Big Jay McShann: Kansas City, Here I Come

Big Jay “Hootie” McShann, who died in 2006, at (probably, though it's uncertain) age 90, fell blissfully between the stylistic cracks. Was the composer, pianist, singer and bandleader jazz? Or was he blues? The answer is: yes. Big Jay was shaped by a Kansas City scene that, well removed from the major American music centers, became an important center itself by making up new rules as it went along. The KC of this era produced saxophonists like swing king Lester Young and bop trailblazer Charlie Parker (who found his first job in McShann's band), pianists like boogie-woogie powerhouse Pete Johnson and bouncy Mary Lou Williams, urban blues shouters like Big Joe Turner and falsetto balladeer Pha Terrell. Given the comfort with which he himself plied two styles, it's only fitting that McShann also enjoyed two careers.

Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, McShann arrived in Kansas City in the mid '30s, when the music scene was at its most vibrant thanks to organized-crime boss Mayor Tom Pendergrast, who owned local speakeasies and brothels. At the height of Prohibition, Mayor Pendergrast had kept KC awash in bootleg booze and other forms of vice, and clubs ran 24/7. KC returned to something resembling normalcy after Pendergrast's 1939 conviction for income tax invasion, but the music scene was by then going national, thanks to Count Basie, Turner and others. As for McShann, his light, skittering piano style (inspired by stride master Earl Hines) had collided with the heavier, rumbling boogie-woogie of Johnson as soon as he'd hit town. In 1938, he formed his first band, arguably the last great KC aggregation, which grew to twelve pieces before breaking up in 1943. By the time the band was torn apart by the World War II draft and the Petrillo recording ban, the sound had evolved into the sort of jumping r&b that ultimately midwifed rock & roll. McShann's biggest hit, the 1941 “Confessing the Blues,” which he co-wrote with his vocalist Walter Brown, eventually found its way into the rock repertoire; Chuck Berry revived it in 1960 and the Rolling Stones then lifted his arrangement for 1964's 12 X 5.

After his Army discharge, Jay went to Los Angeles in 1945. Jimmy Witherspoon made his debut recordings in McShann's west coast band. But once he returned to KC in 1950, McShann was virtually out of the music business for nearly two decades. His second career began with a European tour in 1969, and continued up until his death. During this time — much of which is documented on eMusic — he recorded solo and with all manner of groups. His output includes the freewheeling My Baby with the Black Dress On — solo blues, boogie and standards recorded live on a cruise ship — two different collaborations with underrated stride pianist Ralph Sutton with the identical title of The Last of the Whorehouse Piano Players, the old-pros-at-play jazz groups of Some Blues and the warm, nostalgic Hootie! , on which he and his trio absorb three very different saxophonists in Bird acolyte Phil Woods, former Ray Charles bandleader David “Fathead” Newman and Jazz at the Philharmonic mainstay Flip Phillips.

In the last decade of his life, Big Jay enjoyed one last, delightful, career spurt with the Canadian label Stony Plain. By now, he resembled a wily, aging athlete like baseball's Roger Clemens, who, realizing he could no longer throw 100 mph fastballs at will, began working harder on pitch-placement and his breaking ball. McShann concentrated more on vocals, while his music became increasingly eclectic. He'd first sung on record in 1966, and initially sang after his '69 return mostly so he could honor requests for his old hits. But he eventually developed his own compressed, nasal vocal style. Meanwhile, his music drew less on riff-based KC arrangements than on an expanding mesh of traditions and styles. Yet he still carried within him that irrepressible, wide-open Kansas City spirit.

His Stony Plain albums include many new interpretations of old material. Hootie's Jumpin'Blues (1997), recorded with the Duke Robillard Band, which had just backed him at the Edmonton Folk Festival, is a mellow, afterhours session featuring head arrangements of McShann chestnuts like “I Want a Little Girl” and “Hootie Ignorant Oil.” But one of the real highlights is the duet between Big Jay and Duke (playing an archtop guitar) on “Profoundly Blue,” a tune associated with Charlie Christian that McShann had not recorded before. “Hootie's Blues for Big Miller” cuts a deep, heavenly groove. Still Jumpin 'the Blues (2001) puts a fresh charge into “Sunny Side of the Street,” while “Hootie's K.C. Christmas Prayer” features a Hawaiian steel. Goin'to Kansas City (2003) sees McShann return to the scene of his original breakthrough to compile perhaps the most varied album of this string, from the rollicking solo “Fish Fry Boogie” to two tracks with Chuck Berry's original pianist Johnnie Johnson. Hootie Blues, the jazziest of the bunch, also falters more often than the others, but still has a satisfying, easy-going feel. For me, the version of “Trouble in Mind” that appears on Goin'to Kansas City epitomizes Jay McShann's final years. This is another one he's recorded frequently, but here he sounds older and wiser and yet still philosophical, even playful. Life's rough, his tone suggests, always has been and always will be — but I had my fun, too.

How can anyone argue with that?

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