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OMG you must be crazy. Kansas City has one of the top 10 jazz scenes in the US.
I am a professional jazz musician. UMKC has one of the top 5 jazz programs in the country. Some of the best young players from the US and the world go there. KC has close to 300 working pro jazz musicians. There are so many jazz musicians here, many of them leave to get work. You can go to any major city and find several ex-KC musicians working there. Kansas City even has it's own Jazz Magazine - the JAM (Jazz Ambassadors Magazine) dedicated to the promotion of Kansas City jazz around the world.
KC Jazz Clubs (not comprehensive, may have missed a few)
The American Jazz Museum
The Blue Room - consistently ranked 100 jazz clubs in the world
The Majestic
The Phoenix
The Foundation
Green Lady
Tank Room
The Ship
Danny's Big Easy
The Broadway KC
The Art Factory
The Plaza III
Jazz, Louisiana Kitchen
Chaz on the Plaza (Raphael Hotel)
The Oak Room (Intercontinental Hotel)
Jax Fish House
Louie's Wine Dive
Piropos
Cafe Trio
Kill Devil Club
The Chesterfield
Gaslight Grill
Lucky Brewgrille
KC Juke Joint
American Restaurant (Crown Center)
Take Five (recently closed, will reopen soon)
Jardines - one of the top 100 jazz clubs in the world closed a year ago.
KC Blues Clubs (blues, not jazz) Knuckleheads - voted best blues club in the world
BBs Lawnside BBQ
The Brick
Fat Fish Blue
The Levee
KC Smokehouse Pub
KC Live Stage (Power & Light District)
Hideout
Voodoo Lounge (Harrah's Casino)
Isle of Capri Casino
Matchbox Grill
The Daily Limit
Firehouse Bar
Coda Bar
Current International Jazz Stars from KC.
Bobby Watson
Pat Methany
David Belove
Kevin Mahogany
Oleta Adams
Karyn Allison
Norman Brown
Steve Cardenas
Logan Richardson
Ida Macbeth
...about a half-dozen more I can't remember right now.
Downbeat list the top 150 jazz venues in the world and Kansas City has only one -- the Blue Room. Indianapolis and Nashville both had more world recognized jazz venues.
In the 1930s KC's jazz scene (18th & Vine Jazz district) was hitting largely due to the rise of speakeasy clubs under the direction of Boss Tom Pendergast during the Prohibition era. When Pendergast's was convicted of bribery and income tax evasion Kansas City's golden era in jazz music ended.
In 1979, the filmmaker Bruce Ricker documented a reunion between Basie and the local KC jazzmen in the film in The Last of the Blue Devils that showed just how drastically the jazz scene in Kansas City has changed.
City Data's lowly Indianapolis had its own jazz history as well. Indianapolis' Indiana Ave during the 1950s was equally as impressive as Kansas City and touted some of the better venues in which to play in especially during the heyday of the Chitlin' Circuit.
Can I chime in and say I really don't care about jazz/blues...at all? And to your question of why anyone would visit Nashville aside from the country music. Nashville gets many many many more music shows that interest me than any other city in this region. They almost always go to Chicago and Nashville, rarely stopping anywhere in between. There are the occasional shows in Indy and Cincy, the rare ones in Louisville, but Nashville gets a lot more artists that appeal to me than the other cities on this list.
Oh and one thing Louisville has over the others in terms of nightlife is the 4am last call.
Last edited by jessemh431; 02-20-2016 at 05:25 PM..
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
11,974 posts, read 25,330,482 times
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Yeah, Nashville is has a good all round music scene. Many popular Indie artists from all over choose to live there, including the Black Keys and White Stripes. Louisville is a good music city in terms of concerts but we don't have many well known bands that come from here.
OMG you must be crazy. Kansas City has one of the top 10 jazz scenes in the US.
I am a professional jazz musician. UMKC has one of the top 5 jazz programs in the country. Some of the best young players from the US and the world go there. KC has close to 300 working pro jazz musicians. There are so many jazz musicians here, many of them leave to get work. You can go to any major city and find several ex-KC musicians working there. Kansas City even has it's own Jazz Magazine - the JAM (Jazz Ambassadors Magazine) dedicated to the promotion of Kansas City jazz around the world.
