After their official gigs, jazz artists would spend all night in jam sessions that helped create the improvisational tradition of Kansas City jazz. The center of the African American community, a few blocks away at 18th and Vine, was also known as a place for jazz. In Kansas City, Missouri, the area around 12th Street was known for gambling parlors and brothels as well as nearly 50 jazz clubs. The community had more than 100 night clubs, dance halls and vaudeville houses during the 1930s. Many believed the political boss Tom Pendergast got anything he wanted during this era, which didn’t interfere with jazz clubs staying open all night, with ready sources of alcohol and even drugs.

In addition, it was viewed as a “wide open” town in terms of the flow of alcohol, in spite of prohibition.

Budding airlines also had Kansas City on their routes. In 1930, just under 10 percent (38,574) of the Kansas City, Missouri, population of 399,746 was black.ĭuring the 1930s, Kansas City was a crossroads for transportation with the Union Pacific Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe and several other railroads passing through the city. Count Basie, who joined Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra in 1929, is generally credited to originating the style and Kansas City native Charlie Parker transitioned the musical style to bebop in the 1940s. In the 1920s and 1930s, African American musicians in the Kansas City area developed their own style of jazz that pulled heavily from the blues music tradition as well as ragtime.

Kansas city jazz history