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

by Frank Driggs, Chuck Haddix

Overview

There were four major galaxies in the early jazz universe, and three of them—New Orleans, Chicago, and New York—have been well documented in print. But there has never been a serious history of the fourth, Kansas City, until now.
In this colorful history, Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix capture the golden age of Kansas City jazz, and bring us a colorful portrait of old Kaycee itself, back then a neon riot of bars, bambling dens, and taxi dance halls, all ruled over by Boss Tom Pendergast, who had transformed a dusty cowtown into the Paris of the Plains. The authors show how this wide-open, gin-soaked town gave birth to a music that was more basic and more viscerally exciting than other styles of jazz, its singers belting out a rough-and-tumble urban style of blues, its piano players pounding out a style later known as "boogie-woogie." We visit the great landmarks, like the Reno Club, the "Biggest Little Club in the World," where Lester Young and Count Basie made jazz history, and Charlie Parker began his musical education in the alley out back. The lives of the great musicians who made Kansas City swing are illuminated, with colorful profiles of jazz figures such as Mary Lou Williams, Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Rushing, and Andy Kirk and his "Clouds of Joy."
Kansas City Jazz is the definitive account of the raw, hard-driving style that put Kansas City on the musical map. It is a must read for everyone who loves jazz or American music history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195307122
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/13/2006
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	526,450
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Frank Driggs is a recognized authority on Kansas City jazz. A former record executive with both Columbia and RCA Victor Records, he now runs the premiere agency for jazz photographs and has co-authored a pictorial history of classic jazz. Chuck Haddix is the Director of the Marr Sound Archives at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A native of Kansas City, he hosts a weekend radio program on KCUR FM called "Fish Fry." His writing has appeared in Down Beat and Living Blues Magazine.

Editorial Reviews

"Driggs/Haddix's successful condensation of a huge volume of material into a readable narrative is a mirror image of Daniels's efforts to stretch limited amounts of information to book length. Kansas City Jazz is the publication we have been waiting for from Driggs, and Haddix's contribution has make it even more valuable than might have been expected."—Brian Priestly, Jazz Perspectives

"The strength of Kansas City Jazz lies in its exhaustive mapping of Kansas City culture and its musicians.... The authors' years of work as collectors and archivists have resulted in a book that is indispensable for Midwest jazz studies, telling this story vividly and with thorough documentation."—Marc Rice, Journal of the Society for American Music

"[A] successful condensation of a huge volume of material into a readable narrativeKansas City Jazz is the publication we have been waiting for from Driggs, and Haddix's contribution has made it even more valuable than might have been expected."—Jazz Perspectives

From the Publisher