman, Paul Smith.

Mike Metheny plays. Behind him is Tommy Ruskin.

Pat Metheny on guitar

Paul Smith on piano

Marilyn Maye and Mike Metheny

Pat and Mike Metheny

Gary Sivils tells the story of teenage Pat’s first professional gig, with Gary’s group at a local lounge. At the right, Pat reacts. I couldn’t possibly retell the story here as well as Gary told it. If you run into Gary, ask him about it.

Bob Bowman on bass as Paul Smith watches

Pat Metheny on guitar and Tommy Ruskin on drums

Pat Metheny and Marilyn Maye duet

Mike Metheny

Pat solos while Mike watches

Lois Metheny’s boys

The Magic Jazz Fairy Sees Skin in the Game

Instinctively, it flapped its wings in excitement, like a dog shakes its leg when scratched just so.

How many years had it been? it thought. How many years years had it been Kansas City’s Magic Jazz Fairy? Because never in all those years had it seen anything quite like this.

Every city has a Magic Jazz Fairy. It’s a phenomenon we’ve discussed before (here, here and here). How else to explain some jazz club owners never promoting yet expecting customers to show up? It’s because they know every city’s Magic Jazz Fairy tracks when jazz performances will happen, then flies around at night and whispers into the ear of every jazz fan when and where to find jazz, so that when we wake up, we know, we just know.

After all, it cannot be the club owner’s fault if they don’t promote and nobody shows up. They’re savvy businessmen. There must be someone else at fault. If nobody comes, it must be the fault of the Magic Jazz Fairy.

But this time, this was something different. This jazz club usually promoted itself well, though an online calendar, and Facebook postings, and emails. Now, however, nobody was coming because it was a jazz club with no live jazz.

Jazz musicians were boycotting it.

This was something entirely different. The Magic Jazz Fairy’s wings instinctively flapped again.

It had flown by the club just the other day. There were no signs in the windows, no indications of upcoming shows. It looked at the club’s online calendar. The calendar was blank. This club wasn’t promoting because, from all appearances, it had nothing to promote.

The Magic Jazz Fairy had seen the TV news stories on the club. They’re all on YouTube (and, with a major jazz club having nothing to promote, the Magic Jazz Fairy had time on its wings to look at YouTube). It had seen the multitude of blog posts. It had seen the accusations of addiction and abuse. It had seen the stories of staff being fired or quitting or not showing up. Not that how it happened mattered. The bottom line was that, for a time, there was no staff.

The owner spoke when triumphantly reopening the club’s doors, with a newly recruited staff trained and ready to serve. The Magic Jazz Fairy applauded the owner’s promotional savvy in using the press like that. But when reopening turned, apparently, into one week and out, the owner talked betrayal then publicly clammed up.

Betrayal, the owner claimed, by jazz musicians who refused to work the reopened and restaffed jazz club.

The Magic Jazz Fairy had seen the message the owner sent to over seventy email addresses, asking the jazz musicians to return. “It’s a new start for me,” the owner wrote. “If I was rude to anyone, I apologize and I plan on doing this efficiently and with eyes wide open.”

One musician, who played there often, responded to the list, “I’m sorry to say I can no longer support [this club] as a musician or patron. I’ve seen unethical and unprofessional behavior and a downright lack of human decency for years.”

Other musicians echoed those sentiments. Whatever sparked the staff upheaval, sparked much more. And it united Kansas City jazz musicians in a way the Magic Jazz Fairy had not seen in all its years on the job.

The mystical, winged being smiled impishly. It had seen plenty broadcast and written, and deservedly so, on the ex-staff. It had seen plenty written on the club’s owner. Yet it had seen little but betrayal accusations written about the city's jazz musicians.

This was no betrayal, the Magic Jazz fairy knew. There's no abundance of opportunities in any city in 2011 to make money playing and singing jazz. Yet here is a group of extraordinarily talented artists disciplined in denying an invitation to perform, and during the holiday season. These musicians have skin in the game. That, the magic jazz fairy knew, drove credibility to their charges. The mystical being did not know what went on behind the curtain in that jazz club. But it knew many of these musicians, and their united sacrifice said it could believe in them.

The Magic Jazz Fairy didn’t know what would become of the boycotted club. The owner may well be a savvy business person, but not savvy enough to draw customers to a jazz club without live jazz musicians. Selling the club seemed the most hopeful solution. With time, it thought, this situation would work itself out.

Meanwhile, there was work to do. Other jazz clubs remained open and were now even more vital to the jazz scene. And other restaurants and clubs were picking up some of the cancelled shows. Every Kansas City jazz fan needed to know about these opportunities.

The Magic Jazz Fairy smiled broadly. Like a dog scratched in that oh-so-perfect spot, instinctively, it flapped its wings.