Call it a Jazzy Home Companion. Or don't, if doing so means your kids will avoid it like everything else good you put in front of them. Call it what you want -- 12 O'Clock Jump is its official name, and it's currently the best reason for Kansas Citians who don't follow the jazz scene to finally tune in.
As a musically based live variety hour that's free and open to the public, the midnight Jump has been going on since November of 2008. Produced by Theater League and held at the Mutual Musicians Foundation, the program consists of a regular company of local actor-singers and musicians who bring in a guest host each week to celebrate the life of a famous jazz musician. Much like Prairie Home Companion and the golden-age radio variety shows that show bases itself after, the Jump interweaves straight musical performances with scripted comedy sketches.
The house band consists of Joe Cartwright on piano (also the show's musical director), Tyrone Clark on upright bass and Mike Warren on drums. The actors/singers are Pete Webber, Pearl Rovaris McDonald, scene stalwart David Basse, Nedra Dixon and whomever they bring in.
Since this past July 4, KCUR 89.3 FM has been broadcasting the event live each Saturday night, complete with applause sign.
The upstairs of the Foundation was standing room only when I rolled in at a quarter to start time this past Saturday. A helpful MMF person set up a few more folding chairs in the back, but that didn't help the extra 30 or so latecomers who had to squeeze in around the bar in the back. If you've never been to the Foundation, it's about 25 feet from that back bar to the stage, well, the area down front where the band is set up. If the crowds keep coming, I expect the Jump will have to eject to a bigger room -- perhaps the underused Gem Theater up the street. And if every episode is as fun as last week's, I expect (and hope) that's exactly what happens.
The night's featured artist was Louis Armstrong, and the guest host, thankfully, was not Bryan Busby. No disrespect to the Buz, who is scheduled to host on August 15. But compared with the night's actual host, the deeply charming and awesome singer, trumpeter and tap dancer Lonnie McFadden, well, Busby's a weatherman, yo.
The show opened with radio-friendly greetings and a run-through by the house band of a Jay McShann tune. After McFadden traded some opening Armstrong-bio banter with Basse, the band bounced into "Hello Dolly," with McFadden doing a smiley Satchmo. It was fabulous, baby.
All of McFadden's turns were superb, especially "What a Wonderful World," which he sang his own way: his bell-clear baritone dancing around staccato phrasing and lithe, in-out dynamics. (It was better like that; there were plenty of gravel-throated Pops impressions, the most ambitious of which were rendered by pianist and singer Greg Richter, a mini-Garrison-Kiellor-looking fellow who always wears fingerless athletic gloves). McFadden's trumpet playing was also spritely, as likely to shimmy out a few muted wop-wops as go squealing high above the treble clef. He was undoubtedly the star of the show.
The comedy routines were hardly high-caliber, but they were clever, cute and spirited. The best involved Webber and Basse riffing on an imaginary jazz version of Monopoly called Jazzopoly, in which players would compete to win money from flaky club owners to buy foreclosed houses. Except for the vivacious and charismatic Webber, most of the players seemed more comfortable singing lyrics than delivering punchlines. Still, I hope they keep the comedy coming. I don't know of any other shows in America that juxtapose real live jazz with scripted comedy. It's a formula made for national syndication, and Lord knows Kansas City could benefit hand over fist from that. Listeners -- and folks with deeeeeep pockets -- wanted.
All in all, it was a lovely evening, one that made me proud to be a Kansas Citian. But after the finale, a jubilant, full-ensemble rendering of "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got that Swing)," the gift of the music itself was what most people took home. And as the crowd filed out, more than a few folks were heard jovially recreating the song's scatty doo-wa-doo-wa-doo-wa-doo-wa motif.
Jazz: the gift that keeps on givin'. (Applause!)
Comments (0)