Getting Started

Mair’s Dreams by Tristan Smith
photo by Dan White

One of the people sitting in a Toronto workshop during a cold January day in 2003 was Jim Mair. The setting was the International Association of Jazz Education convention and the topic: “Creating Your Own Professional Jazz Orchestra”, presented by Byron Stripling, then the new Artistic Director of the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, and Bob Breithaupt, the group’s executive director and founder. One topic was setting up a to-do list.

“They made it seem so simple,” says Mair. “One of the items on the list was ‘Organize a Board of Trustees whose members have a passion…and are well-positioned….’ Gene Hall came to mind right away.”
Hall, at that time, was a big band pianist in a group that met on Monday nights at Kansas City Kansas Community College. Mair, also a KCKCC educator, approached Hall after a rehearsal to talk about an idea. This “idea” led to the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra.

The KCJO started out presenting two concerts per year, one in the fall and one in the spring, at Unity Temple on the Country Club Plaza. After seeing its viability, they moved to a three-concert season and began offering season tickets. That brings us to the present; they now have added a second night at the same venue – testing the feasibility and economics of the second performance.

“Next year we will perform at two venues,” referring to the Friday Folly Series presented at the Folly Theater and the Saturday Out-South Series, presented at the Bell Cultural Events Center at Mid-America Nazarene University. “Each of these concert halls has the technical and acoustical capacity to better facilitate a concert performance. We will miss the familiarity and ‘at-home’ feeling we had at Unity but we recognize that change isn’t always comfortable. Making the move seemed necessary in order for our presentations to meet their highest potential.”

KCJO has been organized in such a fashion that will connect with the issues of getting people to attend their programs. With an established fan base that recognizes the quality of the group’s musicianship, Mair believes that there are those who will come just to hear the orchestra. While there are still those who need a “hook” to attend the concerts. This is when the KCJO themes come into play.

“There are those that are fans of a particular guest artist,” says Mair. “Maybe they don’t know anything about us, yet, but might be fans of the Wild Women of Kansas City, for example. It’s taken awhile to define ourselves as a concert orchestra rather than a ‘band for hire.’ Kansas City is such a generous funding community
and we are very grateful that thy have found our mission worthy of support.”

Some of the most memorable and successful concerts have come such a popular theme. The recent Woody Herman concert “Herd Again!” was what Mair considers the most musically rewarding experience so far. It allowed the soloists in the orchestra to stretch their abilities, including Mair’s. He was able to unravel Woody Herman’s charts and band books, study his recordings, and try to figure out the sequence of the sections.

“It was fun and very exciting to hear it all come together on stage,” says Mair. “It definitely works best when we program a concert musically around the orchestra even though we may be featuring a guest artist.”
The Kansas City audiences are astute and are critical listeners when it comes to classical and jazz music. Mair points out last season’s feature of the piano phenom Eldar Djangirov. While Djangirov gave a great performance, Mair found it tricky trying to fit a soloist into the framework of a big band and concedes that the combination likely did not showcase either party effectively.

Looking Ahead

“It is hard to predict where we might be in five years – especially in this economy,” Mair says. “I hope that the KCJO is still viable. We’ll have to keep things realistic. It seems like there is a dire need for more collaboration
in the jazz community.” A similar group in Ohio, the Columbus Jazz Orchestra,
operates under the Jazz Arts Group of Columbus. Mair predicts that a similar Kansas City Jazz Arts Group could unite organizations with a mutual commitment to advancing jazz in Kansas City. Together, they could face challenges like securing funding, oversight and governance, building audiences, community outreach, bringing on board the next generation, and so on.
“I’d love to see a Kansas City Jazz Summit which would be an educational jazz festival modeled after the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival with non-competitive and competitive components,” says Mair. “There are ways of making music competitive without sacrificing the educational components. Include a competition to ‘Essentially Ellington” – why not ‘Basically Basie.’ Why not make Kansas City a destination for middle, high school and college jazz bands around the country? If they’ll go to Moscow, Idaho, they’d surely consider coming to Kansas City.”

In addition, Mair envisions a very comprehensive website in association with such an organization or festival; one that includes everything that you could possibly think of in the way of Kansas City jazz: high school jazz concert schedules, club schedules, musicians services, jazz radio, jazz television…all streaming though the website.

With dreams and hopes aside, what might the jazz lovers of Kansas City expect next out of the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra? The plan is to create events that bring more people through the turnstiles; something like a “Celebrating Kansas City” theme. These events would ideally create a more broad and larger support base, which would then enable KCJO to continue to grow.
In the immediate future, fans will be able to catch the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra soon. The 2008-2009 season starts in September and features three concerts: “Tormé Sings Tormé” in September, “A Nat King Cole Christmas” in December and “Celebrating Kansas City” in April 2009. Check back with JAM Magazine for more information or check out KCJO now at www.kcjazzorchestra.org.

“I think the vision of the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra has stayed pretty much the same. I’ve always envisioned an orchestra that performs with artistic precision as an ensemble but can also produce commanding solos and keep the audience engaged and entertained throughout the entire concert. When the vision becomes reality, it’s like your best dream coming true!”