JAM: August/September 2006 Issue: Hampton's Hot Licks

Happy Birthday JAM — 20 Years!

In late 1990 when Kathy Feist, the president of KCJA and editor-in-chief of JAM , asked me to take over the helm of Jazz Ambassadors Magazine , I jumped at the chance. I remember that within thirty days I was wondering if I had made a big mistake. There was a whole lot more to producing this magazine than I had ever imagined, and back then it was only a booklet-sized, twenty-four-page rag with very few articles and advertisers. Soon, I began to feel that if it was a mistake, it was one of life's few “happy mistakes” that comes along, and I was having fun.

Page forward to summer 1996. Ah ... JAM was now ten years old. For its birthday celebration issue I wrote the cover story “10 Years of JAM . ” In those first ten years we had come a long way. JAM was finally recognized as being the Kansas City area publication most likely to tell you anything and everything you wanted to know about the local jazz scene. We had expanded to a full-sized magazine averaging over forty-eight pages per issue with double the print area that we had back in ‘90. Our distribution was as high as thirteen thousand copies per issue, up from two thousand copies from my first issue. We had received letters to the editor from every continent except Antarctica .

We had even become a global publication by joining the Internet bandwagon. Our new Web site would soon be reviewed in The New York Times and labeled “One of ten jazz sites worth visiting.” We found that students from around the world were scanning our Web site to do research for jazz related term papers and other writing assignments.

Another major milestone was kicking me up a notch to the board of directors and handing the editor gig to Mike Metheny. In just a few years, Mike had raised the editorial bar far beyond where any of us thought it would ever be.

It was easy and pleasurable to write the “10 Years of JAM ” story because there were so many successes and so much growth during that period of time. To have a good jazz magazine one must first have good subject matter and the KC jazz scene provided that. The scene was better than it had been in the first ten years of JAM .

While developing the birthday story, I realized that JAM was much more than just a bi-monthly magazine about the current jazz happenings. It had become the only full history of ten years of jazz in Kansas City . I never thought that by 2006, people may wonder what KC jazz was like back in the ‘90s or the late ‘80s. JAM was the recent history book of KC jazz.

Today, after 120 issues of JAM , the history goes on. Jazz throughout the world has had its peaks and valleys. Since JAM ' s first decade of KC jazz history, we have experienced a lot of both in the KC scene. We have recorded the culture that creates the ups and downs and we have certainly seen changes in culture. JAM is basically the same as it was in ‘96, with a few exceptions. We have dressed it up, and now use a lot better paper and lots of color where it was all newsprint and black-and-white in the prior decade. The format looks somewhat different and has stayed up with the times. We have dropped the single feature story approach, even though we still use features in many issues. Q&As have become a regular and expected part of JAM , but, the culture of 2006 is so different than it was way back in ‘96.

Let's examine just what has happened.

Recorded music: In ‘96, we were just getting fully used to CDs. The acronym had become something other than a financial instrument. Most of us still had tape players in our cars. Do you remember making “programmed tapes” with a few of your favorite tunes on it? You may have ten or fifteen tunes on a tape, each from a different artist. Then, maybe you would dup some copies for your friends. When you went to the “record store,” you could choose between tape or CD and, in some cases, you could still find a rare LP. It was not long before the tapes were no longer an option.

Again, page forward to the year 2000. It was the February issue of JAM when I wrote the feature story, “MP3 & Internet Audio.” (See: http://jazzkc.org/issues/2000-02/mp3.html .) Many of our readers didn't even have computers. The article explained all about MP3 and made many predictions about the future of MP3. Many readers thought I was nuts! They called the new technology a fad, but didn't realize that it was taking root in our society (unlike hula hoops and pet rocks). Musicians thought MP3 was just a way to dumb down their music. Some saw it as a vehicle for increased music piracy. Many readers could not imagine the digital file concept instead of a “hold it in your hand” recording, one with real liner notes and a pretty cover. That is still cultural shock to many jazz lovers.

The tune-at-a-time concept of music distribution hit the record labels like a ton of bricks. For way too long they ignored the signs of the times just like GM and Ford when Volkswagon, Honda, and Toyota invaded our country like an unproclaimed world war. They concentrated on the “Napster effect” — music piracy and copyright infringement. Piracy was not new. It had just become very easy. (Hey pirates — remember those tapes you used to dub off for friends?)

