Happy In Bag

Saturday, July 21, 2007

PlasticSax.com









I blame Lee. It's my friend's fault that I've launched yet another blog.

You see, I've been desperately pining for a vibrant, regularly updated web site dedicated to jazz in Kansas City. I figured Lee was just the man for the job. He's certainly smarter, funnier and more attractive than me. But Lee doesn't post nearly enough at The New Low Down, and his overly generous praise of yours truly in his July 21 post doesn't entirely pacify me.

This isn't going to be easy. I attend live jazz performances just a few times a month. My affection for the music is no greater than my love of other genres, including indie rock, honky tonk and hip hop. And traditionalists will despise my catholic definition of jazz. Swinging wedding singers and nasty purveyors of noise are featured alongside more conventional jazz musicians at Plastic Sax. I also know from bitter experience that the jazz community is fraught with petty infighting and mean-spirited attacks. I'm setting myself up for plenty of abuse.

The good news is that I've already done some important work. The 150 jazz-related links at Plastic Sax are the most comprehensive collection of local sites ever assembled. It may never be complete- a few of the area's most important musicians and venues simply have virtually no web presence.

Until Lee or one of the couple dozen other more qualified people decide to relieve me of this burden, I'll bring much of the same dogged perseverance that characterizes Happy In Bag and There Stands the Glass to Plastic Sax.

Wish me luck.

6 Comments:

  • At 10:19 AM, Blogger Jacob S. Heiss said…

    Greetings! My name is Jacob Heiss. I found your blog by following Lee Ingall's, and I thought you might be interested in the following:

    Among other things, I am an ASCAP affiliated singer/songwriter and publisher from Chicago. I'm spending the summer in Kansas City for an internship I am completing with the Hon. Rev. Emmanuel Cleaver II in partial fulfillment of my masters program at Princeton Theological Seminary. I wound up with a little more spare time than I anticipated; so, I thought I'd put together a few live performances of my latest project, Identity Crises Incorporated, before I left town to complete the tracking for the project's first full-length release.

    The music spans indie rock, jazz, r&b, and world, e.g. bossa nova. I'm streaming four tracks of the project at http://www.myspace.com/idcinc; our Kansas City set will include these as well as several jazz and bossa nova standards, e.g. Garota de Ipanema, Fly Me to the Moon, and Autumn Leaves.

    If you're interested in attending any of our live performances; please let me know and I will do my best to comp. a ticket for you and as many guests as you wish to bring. The first performance will be at the Oak Street Coffee Shop on Tuesday, August 7th.

    Good luck with the new blog; it's certainly chocked full of handy information! Until next time,

    best regards,
    Jacob S. Heiss
    --
    band: http://www.myspace.com/idcinc
    personal: http://www.myspace.com/jacobheiss

     
  • At 8:46 PM, Blogger WLIB said…

    Haven't you guys heard? Jazz is dead!

     
  • At 9:26 PM, Blogger Don't Need Anything said…

    im excited. ill be spending some significant time checking thru all the links. kudos!

     
  • At 11:02 PM, Blogger Happy In Bag said…

    Thanks for checking in, Jacob.

    That's the spirit, Lee!

    I have guys like you in mind, DNA. That's why I count the skronk cats as "jazz."

     
  • At 7:44 PM, Blogger Eolaí gan Fhéile said…

    Now I missed this because life - the real kind - has been crazy of late,and I must confess that of every musical genre under the sun Jazz somehow is the only one not for me.

    That said, one of the best gigs I've ever been to was by Dudu Pukwana in a pub in Birmingham in England a long time ago (on a freezing Paddy's Day night as it happens), so I'll find a space or two somewhere to at least point people to here (well there, obviously).

    And another blog - are you mad?

     
  • At 8:03 PM, Blogger Happy In Bag said…

    Dudu Pukwana! You'll win every jazz-oriented oneupsmanship discussion by dropping that name.

     

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