Jay McShann RIP

[Hot Ptah]

Jay McShann passed away today at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City.

One of the best things about my move to Kansas City is that I got to see Jay McShann live many times, in trio, small combo and big band contexts. He was a severely underrated pianist. He had chops a-plenty when he wanted to display them. He played with great blues feeling, swung as hard as anyone ever has, and created happiness and warmth when he performed.

He was always very good, and often great, in concert. Even last year he was quite good, at close to age 90.

Obviously he will be missed. He may not be the last link to the great era of Kansas City jazz, but he was perhaps the most notable survivor of that era still performing at a high level.

I don't know how much musicians really care about this, but I have thought for years that it was unconscionable that he was not in the Down Beat Hall of Fame.

[Soul Stream]

Sad news. I always thought his recent work to be astounding. Those Kansas City jazz/blues guys...man, what a lost traditon that is.

[J.A.W.]

Jay McShann passed away today at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City.

One of the best things about my move to Kansas City is that I got to see Jay McShann live many times, in trio, small combo and big band contexts. He was a severely underrated pianist. He had chops a-plenty when he wanted to display them. He played with great blues feeling, swung as hard as anyone ever has, and created happiness and warmth when he performed.

He was always very good, and often great, in concert. Even last year he was quite good, at close to age 90.

Obviously he will be missed. He may not be the last link to the great era of Kansas City jazz, but he was perhaps the most notable survivor of that era still performing at a high level.

I don't know how much musicians really care about this, but I have thought for years that it was unconscionable that he was not in the Down Beat Hall of Fame.

Sad news indeed.

According to some sources he was born in 1909, others say 1916.

[Big Beat Steve]

Something to be expected at that age but a pity anyway.

Another link to an important period of Jazz that's now gone. He will be remembered not only for his 40s recordings (including his role as the first major band that employed you know who...) but also for his more recent recordings that showed he had lost nothing...

[Chalupa]

Geez, I had no idea he was still alive.

Always loved the story he told in one of those Charlie Parker docs about how CP acquired the "Yardbird" moniker.

R.I.P.

[Ted O'Reilly]

Sad, sad news. In 20+ years of weekly recording of artists at Toronto's Cafe des Copains and then Montreal Bistro, I recorded Jay at least 30 times (and listened to him at least a hundred). Whether as a soloist, duo with bass, trio, quartet or big band, he never failed to lift the room, and my spirits. I'd have dinner with him on almost every occasion. He was a lovely man -- warm and generous of spirit. I'll miss him, and so will the world of jazz, though he (and his style of music) was woefully underappreciated by the hipnocracy.

[Dan Gould]

Damn.

This is terribly depressing news, though certainly not surprising given his age.

For me, there was such a warmth and joy in his playing and in his personality, which came across wonderfully in the many interview tracks that were included on recordings he did for Chiaruscoro and Stony Plain. I never programmed those out, even if I'd heard them a dozen times.

Play some Hootie tonite, and remember him. He'll make you smile.

[Hot Ptah]

Jay McShann certainly had a jump-blues aspect, and a feel good aspect, to his playing. However, when he wanted to, he was a monster on piano. His album "Kansas City Hustle" is one of the best recorded examples of it. I saw a concert in Kansas City in the mid-1980s, in which Marian McPartland played duets with him. She was a lot younger and more nimble of hand then. They were trading eights. She tried to play some fast stuff with a lot of technique, and he just blew her away in exchange after exchange. Oscar Peterson would have had trouble keeping up with him that night.

[mikeweil]

R.I.P., and thanks for a long life of good roots based music.

I always liked what I heard, and will never tire of listening to Swingmatism, which was why I included it in my first BFT. One of the last giants making his debut before 1940 that were still alive. Oh what a list of passings by the end of this year .....

Edited December 7, 2006 by mikeweil

[gslade]

Sad news. I always thought his recent work to be astounding. Those Kansas City jazz/blues guys...man, what a lost traditon that is.

R.I.P.

[JSngry]

A long life certainly not wasted. Thank you.

[ep1str0phy]

I'm with you on that one, JS. What a beautiful legacy he leaves...

RIP

[Harold_Z]

You guys have said it all.

I'm sorry to see him go.

[paul secor]

I almost expected him to play on for another 90 years.