In JAM , we still review CDs and promote CD release parties, but the culture has changed. The tragedy in the digital music revolution that I did not mention in the 2000 article is the mom-and-pop music stores that are mostly gone. They gave way to iTunes and iPods along with a multitude of online music subscription services. Recording artists can no longer track their sale success by the number of albums sold. Today, it's how may tunes are sold and tracking that is difficult at best.

Jazz Radio: In 1996, the Kansas City Metro Area had over two hundred hours of weekly jazz programming. Another cultural shock is that today we don't have twenty-five percent of those hours left. Even the smooth jazz station is gone. Most of the broadcasting industry has changed (for the worse, in my opinion). The biggest reason for this change appears to be bucks. The money is better with non-jazz formats. Much of the music programming nationally has given way to talk radio. That's more evidence of cultural change.

In JAM , perhaps we should drastically change our “On the Air” page. We should include all jazz stations nationally. Right now, while I'd rather be listening to KC jazz on KKFI, KCUR, or KANU, I am listening to non-stop jazz on KPLU out of Tacoma/Seattle — a great station. There are thousands of jazz stations available online. Perhaps we should also list satellite radio such as Sirius and XM. For a few bucks a month, you can have 24/7 jazz. If I had just a little more time available, I would just start my own Live365 KC jazz station.

Jazz Education: Since 1996, jazz education in Kansas City has made significant progress. It was pretty good back in ‘96. A couple of major advancements took place in the year 2000. I can sum these up with two names: Bobby Watson and Jim Mair. Each came back to KC in major jazz education rolls. Watson at University of Missouri-Kansas City and Mair at Kansas City Kansas Community College . KC is now on the national/international jazz education map and going strong. While Watson took his UMKC group to Europe this summer, Mair took his to the JVC Jazz Festival in New York .

Local jazz scene: In ‘96, we had a pretty hot scene going and growing. That year, Ruth Rhoden, co-host of KCUR-FM's “Just Jazz” show, was a cheerleader for the ‘96 state of KC jazz: “I'm amazed at the renaissance of jazz in Kansas City . There are more restaurants and nightclubs that have live jazz right now than I've ever seen. I know it isn't L.A. or New York [here], but I can remember when you could only hear jazz at a few places; places like the Signboard Bar, or Yaadboids, or sometimes at Milton 's. There has been great improvement in the local club scene in recent years.”

Over the years we gained and lost a few clubs. Some that are still missed include Milton 's, Club 427, Mardi Gras, Boulevard Café. In ‘96, we didn't have the Blue Room or the GEM Theater. In both venues, they are presenting more and higher quality jazz each year. Overall, we probably have about as many hours of live jazz in KC now as we did in ‘96.

The festival scene has changed dramatically. We gained and lost the KC International Jazz Festival. We lost the KC Blues & Jazz Festival. Also, the 18th & Vine Jazz Festival went away. Many considered the Topeka Jazz Festival a “local” event and it is also history. Many other festivals are still going, though smaller than any that we lost. They include Parkville, Corporate Woods, and Lee's Summit . Topeka and St. Joe both have festivals.

In 1993, the Topeka Jazz Workshop expanded its capabilities by helping Kansas City to produce an identical concert series. The Kansas City Jazz Workshop (KCJW) was started. An artist would perform in Topeka on Sunday, then in Kansas City on Monday nights. The Jazz Ambassadors absorbed the KCJW in early 1997. The concert format remained unchanged. Both organizations benefited and so did the jazz community. The “merger” practically insured jazz education scholarship money. In the 2005 season, the name was changed to the Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors' Concert Series.

The annual Jazz Lovers Pub Crawl ® became property of the KC Jazz Ambassadors, Inc. There were some rather heated battles with the 18th & Vine Authority. Then president Vanessa Barnard, along with Pub Crawl Director Mike Rollf, negotiated these rights as the KC Jazz Commission was in the process of divesting their assets. In the next few years, the Jazz Ambassadors were honored to present financial gifts of nearly $50,000 to other worthy Kansas City jazz organizations.

One major cultural change continues to haunt jazz nationally including Kansas City : 9/11. As we tried our best to produce the October 2001 issue of JAM , our hearts and souls were indescribably shaken. At first, 9/11 made us feel like, all of a sudden, jazz was totally unimportant. In Mike Metheny's “First Take,” he wrote, “In the wake of the horror of September 11, assembling this issue of JAM was especially difficult. How could any talk of jazz possibly matter in the context of such sobering world events? To be honest, the whole process soon began to feel like an exercise in giving relevance to the relatively trivial.”

