Michael Pagán’s piano is more than a complement to the singing. And on the new CD, Mike and Mille Live, you’ll find her with pianist Michael Pagán in vocal and piano duets recorded live at Jardine’s.įrom the perfectly hit soaring notes on In a Mellow Tone and Just In Time to the tenderness of The Very Thought of You and Someone to Watch Over Me, Millie’s voice caries each song with power and emotion, vicarious hurt or fervent joy. Today she’s best known as a Wild Woman, singing with Myra Taylor, Geneva Price and Lori Tucker as one of the Wild Women of KC, a jazz favorite (photographed here).īut each Monday you’ll find her at The Phoenix (one of that bar’s last links to its jazz heritage). Then she was working days and singing nights, often with Everett DeVan. He was an art director and I was the production manager. I first met Millie Edwards some fifteen years ago, when her husband and I worked at the same ad agency. As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it. Here’s a look at how they celebrated to a packed house at Jardine’s earlier this month. But with twenty years of outstanding musicians playing outstanding Brazilian jazz, it’s past time to celebrate Sons of Brazil. But too often that’s been at the expense of the tremendous jazz musicians who I may just take for granted because they’ve always been around. I started this blog to celebrate discovering the tremendous young jazz talent in Kansas City today. All the while, bassist Greg Whitfield is providing the perfect underlying glue. Doug Auwarter is noted for educating as well as drumming, while he and percussionist Gary Helm complement each other, often as if they’re one complex instrument. Now make a list of best jazz guitarists, and in KC it will include Danny Embrey. Not an elder statesman, but a mainstay, one of this city’s hardest working jazz musicians since before I grew aware of KC jazz in the 1980s, and today Kansas City’s premiere jazz trumpeter.Īsk anyone who knows KC jazz to make a short list of our best jazz pianists and Sons of Brazil keyboard man Roger Wilder will be on it. Stan laughed (though if looks could kill, Mark Lowrey might not be here today). I saw founder Stan Kessler introduced once, jokingly, as an elder statesman of KC jazz. I think we take them for granted, because they’ve always been here.Īfter all, just how many jazz groups stay together for 20 years? And how many jazz bands in Kansas City can claim to have performed Brazilian jazz every week since their inception two decades ago? How many hold a twice monthly gig at a premiere jazz club? How many celebrated their anniversary June 6th at that jazz club?

Stan kessler kansas city jazz