Customer Reviews

Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop--A History

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With vivid descriptions of the "wide-open" town of Jazz era Kansas City and its dramatic denizens, you can envision the scenes of Basie's coming of age, Charlie Parker's KC childhood and musical evolution, big bands dueling each other, glamorous theaters and giant dance halls, bars open 24 hours, remarkable women, "sporting men," police looking the other way, and so much more. The extensive research really pays off with quotations from reviews and ads from "back in the day," interviews with legends, a generous array of photographs, and a cohesive and accessible presentation of information from many sources. The sights, sounds, scents, and sentiments conveyed by Chuck Haddix and Frank Driggs in Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop are the next best thing to a time-machine. Next, Oxford needs to put out a companion CD (or DVD with photos and copies of the original media) with the recordings of the music and performers to help us fully appreciate the musical innovations from the Paris of the Plains.

Great book, both of the other reviews so far are quite good. It's good to see a city with such a great history finally getting a thorough treatment.

As a Kansas City native, I would like to point out that co-author Chuck Haddix is quite possibly the best DJ in town, as well as a fine author. His Friday and Saturday night show The Fish Fry plays some of the best jazz and blues anywhere. You can learn more as well as listen to past shows at http://www.kcur.org/fishfry.html, there's a link to the archives on the righthand side.

Any serious student of Jazz needs to know about the Kansas City sound. The book reiterated what I already knew which is that KC was a major contribitor to bebop and to r&b due to the styles that came togteher from that part of the country. Generations of musicians were influenced by the Basie Band and Charlie Parker. You will also get an education of what life was like in the black community of a midwestern city. Kansas City, which happens to be one of my favorites among cities, had a parallel identity with the world of Negro Leagues baseball and both jazz and baseball are remembered through a museum which I plan to visit soon. I recommend the book to anyone unfamiliar with the subject and interested in jazz.

Kansas City Jazz is a chronicle of the golden age of jazz music, an era that put Kansas City on the map along with the more heavily documented jazz havens of New Orleans, Chicago, and New York. Jazz authority and former record executive Frank Driggs combines his talent Kansas City native and radio host Chuck Haddix to present an in-depth chronicle jazz styles that encompassed rough-and-tumble urban blues, and pounding piano music that would come to be known as "boogie-woogie". A tour of jazz cultural landmarks such as the Reno Club and colorful profiles of jazz figures from Mary Lou Williams and Big Joe Turner to Jimmy Rushing and Andy Kirk, along with an inset section of black-and-white photographs, distinguish this "must-read" for jazz music history enthusiasts.

This book provides a good overview of the early Kansas City jazz scene. I had forgotten how many great players came from, or passed through, KC. The names are all familiar, but I now have a better understanding of how the names fit in the development of KC jazz. Personally, I appreciated the pages dedicated to the history of KC and the information that explains how and why the town was "wide open." Had the city not been this way early on, the music scene certainly would have turned out different. I also like the inclusion (p. 201) of early Down Beat writer Dave Dexter's explanation on how KC style jazz (or Southwester jazz) was different than New Orleans and Chicago jazz. Several years ago I got to visit the American Jazz and Negro Leagues Baseball Museums in the 18th and Vine neighborhood; I wish I had read this book before I made the visit. I feel a road trip coming on . . . "I'm going to Kansas City. Kansas City hear I come . . ."