On September 12, 2001, KCJA President John Leisenring wrote (for “President's Corner”), “I have spent more than 24 hours, along with all of you and most of mankind, experiencing the horror of the attacks on our nation. I am shocked, anguished and dismayed. I feel vulnerable and scared. I feel anger. I have cried. I have prayed…With what both the short and long term future have in store for us, we will need wisdom and strength and faith. AND WE WILL NEED MUSIC!”

In my “Hot Licks” column, I quoted Peter Jennings from his Friday, September 14th evening news closing comments, “Do you remember what it was like before Tuesday, September 11th (2001)?” My three-year old grandson, Austin, was pictured on the cover of the October issue playing drums. So sad that his generation will never know the innocence of life in the USA before 9/11.

Can you imagine our advertising representative, Patti Wilkinson, trying to sell advertising on say, Thursday, 9/13/01? Who cared! It was difficult for us to care, and our normal advertisers were still numb and uncertain about days after our issue would hit the streets. Ad sales were horrible for that issue.

The impact on the arts (not just jazz) were long and lasting. Our country had responded to the crisis as we hoped it would. However, many corporate sponsors of arts events diverted their entire philanthropic budgets — for years to come — to 9/11 causes. In 2002, many jazz festivals and concert series had no money. While the KC Blues & Jazz Festival already had financial problems, this was the crushing blow. And we all still feel it the third weekend of July each year. Rhythm & Ribs has filled part of that void, but it is not the same.

The future of JAM : I can't begin to know. One thing I know for sure, JAM is in the hands of a great editor, Roger Atkinson. He doesn't seem to know or recognize the odds against him and he continues to produce great issues. He has developed a committee of volunteers who are very dedicated to giving you quality content. The KCJA Web site is under redevelopment and promises to be better than it was when the NY Times ranked us in the top ten.

JAM will probably be here another ten years or more. It would be a pleasure to report to you again in 2016. Hope to see you then.

