Kansas City is rightly famous for its jazz history, yet the cutting edge of improvised music has been excluded from the scene. Now, though, Seth Andrew Davis and Evan Verploegh are making the area more hospitable to their music of choice.
“I’m from here. I love this city a lot,” says Davis, an adjunct professor of music technology at University of Central Missouri. “I'm going to put my flag down and try to be a part of something, making something happen here rather than going off to another place.”
Unlike in Chicago and St. Louis, Kansas City didn’t have an established infrastructure for experimental improvised music. And while it’s a continuation of the innovations of Kansas City jazz icon Charlie Parker, the often abrasive attack favored by Davis, 29, and Verploegh, 30, isn’t suited to genteel jazz clubs.
“This is underground music,” says Verploegh, whose 9-to-5 is executive director of the International Relations Council in Kansas City. “It always will be underground music.”
That’s why the pair have banded together with like-minded musicians under the banner of The Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society.
Davis, a guitarist and electronic musician, and drummer Verploegh collaborate with an impressive array of representatives from Kansas City’s free jazz, experimental rock and avant-garde classical music communities.
Affiliates of the coalition include multi-instrumentalist Aaron Osborne, keyboardist and vocalist Kelley Gant, harpist (and Classical KC host and digital audience specialist) Brooke Knoll, bassist Krista Kopper, suona player Kwan Leung Ling and saxophonist Drew Williams.
“A collective would be a way for people in the Kansas City community to know where to go to find improvised and experimental music,” Verploegh says.
Many of their performances are truly extemporaneous; not only do the musicians perform without setlists, every note is improvised. And though frequent collaborators often display a seemingly telepathic rapport, there usually aren’t preconceived notions dictating the direction a session might take. The sustained rhythms and swinging grooves associated with Kansas City jazz are rarely employed.
The result, which can vary widely, is sometimes hushed beauty or jarring cacophony — and sometimes both in immediate succession. It’s the antithesis of soothing background music but, when successful, the unstructured improvisations reveal breathtaking surprises.
Although they freely draw on rock and contemporary classical music, Davis and Verploegh cite the free jazz played by the likes of Albert Ayler and the harmolodic conception originated by Ornette Coleman as inspirations. They’re also influenced by contemporary classical composers including Morton Feldman.
“From the get-go, it was clear that this was never going to be music that was going to be presented in, quote-unquote, mainstream venues and we don’t expect that it ever will,” Verploegh says.
“In the history of underground music — whether it be punk rock or hip-hop or anything — it's about people making their own spaces to play, promoting their own shows, and ultimately doing it themselves,” he says. “We’re not sitting at home, waiting for the chance that it ever will come, because it will not come.”
Since bookings at Kansas City’s jazz clubs are out of the question, many performances are held in offbeat locations such as art galleries, record stores and city parks. It helps that Davis and Verploegh aren’t dependent on income from performances, which often attract only a handful of adventurous listeners.
“So many of our heroes spent their careers toiling in obscurity and playing to rooms of five to 10 people,” he says. “I'm happy to be a part of that tradition. It means the world to us, and what we put into the performance is not going to change whether we're playing to an empty room or a hundred people.”
'The hub of the Midwest'
In spite of such barriers, musicians in the coalition record and perform more than many of Kansas City’s most popular artists. In the past three years, members of the collective have released dozens of albums and presented about 200 avant-garde concerts.
Kansas City musician Shante Clair recalls being delighted during her first encounter with the collective.
“I went to a house show and they were playing, and I was like, ‘What, what, what? This is amazing!’ And I just started going to all the shows,” she says.
Clair, a guitarist who performed in the band Shiny Jets, eventually became a regular collaborator with the collective. The opportunity to play, in Kansas City, the music she loves has altered her life goals.
“It’s the only kind of music I ever want to play,” she says. “I can stay in KC.”
David Lord is among the many touring musicians Extemporaneous Music brings to Kansas City. In March, he headlined a show with the coalition at the punk-oriented nightclub Farewell, performing material from his “Forest Standards” album series featuring the heralded new guitarist Jeff Parker.
“Seth is kind of the hub of the Midwest in a way,” Lord says, grateful for Davis’ efforts.
“I remember before and after when he started booking shows, and it’s been quite a difference from my perspective,” he says. “At least now I know I can always play Kansas City. Before it was kind of hit or miss.”
The collective is bringing 76-year-old Memphis drummer Ra Kalam Bob Moses to Charlotte Street Foundation on April 17. After Moses and Lee’s Summit native Pat Metheny worked together in a band led by vibraphonist Gary Burton, Metheny featured Moses on his 1976 debut album, “Bright Size Life.” (Jaco Pastorius, the mercurial bassist who died in 1987, rounded out the trio.)
Metheny and Moses remain at the vanguard of jazz — just the type of legacy Davis and Verploegh hope to achieve.
“Our stuff is good,” Davis says. “We're good players. We have some of the best musicians … doing improvised music in Kansas City, and we have a right to be heard and to play.”
EMAS Presents: Ra Kalam Bob Moses at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 17 at Charlotte Street Stern Theater, 3333 Wyoming St., Kansas City, Missouri 64111. The performance will be preceded by a workshop at 5 p.m. More details are at CharlotteStreet.org.