KC Jazz Clubs (not comprehensive, may have missed a few)
The American Jazz Museum
The Blue Room - consistently ranked 100 jazz clubs in the world
The Majestic
The Phoenix
The Foundation
Green Lady
Tank Room
The Ship
Danny's Big Easy
The Broadway KC
The Art Factory
The Plaza III
Jazz, Louisiana Kitchen
Chaz on the Plaza (Raphael Hotel)
The Oak Room (Intercontinental Hotel)
Jax Fish House
Louie's Wine Dive
Piropos
Cafe Trio
Kill Devil Club
The Chesterfield
Gaslight Grill
Lucky Brew grille
KC Juke Joint
American Restaurant (Crown Center)
Take Five (recently closed, will reopen soon)
Jardines - one of the top 100 jazz clubs in the world closed a year ago.
KC Blues Clubs (blues, not jazz) Knuckleheads - voted best blues club in the world
BBs Lawnside BBQ
The Brick
Fat Fish Blue
The Levee
KC Smokehouse Pub
KC Live Stage (Power & Light District)
Hideout
Voodoo Lounge (Harrah's Casino)
Isle of Capri Casino
Matchbox Grill
The Daily Limit
Firehouse Bar
Coda Bar
Current International Jazz Stars from KC.
Bobby Watson
Pat Methany
David Belove
Kevin Mahogany
Oleta Adams
Karyn Allison
Norman Brown
Steve Cardenas
Logan Richardson
Ida Macbeth
...about a half-dozen more I can't remember right now.
Not going to get into most of this. I don't know jacks**t about KC's scene today. But I am also a working jazz musician in Indy (though admittedly not as much these days, I've put a lot of miles on my Real Book). Studied jazz in college (minored, not majored), played in Jazz ensemble 1 for the last 3 years of school, and the graduate jazz combo as well...I've never heard anything about UMKC having a top jazz program. Never saw them at any festivals, don't know any players that went there, etc. And a top 5 jazz program at that? Maybe a lot has changed, but off the top of my head; North Texas, Miami, USC, Indiana, Oberlin, New School, Berklee, Eastman, Julliard, New England Conservatory, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Illinois, Florida State, Michigan, Michigan State, and a handful of others was where it was at. I didn't even know UMKC had a program. But please don't take any of this as any sort of insult towards KC....I have an immense amount of respect for the history of that city relative to Jazz music as a whole, which is in my opinion, America's greatest cultural contribution to the world. This is not to say that UMKC can't produce high caliber players - good players can come from anywhere. It's all about what you put into a program, and a lot of times, it can vary by instrument due to the level of instructors. I'm just disputing UMKC being a top 5 program. If it is...it's the best kept secret in the jazz world.
Kansas City is far and away the better of these 4 cities.
I don't consider Louisville even a peer to KC/Indy/Nash.
Kansas City has the most downtown residents, a new streetcar system opening in April and 4 solid miles of dense urban development from the river to the Plaza. There are currently 6 hotels under construction and 3 more rehabs into hotels in downtown alone. There is simply much, much more to do in KC than in the other cities.
Indy has a fine small downtown, but once outside of downtown there simply is no appeal.
You can see downtown Indy in one day and you're ready to leave.
Nashville is growing but outside of the country music thing why would anyone want to visit?
KC actually has large, urban neighborhoods that you can spend an entire day, 2 or 3 in and not get bored.
The City Market, Downtown, Crossroads Art District, Crown Center, Jazz District, Westport and the Plaza are all major urban neighborhood destinations. Louisville, Indy and Nashville has nothing even close. (And people from Indy if you say "Broad Ripple" I hope your dumb face falls off because only people in Indy could think that Broad Ripple is a thing).
I guess we cant post photos here but anyone that does a little research can easily see that KC is a much bigger, much denser urban city than Indy and Nash (Louisville is basically a peer of Omaha).
Best shopping - KC has Nordstroms, Sak, IKEA...blah, blah
Better homes - KC has every architectural style and material
Best job market/pay - too close to call
Lowest cost of living - All 4 cities have a low cost of living, Nash seems to be going up faster tho
Nightlife - KC has more jazz, blues and R&B music clubs, Nash has country
A city where there's always something to do individually or as a family - KC has Crown Center, legoLand and the Plaza
Sports - KC wins easily, MLB Baseball, NFL Football, MLS Soccor and NASCAR
Different food choices to try - KC has 6 James Beard Restaurant winners in the Crossroads District alone!
Lowest crime rate - KC is easily the worst of the 3, just stay away from the East Side or you will die.
You do not consider Louisville a peer...based on what? What neighborhoods have you eaten and shopped in in Louisville to make that assumption? After KC, Louisville is actually the most urban as it was historically the largest of the bunch in the 19th century. Thus it has great urban bones and neighborhoods not found in Indy or Nashville. People on these boards place way to emphasis on metro area size. As far as I am concerned, most metros in the 1-3 million range are at least in some regards, peers. For example, Nashville has a bigger MSA because of rapid growth exurbs like Murfreesboro, but that town does NOTHING for the urbanity, feel and size, of the CITY of Nashville. If anything, over time, it could detract from it.