Thanks, Mr. McShann. RIP.

[Alexander]

Amazing to think that someone who employed Charlie Parker outlived Parker by more than 50 years (of course, one tends to forget how young Bird was when he passed)...

[chris olivarez]

Adios Hootie.

[Spontooneous]

One time I had a clear view of his left hand while he was playing. That was a religious experience.

The man should have written a book. About 15 years ago, I even offered to be his ghostwriter. I was told that there was already a book in the works, being written by a professor in Illinois. I'm still waiting...

P.S., Jay told anyone who'd listen that the 1909 birthdate in Leonard Feather's books (and other books that copped it from Feather) was wrong. The family says he was born in January 1916, and there seems to be documentary evidence to back that up.

[J.A.W.]

P.S., Jay told anyone who'd listen that the 1909 birthdate in Leonard Feather's books (and other books that copped it from Feather) was wrong. The family says he was born in January 1916, and there seems to be documentary evidence to back that up.

The birthdate given in the 1999 edition of the Feather/Gitler The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz (Oxford University Press) is January 12, 1916, with the note: "he (McShann) claims that a 1909 birthdate, given elsewhere, is incorrect".

Edited December 8, 2006 by J.A.W.

[Kalo]

Saw the man with a big band in Boston in the 1980s. A glorious night I'll never forget.

[brownie]

I've got the Hootie blues

[John L]

I've got the Hootie blues

The end of an era. RIP

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

did he "go disco" in the late 70s at all?

[king ubu]

Very sad news

[EKE BBB]

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/n...al/16187797.htm

Jay McShann, leading figure in Kansas City jazz scene, dies at 90

Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Jay "Hootie" McShann, a jazz pianist and bandleader who helped refine the blues-tinged Kansas City sound and introduced the world to saxophonist Charlie Parker, died Thursday. He was 90.

McShann died at St. Luke's Hospital. The cause of death was not released to the public, hospital spokeswoman Kerry O'Connor said.

McShann, whose musical career spanned eight decades and earned him accolades from both blues and jazz aficionados, was born James Columbus McShann on Jan. 12, 1916 in Muskogee, Okla. Against the wishes of his parents, he taught himself how to play piano, in part by listening to late-night radio broadcasts featuring pianist and bandleader Earl "Fatha" Hines.

McShann developed a distinctive style that drew heavily on his beloved blues, and began his professional career at age 15. After a raid on a club in Kansas in 1936 - liquor was still illegal in the state then - the frustrated pianist decided to head north.

"I said, 'I've got an uncle in Omaha. I think I'll go up there and see what the cats are doing in Omaha,'" McShann recalled in a 1999 interview with The Associated Press.

"I got a bus ticket. I had a layover of two hours in Kansas City. I knew Basie had a band at the Reno Club. I thought I'd run over to the Reno. I might know some of these cats."

"A guy in the Reno said, 'This is it, right here in Kansas City.' I said, 'My money is a little low. I don't think I can stick around here too long.' He said, 'Take my apartment key. Stay as long as you want. I'll stay over at my girlfriend's. '"

A few days later, another musician sought out McShann. He stayed in Kansas City, making its sounds his own.

"You'd just have some people sitting around, and you'd hear some cat play, and somebody would say, 'This cat, he sounds like he's from Kansas City,'" McShann told AP in 2003. "It was the Kansas City style.

"They knew it on the East Coast. They knew it on the West Coast. They knew it up north, and they knew it down south."

McShann hooked up with Parker in 1937, after hearing the sax genius' music coming out of a Kansas City club, and the two worked together off and on until 1941. Parker, who earned his nickname "Bird" while playing with McShann's orchestra, made his recording debut on McShann's "Hootie Blues" in 1941.

McShann's own nickname stemmed from an incident in which someone slipped him a loaded drink during a jam session. McShann, a nondrinker, was unable to play at the "hootenanny, " and the sobriquet, shortened to "Hootie," stuck.

McShann entered the Army in 1943 and served until 1944. In the 1950s and 1960s, he recorded seldom and toured even less. But in 1969, he started touring again and continued until well into his 80s.

His recording career also took off again, and in 2003, his CD "Goin' to Kansas City" was nominated for a traditional blues Grammy.