Stay tuned...
Dean Hampton






	Search our site:		Happy Birthday JAM — 20 Years! In late 1990 when Kathy Feist, the president of KCJA and editor-in-chief of JAM , asked me to take over the helm of Jazz Ambassadors Magazine , I jumped at the chance. I remember that within thirty days I was wondering if I had made a big mistake. There was a whole lot more to producing this magazine than I had ever imagined, and back then it was only a booklet-sized, twenty-four-page rag with very few articles and advertisers. Soon, I began to feel that if it was a mistake, it was one of life's few “happy mistakes” that comes along, and I was having fun. Page forward to summer 1996. Ah ... JAM was now ten years old. For its birthday celebration issue I wrote the cover story “10 Years of JAM . ” In those first ten years we had come a long way. JAM was finally recognized as being the Kansas City area publication most likely to tell you anything and everything you wanted to know about the local jazz scene. We had expanded to a full-sized magazine averaging over forty-eight pages per issue with double the print area that we had back in ‘90. Our distribution was as high as thirteen thousand copies per issue, up from two thousand copies from my first issue. We had received letters to the editor from every continent except Antarctica . We had even become a global publication by joining the Internet bandwagon. Our new Web site would soon be reviewed in The New York Times and labeled “One of ten jazz sites worth visiting.” We found that students from around the world were scanning our Web site to do research for jazz related term papers and other writing assignments. Another major milestone was kicking me up a notch to the board of directors and handing the editor gig to Mike Metheny. In just a few years, Mike had raised the editorial bar far beyond where any of us thought it would ever be. It was easy and pleasurable to write the “10 Years of JAM ” story because there were so many successes and so much growth during that period of time. To have a good jazz magazine one must first have good subject matter and the KC jazz scene provided that. The scene was better than it had been in the first ten years of JAM . While developing the birthday story, I realized that JAM was much more than just a bi-monthly magazine about the current jazz happenings. It had become the only full history of ten years of jazz in Kansas City . I never thought that by 2006, people may wonder what KC jazz was like back in the ‘90s or the late ‘80s. JAM was the recent history book of KC jazz. Today, after 120 issues of JAM , the history goes on. Jazz throughout the world has had its peaks and valleys. Since JAM ' s first decade of KC jazz history, we have experienced a lot of both in the KC scene. We have recorded the culture that creates the ups and downs and we have certainly seen changes in culture. JAM is basically the same as it was in ‘96, with a few exceptions. We have dressed it up, and now use a lot better paper and lots of color where it was all newsprint and black-and-white in the prior decade. The format looks somewhat different and has stayed up with the times. We have dropped the single feature story approach, even though we still use features in many issues. Q&As have become a regular and expected part of JAM , but, the culture of 2006 is so different than it was way back in ‘96. Let's examine just what has happened. Recorded music: In ‘96, we were just getting fully used to CDs. The acronym had become something other than a financial instrument. Most of us still had tape players in our cars. Do you remember making “programmed tapes” with a few of your favorite tunes on it? You may have ten or fifteen tunes on a tape, each from a different artist. Then, maybe you would dup some copies for your friends. When you went to the “record store,” you could choose between tape or CD and, in some cases, you could still find a rare LP. It was not long before the tapes were no longer an option. Again, page forward to the year 2000. It was the February issue of JAM when I wrote the feature story, “MP3 & Internet Audio.” (See: http://jazzkc.org/issues/2000-02/mp3.html .) Many of our readers didn't even have computers. The article explained all about MP3 and made many predictions about the future of MP3. Many readers thought I was nuts! They called the new technology a fad, but didn't realize that it was taking root in our society (unlike hula hoops and pet rocks). Musicians thought MP3 was just a way to dumb down their music. Some saw it as a vehicle for increased music piracy. Many readers could not imagine the digital file concept instead of a “hold it in your hand” recording, one with real liner notes and a pretty cover. That is still cultural shock to many jazz lovers. The tune-at-a-time concept of music distribution hit the record labels like a ton of bricks. For way too long they ignored the signs of the times just like GM and Ford when Volkswagon, Honda, and Toyota invaded our country like an unproclaimed world war. They concentrated on the “Napster effect” — music piracy and copyright infringement. Piracy was not new. It had just become very easy. (Hey pirates — remember those tapes you used to dub off for friends?) In JAM , we still review CDs and promote CD release parties, but the culture has changed. The tragedy in the digital music revolution that I did not mention in the 2000 article is the mom-and-pop music stores that are mostly gone. They gave way to iTunes and iPods along with a multitude of online music subscription services. Recording artists can no longer track their sale success by the number of albums sold. Today, it's how may tunes are sold and tracking that is difficult at best. Jazz Radio: In 1996, the Kansas City Metro Area had over two hundred hours of weekly jazz programming. Another cultural shock is that today we don't have twenty-five percent of those hours left. Even the smooth jazz station is gone. Most of the broadcasting industry has changed (for the worse, in my opinion). The biggest reason for this change appears to be bucks. The money is better with non-jazz formats. Much of the music programming nationally has given way to talk radio. That's more evidence of cultural change. In JAM , perhaps we should drastically change our “On the Air” page. We should include all jazz stations nationally. Right now, while I'd rather be listening to KC jazz on KKFI, KCUR, or