KC has more stuff than a typical metro its size since there is no other major city for hundreds of miles away. That is why it has the pro teams, etc. This does not make it superior in any way to the other cities.
One thing is for sure, Louisville and Nashville have the cool/hip factor that KC and Indy can never match.
All 4 are great cities, growing, with booming economies and fast growing downtowns. I actually like them all, but my ranking is Louisville/Nashville in a tie, followed closely by KC, and Indy last. Indy is not as interesting, especially from a neighborhood perspective. For me, neighborhoods make a city, and this is where Louisville wins with its Highlands neighborhood. But the plaza in KC is also an amazing urban area.
Thanks for your input and good post. UMKC always had a good jazz program but Bobby Watson has taken it up a notch. I was thinking of state schools when I said top 5 but that's disputable. There's many great programs. There have been some fantastic players come out of UMKC. Most of them stay in KC because there are so many clubs but we also lose many to CA and New York.
You'd be the right person to ask, how many clubs does Indy have that play jazz 3+ nights a week?
Not many. KC clearly wins among these 4 in terms of jazz clubs. It is not even close. KC also has a pretty long standing history of jazz acts for 100 years.
But that is one thing I think that gives KC an identity
Nashville's is country music
Louisville's is bourbon, distilleries, and foodies (and horse racing once a year).
Indianapolis has less of a well defined identity than the other 3 IMO but I would say its a sports city, and its downtown is focused on that. From college to pro, to obviously Indycar, Indianapolis is sports city usa. The only reason Indy gets as many or more tourists than the other 3? Its MAJOR investment in its convention center, hotels, and tourist friendly downtown.
Nashville clearly gets the most leisure travelers I would say, and I think Louisville is next. The bourbon thing is so big I cannot even describe it.
Downbeat magazine listing 2 clubs in Indy, 2 in Nash and only one in KC is meaningless, the writer has probably never been to any of them. The number of clubs, musicians and overall scene is what we're talking about. And Jardines in KC was routinely listed on that list before it closed. It's a geographical fluff piece. Downbeat magazine has dedicated entire STORIES about the KC jazz scene including separate stories about (1) the Mutual Musicians Foundation, (2) The American Jazz Museum and (3) The University of Missouri @Kansas City Jazz Program under the direction of Bobby Watson.
Dude, you don't know what you're talking about. It's obvious you know nothing about either jazz scene. You're proving my point about movies being done about KC jazz like Clint Eastwood's "Bird," "Last of The Blue Devils" and Robert Altman's "Kansas City." The "Blue Devils" was not about how the scene had changed, it was a documentary about the great musicians that invented the swing style.
Kansas City has many jazz festivals, jazz is a way of life in KC.
Indy has only one festival dedicated to jazz and it didn't even start until 1999.
KC's many Jazz Festivals (even our surrounding suburbs have their own festivals)
18th & Vine Jazz and Blues Festival Rhythm and Ribs Festival
Corporate Woods Jazz Festival
The Kansas City Jazz Summit
Topeka Jazz Festival
Parkville JazzFest
Prairie Village Jazz Festival
Coleman Hawkins Jazz Festival
You're being special with the Indy only three jazz clubs comment. I've been to jazz clubs in KC and I was totally underwhelmed. For a city that promotes jazz you would think it would have at the very least the 2nd best venues in the Midwest. In its heyday Kansas City was top notch but today it is operating off of rep.
Downbeat Magazine lists Nashville and Indy as having more world recognized jazz venues than Kansas City. For a city that promotes jazz you would think it would have at the very least the 2nd best venues in the Midwest.
You're being special with the Indy only three jazz clubs comment. I've been to jazz clubs in KC and I was totally underwhelmed. For a city that promotes jazz you would think it would have at the very least the 2nd best venues in the Midwest. In its heyday Kansas City was top notch but today it is operating off of rep.
Downbeat Magazine lists Nashville and Indy as having more world recognized jazz venues than Kansas City. For a city that promotes jazz you would think it would have at the very least the 2nd best venues in the Midwest.
Dyadic, Indy has some neat jazz lounges in downtown and fountain square, but it cannot match the volume that is in KC. Trust me I have been to both. Indy has a nice little jazz scene though.
These hipsters are so noticeable vs 3 years ago in Louisville that you cannot bat an eye without seeing batches of them. Almost annoying honestly.
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