Here in BFE

Many of my friends and neighbors are committed to propagating the narrative that our town is an overlooked cosmopolitan utopia.  My social media feeds are regularly clogged with links to clickbait stories hyping Kansas City as a bastion of sophistication.  The desperate boosterism of my peers makes them look like self-conscious hayseeds. 

I don’t attempt to hide the dirt under my fingernails.  I’m just as comfortable in the empty plains of central Kansas as I am in a Kansas City jazz club.  That’s why I regret omitting an earworm that reflects my roots from my year-end list only because it was released in November of 2017.  Not only does Morgan Wallen’s “Up Down” hit home, it’s an indelible anthem for flyover country.  (Sadly, the video misses the point.) 

A pair of clips I posted to Instagram this year reflect the cold, hard facts about my town.  I was in the front row for a headlining concert by the Vijay Iyer Sextet at the Open Spaces festival.  Only a few dozen people were in the room.  Open Spaces presentations by Lonnie Holley and Bang On a Can also resembled private salon concerts.  The bacchanal atmosphere I documented amid a massive throng at a Kenny Chesney concert at Arrowhead Stadium demonstrates what actually flies in Kansas City. 

As Waller insists in “Up Down,” “we got what we got, we don't need the rest.”  And that’s good enough for me here in BFE.


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My most recent concert previews for The Kansas City Star are here and here.

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I reviewed a new album by Greg Carroll and Michael Pagán at Plastic Sax.

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Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks has died.  Singles Going Steady turned my world upside down in 1980.  I last saw the band perform at Warped Tour in 2006.

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The Memphis saxophonist Ace Cannon has died.  (Tip via BGO.)

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The Chicago bluesman Jody Williams has died.

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The jazz musician and actor Roger Burton has died.  (Tip via BGO.)

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Concert Review: Lonnie Holley in Swope Park

An ugly truth was revealed 25 minutes into Lonnie Holley’s appearance in Swope Park on the afternoon of Saturday, September 29. More than 100 name tag-wearing people who were part of a Kansas City art tour affiliated with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art left the concert and boarded buses that were parked near the pavilion hosting weekend presentations for the Open Spaces festival. Less than 20 people remained. The small group of Holley’s fans and Open Spaces staff members witnessed an amazing performance.

The music of the celebrated artist with an extraordinary backstory is equal parts Moondog, Nina Simone and Sun Ra. Accompanied by Dave Nelson’s looped trombone and Marlon Patton’s drumming (both men also triggered electronic effects), Holley shouted, pleaded, whispered and whistled as he played keyboards on loose compositions about the presence of God, the nature of time, an epidemic of sorrow and the sacrifices of our forefathers. A piece about emotional and electrical currents resembled an avant-garde version of “Wichita Lineman.” The hypnotic resonance of Holley’s cosmic gospel raised my spirits even as it moved me to tears.

Heavy traffic for The Illusionists show at Starlight Theatre made exiting Swope Park difficult. The professional magicians are entertaining tricksters (my review of a 2016 show by the Illusionists), but I left the park knowing that I’d witnessed Holley conjure real magic.




















(Original images by There Stands the Glass.)