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Kansas City Jazz

Kansas City Jazz: Influential Persons
What is jazz music? A single definition cannot be found. Many writers have attempted to define jazz music only to regress to trying to define what it does. Even this approach is difficult. Writers have only been able to find broad areas to agree up, such as agreeing that jazz is music. But alas, even this is a shortcoming in the eyes of some. Jazz has been so many things throughout it long and illustrious history that it's even hard to point out its origins, which stem from many places, many styles of music, and many people. However there is an ongoing debate as to its precise origins. It is known to have evolved out of New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century and from there spread to the north and Midwest. Based in blues and ragtime, jazz was seen to have geographical "hot spots" throughout the country; New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and Kansas City. Each "hot spot" has its own history containing significant events and people that helped shape the musical style of that culture center. Kansas City is no exception. There are innumerable persons that helped make Kansas City jazz what it has become.
Jazz emerged in a time that one might think that something new, such as the jazz movement, would not succeed. Jazz began to gain notoriety in the midst of The Great Depression. Kansas City's ability to sustain throughout such a horrible time can only be accredited to one thing; the administration of Thomas J. Pendergast, "boss" of Kansas City (and much of Missouri) from 1911 until his arrest for tax evasion in 1938. His methods, however, where not of the most reputable morals. Pendergast openly tolerated a "wide-open town" in Kansas City in exchange for political and financial benefits. Pendergast's tolerance of such laws as Prohibition were so extreme that from the year 1920 to 1933 there was not a single felony conviction for violation of that law. This is seen as more unusual when one realizes that there were over 300 bars in...