KANU, I am listening to non-stop jazz on KPLU out of Tacoma/Seattle — a great station. There are thousands of jazz stations available online. Perhaps we should also list satellite radio such as Sirius and XM. For a few bucks a month, you can have 24/7 jazz. If I had just a little more time available, I would just start my own Live365 KC jazz station. Jazz Education: Since 1996, jazz education in Kansas City has made significant progress. It was pretty good back in ‘96. A couple of major advancements took place in the year 2000. I can sum these up with two names: Bobby Watson and Jim Mair. Each came back to KC in major jazz education rolls. Watson at University of Missouri-Kansas City and Mair at Kansas City Kansas Community College . KC is now on the national/international jazz education map and going strong. While Watson took his UMKC group to Europe this summer, Mair took his to the JVC Jazz Festival in New York . Local jazz scene: In ‘96, we had a pretty hot scene going and growing. That year, Ruth Rhoden, co-host of KCUR-FM's “Just Jazz” show, was a cheerleader for the ‘96 state of KC jazz: “I'm amazed at the renaissance of jazz in Kansas City . There are more restaurants and nightclubs that have live jazz right now than I've ever seen. I know it isn't L.A. or New York [here], but I can remember when you could only hear jazz at a few places; places like the Signboard Bar, or Yaadboids, or sometimes at Milton 's. There has been great improvement in the local club scene in recent years.” Over the years we gained and lost a few clubs. Some that are still missed include Milton 's, Club 427, Mardi Gras, Boulevard Café. In ‘96, we didn't have the Blue Room or the GEM Theater. In both venues, they are presenting more and higher quality jazz each year. Overall, we probably have about as many hours of live jazz in KC now as we did in ‘96. The festival scene has changed dramatically. We gained and lost the KC International Jazz Festival. We lost the KC Blues & Jazz Festival. Also, the 18th & Vine Jazz Festival went away. Many considered the Topeka Jazz Festival a “local” event and it is also history. Many other festivals are still going, though smaller than any that we lost. They include Parkville, Corporate Woods, and Lee's Summit . Topeka and St. Joe both have festivals. In 1993, the Topeka Jazz Workshop expanded its capabilities by helping Kansas City to produce an identical concert series. The Kansas City Jazz Workshop (KCJW) was started. An artist would perform in Topeka on Sunday, then in Kansas City on Monday nights. The Jazz Ambassadors absorbed the KCJW in early 1997. The concert format remained unchanged. Both organizations benefited and so did the jazz community. The “merger” practically insured jazz education scholarship money. In the 2005 season, the name was changed to the Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors' Concert Series. The annual Jazz Lovers Pub Crawl ® became property of the KC Jazz Ambassadors, Inc. There were some rather heated battles with the 18th & Vine Authority. Then president Vanessa Barnard, along with Pub Crawl Director Mike Rollf, negotiated these rights as the KC Jazz Commission was in the process of divesting their assets. In the next few years, the Jazz Ambassadors were honored to present financial gifts of nearly $50,000 to other worthy Kansas City jazz organizations. One major cultural change continues to haunt jazz nationally including Kansas City : 9/11. As we tried our best to produce the October 2001 issue of JAM , our hearts and souls were indescribably shaken. At first, 9/11 made us feel like, all of a sudden, jazz was totally unimportant. In Mike Metheny's “First Take,” he wrote, “In the wake of the horror of September 11, assembling this issue of JAM was especially difficult. How could any talk of jazz possibly matter in the context of such sobering world events? To be honest, the whole process soon began to feel like an exercise in giving relevance to the relatively trivial.” On September 12, 2001, KCJA President John Leisenring wrote (for “President's Corner”), “I have spent more than 24 hours, along with all of you and most of mankind, experiencing the horror of the attacks on our nation. I am shocked, anguished and dismayed. I feel vulnerable and scared. I feel anger. I have cried. I have prayed…With what both the short and long term future have in store for us, we will need wisdom and strength and faith. AND WE WILL NEED MUSIC!” In my “Hot Licks” column, I quoted Peter Jennings from his Friday, September 14th evening news closing comments, “Do you remember what it was like before Tuesday, September 11th (2001)?” My three-year old grandson, Austin, was pictured on the cover of the October issue playing drums. So sad that his generation will never know the innocence of life in the USA before 9/11. Can you imagine our advertising representative, Patti Wilkinson, trying to sell advertising on say, Thursday, 9/13/01? Who cared! It was difficult for us to care, and our normal advertisers were still numb and uncertain about days after our issue would hit the streets. Ad sales were horrible for that issue. The impact on the arts (not just jazz) were long and lasting. Our country had responded to the crisis as we hoped it would. However, many corporate sponsors of arts events diverted their entire philanthropic budgets — for years to come — to 9/11 causes. In 2002, many jazz festivals and concert series had no money. While the KC Blues & Jazz Festival already had financial problems, this was the crushing blow. And we all still feel it the third weekend of July each year. Rhythm & Ribs has filled part of that void, but it is not the same. The future of JAM : I can't begin to know. One thing I know for sure, JAM is in the hands of a great editor, Roger Atkinson. He doesn't seem to know or recognize the odds against him and he continues to produce great issues. He has developed a committee of volunteers who are very dedicated to giving you quality content. The KCJA Web site is under redevelopment and promises to be better than it was when the NY Times ranked us in the top ten. JAM will probably be here another ten years or more. It would be a pleasure to report to you again in 2016. Hope to see you then. Stay tuned... Dean Hampton RETURN TO AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2006 MAIN INDEX © Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2005. All rights reserved.