He was the subject of a film, "Hootie Blues," in 1978 and was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1996, he received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

In 2000, the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City named its outdoor performance pavilion for McShann. The museum, in the city's historic 18th and Vine district, is also home of the Gem Theatre, where McShann performed last year.

Museum officials on Thursday were arranging a memorial in his honor.

ON THE NET

Jay McShann: <http://www.jaymcsha nn.com>

American Jazz Museum: <http://www.american jazzmuseum. org>

[ISODignity]

Posted on Fri, Dec. 08, 2006

JAY McSHANN | Legendary pianist and bandleader dies

Pantheon of jazz loses a pillar

His style, sophistication and energy spread KC’s musical heritage around the world.

By ROBERT TRUSSELL The Kansas City Star

“He was always thinking through his fingers.” (Bruce Ricker, filmmaker and friend).

Jay McShann, an internationally recognized giant of Kansas City jazz, died Thursday.

Books, official records and other sources disagree on his date of birth, but he was thought to be 90.

The legendary bandleader and composer was one of the city’s last living links to its glory days as a jazz town.

“Jay is the last of his generation,” said jazz historian Chuck Haddix, co-author of Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop. “His passing really marks the end of an era.”

McShann reportedly had been feeling well and enthusiastic about music in recent months. Within the last few weeks he had granted an interview to a correspondent working on a jazz documentary for the BBC. But he was admitted to St. Luke’s Hospital on Nov. 27 because of breathing problems.

With a performing career spanning more than 70 years, McShann established himself as a versatile musician who was equally comfortable with the blues, ballads and bebop. His piano technique revealed a delicate and sophisticated sensibility, but he could pound out driving blues and boogie-woogie in the best tradition of barrelhouse piano players.

“I think he served as a bridge between swing and bebop,” said saxophonist Bobby Watson. “He was open to young people coming with new ideas that weren’t traditionally thought of as swing. He was really a man with an open mind to all styles of music.”

Watson, who had performed with McShann periodically through the years, said sharing the stage with McShann was “big fun. Just the flavor and the swing and the voicings, his blues sensibility — it’s like being in heaven. It’s like I’m touching history.”

McShann also possessed a rich, honey-flavored singing voice that brought out the poetry in such standards as “Georgia” and gave authority to blues numbers, such as his own “Hootie’s Ignorant Oil.”

Like his fellow Kansas City jazzman, the late Claude “Fiddler” Williams, McShann was born in Muskogee, Okla., where he taught himself to play piano by ear. It was only after years of performing and leading a nationally known band that included the young Charlie Parker that McShann decided to take lessons to read music.

McShann was on his way to Omaha, Neb., when he stopped off in Kansas City in 1936 and discovered the city’s smoking jazz scene.

“My bus stopped in Kansas City, and I knew the Reno Club was just a few blocks away, so I went and checked it out,” McShann said in an interview in 1998. “Bus Moten had a band. I went in, and I knew most of the cats. Bill Hadnott told me I shouldn’t leave here. He handed me his keys and said, ‘Stay at my place until you get a gig.’ I did two days later.”

During that stopover he first heard boogie-woogie piano and was stunned to see pianist Pete Johnson and singer Joe Turner play entire sets consisting of one tune.

“Joe would keep singing for 30 or 40 minutes straight through,” McShann once recalled. “And maybe between times he’d tell Pete to roll ’em on piano for maybe 10 minutes, then Joe would come back and sing 10 or 15 minutes. You know, they’d play one tune, and it’d last 45 to 50 minutes, and that was the set.”

Musicians gravitated to the city from all parts of the country during the 1920s and ’30s, attracted by the jobs created by the proliferation of gambling joints, dance halls and ballrooms. McShann said it paid for a musician to learn many styles.

“If you wanted to learn, you could learn,” he said. “If you played a gambler’s tune, that was a money tune. … This was a hustlin’ town. Everything’s a hustle. That was another thing that made musicians keep up. They had to learn a lot of tunes because it meant money.”

Although jazz in Kansas City long teetered along the racial divide, McShann helped bridge the gap in the late 1930s when his seven-piece band played extended gigs at Martin’s Cafeteria and Plaza Tavern, also known as Martin’s-on-the-Plaza. McShann’s group was one of the first African-American bands to play on the Country Club Plaza.

