Kansas City jazz

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Genre

Kansas City jazz · Under the rule of the corrupt politician Tom Pendergast, Kansas City remained an open city in the 1920s and 1930s: clubs ran all night, even during Prohibition and the Depression. Musicians from all over the Southwest flocked to it and played endless jam sessions. The music was built strongly on the blues and revolved around the riff, a short repeated motif that a section plays behind a soloist. Many arrangements were not written down but devised together from memory: head arrangements. Bennie Moten led the most important orchestra; after his death in 1935 the pianist Count Basie started a band of his own, with the tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Andy Kirk with Mary Lou Williams, Jay McShann with the young Charlie Parker, and the singer Big Joe Turner with the pianist Pete Johnson also came out of this scene.

Listening

• 
  Moten Swing · Bennie Moten, 1932
• 
  One O'Clock Jump · Count Basie, 1937
• 
  Roll 'Em Pete · Pete Johnson & Big Joe Turner, 1938

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Jazz Map^NL Map

See also

• Ben Webster
• Pete Johnson & Big Joe Turner
• Delta blues
• New Orleans jazz