Roots of jazz in Cowtown: museum hearkens back to era of boisterous, all-night jams that put Kansas City's mark on an American art form

National Catholic Reporter, April 16, 2004 by Matt Stoulil

Other highlights include the Jazz Discovery Room, where the city's youth are encouraged to explore the right sides of their brains through building makeshift instruments, having fun trying jazz dances and getting in touch with their creative spirits. At press time, the room was filled from wall to wall with an art exhibit by Kansas City middle school kids paying tribute to Duke Ellington. A computer jazz database allows visitors to take an A to Z journey through some of the best jazz recordings available, featuring Art Blakey, Bennie Moten, Chet Baker and Herbie Hancock, among others.

Studio 18th and Vine allows one to sit at mixing boards with headphones and adjust the sound levels of different prerecorded instruments in a jazz combo, from piano to drums. One can also listen to songs and sample alternate melody lines over the original tunes.

The feather in the museum's cap is the Blue Room, a working jazz club that is part of the museum that features live local and national talent four nights a week to a smoke-free environment. This joint was inspired by the Blue Room that thrived in the '30s and '40s in the Street Hotel in this district. Though a far cry from the smoky, boisterous all-night jams of the past, the Blue Room carries the jazz torch on for fans young and old. Even modern jazz great Wynton Marsalis has graced the Blue Room stage.

In addition to the oft-mentioned fountains, boulevards and barbecue of Kansas City, the 18th and Vine Jazz District should be on the traveler's must-see list. The neighborhood gives a faded, though colorful glimpse into the past of a Midwest music mecca.

Matt Stoulil is NCR layout assistant, a bass player and an avid observer of the music world. Get in tune with him at mstoulil@natcath.org.