The club had a cafeteria in back that doubled as a little dance pavilion.

“We played soft music from 8 to 10 o’clock,” McShann’s bassist Gene Ramey once recounted. “Then the waiters moved the chairs and tables in the restaurant, and we played dance music.”

McShann, backed by a wealthy Kansas City insurance man named Walter Bales, formed a big band in 1939. Among the players was the young saxophonist Charlie Parker, who was with the band when it cut its first records in Dallas in 1941.

Thanks to a record producer who insisted that the band record only blues and boogie-woogie, McShann’s band became known principally as a blues band. In fact, the band had arrangements that prefigured the modern strain of jazz that would become known as bebop.

Yet those sessions established McShann nationally because one cut, “Confessin’ the Blues,” became a hit.

Many of the band’s tunes were “head” arrangements that existed only in the band’s collective memory. Others were written, although McShann played simply by consulting chords jotted down on paper.

In 1944, McShann’s big-band career came to an abrupt halt when Selective Service agents literally drafted him off the stage of Municipal Auditorium.

After World War II, McShann put together another big band, but the business had changed. A big touring band was too expensive, and McShann had to settle for playing in small groups.

After a stint in California, McShann settled in Kansas City permanently in the early ’50s. Although he was never forced to take a day job, he once ran a trash-hauling service and owned a limousine that he rented out.

“Jay never got the economic rewards commensurate with his talent,” said friend and filmmaker Bruce Ricker. “But other musicians certainly knew and respected him — Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck, people like that.”

In the ’60s, McShann began touring as a solo act and frequently performed with small groups, setting the pattern for the rest of his professional life.

“Jay had this inner strength, leadership strength,” said Ricker, who more than 30 years ago used McShann as the central character in “The Last of the Blue Devils,” his documentary about Kansas City jazz.

“He was the last important band leader coming out of Kansas City in the ’40s, a guy able to understand Charlie Parker’s genius. He was absolutely at home with the blues, but he also had the sophistication of an Oscar Peterson, a fast mind hidden behind a very deliberate, calm exterior. That was exemplified by the way he played the piano. He was always thinking through his fingers.”

In his later years McShann rarely played in Kansas City, mainly because he was in such demand around the world. He toured extensively from the 1970s to the ’90s, often in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

When he did perform locally, jazz fans viewed it as a major event. He played the Kansas City Jazz and Blues Festival in 1992, the Kansas City International Jazz Festival in 1996; and in 2003 played the Folly Theater, the Kansas City Spirit Festival and the second annual Coda Jazz Fund concert. In 2005 McShann opened the Folly Jazz Series at the Folly Theater.

McShann recorded scores of albums for various labels, from Decca in the ’40s to the Canadian roots label Stony Plain in recent years. Many of his early recordings have been anthologized and repackaged. He was nominated for Grammys (but didn’t win) in 1992 and 2004.

In 1988 McShann’s music was introduced anew to dance audiences when choreographer Alvin Ailey created “Opus McShann,” a series of dance pieces set to some of McShann’s recordings. The 30-minute ballet was commissioned by the Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey and received its world premiere at the Folly Theater.

In addition to appearing in “The Last of the Blue Devils” (1980), which captured a reunion of old-time Kansas City musicians at the Mutual Musicians Foundation at 1823 Highland Ave., McShann was the subject of another film, “Hootie Blues.” He was one of many noted jazz figures interviewed for “Jazz,” the Ken Burns documentary miniseries for PBS. And McShann was featured in “Piano Blues,” a 2003 documentary directed by Clint Eastwood that was part of another PBS series called “The Blues.”

McShann, through his popularity in the world jazz community, kept the legend of Kansas City jazz alive. But McShann put little stock in labels and saw music in philosophical terms.

“Music is music,” he once said. “Music is just like a big river, and it’s got a lot of tributaries. When the river gets too full, it empties into the gulf, and when the gulf gets too full it empties into the ocean.

“It’s all music.”

McShann is survived by three daughters, Linda McShann Gerber, Jayne McShann Lewis and Pamela McShann, and his longtime companion and manager Thelma Adams, known to many as Marianne McShann.

The Star’s Robert W. Butler, John Mark Eberhart and Steve Paul contributed to this report.