DEI Moment: International Jazz Day
April 30 is International Jazz Day
On April 30, 2023, International Jazz Day will be observed throughout the world to celebrate the music that was born in America and stamped with Kansas City’s unique brand right here.
History. Designation. Relevance.
“In November 2011, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) officially designated April 30 as International Jazz Day in order to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe. International Jazz Day is chaired and led by UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay and legendary jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock, who serves as a UNESCO Ambassador for Intercultural Dialogue and Chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz.” (About International Jazz Day )
“For Wynton Marsalis, the jazz ensemble is democracy in action: participatory, inclusive, challenging, competitive and collective. For the interracial musical scene of the forties and fifties, jazz improvisation was often viewed as the ultimate integrated music, crossing the color line and social categories with aplomb.
“Its roots are African and European, classical and popular, dance music and art music. It has been called both cool and hot, earthy and avant-garde, intellectual and primitive. It has been influenced by Latin American and Afro-Cuban music, by Middle Eastern, Indian, and other forms of Asian music, by African music, and by varieties of religious music including gospel and the Protestant hymnal. Jazz also has roots in the American popular song (which makes up a good deal of its repertoire), the blues, hokum and circus music, marching band music, and popular dance music.” (Why Jazz Still Matters | American Academy of Arts and Sciences)
Ingrid Monson is a noted jazz scholar and Professor of Ethnomusicology at Harvard University with a lifelong interest in the relationships among music, race, aesthetics, and politics. In Monson’s words, “The art music known variously as jazz, swing, bebop, America’s classical music, and creative music has been associated first and foremost with freedom. Freedom of expression, human freedom, freedom of thought, and the freedom that results from an ongoing pursuit of racial justice.”
Kansas City Jazz
Political Boss Tom Pendergast’s grip on Kansas City, Missouri from 1925 to 1939 rendered prohibition essentially nonexistent in the downtown area and kept clubs open for business. It was during this time that Kansas City earned its nickname “The Paris of the Plains.” Clubs from 12th to 18th streets attracted musicians from New Orleans, Chicago, and New York where clubs had been shuttered. Here, they had the freedom to perform in the evenings and then jam together until dawn. Towns like St. Louis, adopting the “New Orleans Style'' jazz, saw their music scene simply fizzle out. Kansas City was “where it was happening” and became an incubator that birthed the unique “Big Band” sound that eventually spread across genres, cultures, states, countries and oceans.
Kansas City jazz has taken root in our city and continues to grow even now, thanks to cross-generational teaching and mentoring, a loyal local following, and jazz enthusiasts who come here just for the experience. In 2013, a catalyst group known as “Kansas City Jazz Alive” organized as a 501(c)(3). Its members work in concert to “Raise the Tide that Lifts all Jazz Boats.” (KC Jazz ALIVE). On any given night in downtown Kansas City, you can find young jazz scholars of UMKC and North Kansas City Community College weaving themselves amongst experienced jazz artists in intimate, conversation-sparking venues like The Phoenix, The Green Lady Lounge, The Blue Room, The Black Dolphin, The Uptown Lounge, The Black Box (of the West Bottoms), Knucklehead’s, The Kauffman Center, Pierpont’s Restaurant at Union Station, Yardley Hall of the Johnson County Community College and more.
The reach of Kansas City’s jazz influence cannot be overstated. A Sister City Jazz Exchange program between the cities of Hannover, Germany and Kansas City brought the Hannover Big Band to Kansas City for a week of events across the metro from October 14-24 of 2022. It culminated in a performance of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music featuring the Hannover Big Band, the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra, the Kansas City Kansas Community College Jazz Choir, and three nationally recognized vocalists.
To understand and appreciate jazz is to understand and appreciate connectedness. Jazz musicians don’t just perform memorized repertoire. Instead, they communicate, they feed off each other, they interact with their audiences, and they create in real time. Best of all, we can personally experience live jazz of the past, present, and future in Kansas City -- not just on International Jazz Day -- but on any day of the year: Live Jazz KC Daily Calendar of Events.
Submitted by the DEI Committee