![]() ![]() To cap off the Friday evening event, Baruch/Gayton engaged and collaborated with Quixotic Fusion to create a post-concert outdoor multi-media extravaganza combining 3D Mapping, large-scale projections and live performers. The audience of 1,800 enjoyed a pre-concert reception in the lobby of the Kauffman Center and a post-performance dinner with a stunning view of the Kauffman Center's North facade through floor-to-ceiling windows at the Kansas City Convention Center's Bartle Hall. ![]() The Kansas City Symphony accompanied the entire performance at the Muriel Kauffman Theatre. The Conservatory of Music and Dance at UMKC delivered one of the greatest Broadway Showstoppers of all time: the "Tonight" quintet from West Side Story. The evening also featured a series of “Showstoppers” hosted by multiple Tony Award-winning performers, director and choreographer Tommy Tune, as well as a special guest performance by star of stage and screen Patti LuPone. We love you all.On Friday, September 16, 2011, the Grand Opening of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre featured The Kansas City Ballet, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and world-renowned opera singer Placido Domingo, joined by Kansas City’s own Lyric Opera Chorus. Stay safe, stay healthy, and look for those moments of art and creativity to light your paths during these trying times. We miss playing for everyone, and we’re so excited to have these opportunities. Space is limited, and we would love to share this joy and creative exuberance with as many of you as possible. There was the one we just played, on Charlie Parker’s birthday, and two more: September 19th and October 3rd, where we will be diving into the classic jazz trope of the tenor saxophone battle as well as playing the music of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, respectively. We get to do this two more times, too! Jackie Myers, the pianist/vocalist/bandleader, has worked tirelessly to create this performance opportunity in the parking lot of the old Westport Middle School on the Northeast corner of 39th and Warwick, and small groups from the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra are populating the concert series. ![]() But it was immensely joyful and cathartic to create with my friends, to share the spirit with the audience, and to take part in this jazz dialogue that has been spoken since the early 1900s. By the end of the night, my face was exhausted and things that normally come out of my horn felt like the sonic equivalent of a 70-year old Rocky Balboa lugging himself into the boxing ring. I maintain a practice schedule at home, but it doesn’t replicate being on the bandstand. I’ve never been so out of shape as a trumpet player. We all came together as friends, and for 90 minutes, played as though it was both the first and maybe the last time we’d get a chance to do it… and it was exhilarating. Saxophonist David Chael said, “Man, I had a lot of stuff to get out,” and indeed he did, playing torrent after torrent of emotional, soaring, melodic line. So when The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra had the recent opportunity to take the bandstand at the drive-in concert series at Plexpod in Midtown ( ), for a parking lot full of folks, the five bandmembers felt both the weight of the moment as well as the freedom of it. Jazz music is, to steal a Watson title, “Blues for Hope.” You leave them on the side, and you’re there to take people on a journey, make them forget their everyday life.” Jazz music heals. Bobby Watson said that, “the bandstand is your sanctuary, and you don’t take any of your troubles up there. When you combine these things on the bandstand, there is some special sort of alchemy present that transcends the current situation. The accompaniment is just as integral as the soloist. Jazz music is a true democracy, where everyone involved in the collective output has a voice that shines, but also contends with and celebrates the voices of everyone else in the group. Jazz music is the improvisational spirit made manifest. However, as the great Art Blakey said, jazz is “faith in action.” This music was CREATED to break through the struggle, to laugh in the face of adversity, to overcome what pushes you down. I’m not going to sugar-coat it: it’s bleak. The music and arts world has felt the struggle something fierce, with no gigs, no concerts, and less certainty than ever about what the future holds. It goes without saying that 2020 has been challenging, in all regards. ![]()
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