Kansas City Jazz Orchestra’s next season: Top vocalists, musicians and Charlie Brown

Like classical chamber music, jazz is a conversation between musicians. The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra celebrates this aspect of jazz with its just-announced 2023-2024 season.

Vocalists Eboni Fondren, Lisa Henry and Deborah Brown, pianist John Beasley and saxophonist Bobby Watson will all make an appearance, and there’s a special treat for lovers, like myself, of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

“The overarching theme of the season is conversations in jazz,” said Clint Ashlock, the orchestra’s artistic director. “The idea is we’re going to highlight how jazz music is a conversation, both musically and artistically, but also how it’s an ongoing dialogue that we have in Kansas City.”

A concert featuring Fondren, a wonderful vocalist with quite a local following, will open the season on Sept. 23.

“We’re calling it ‘In the Key of KC,’ which is also the name of our new album,” Ashlock said. “We’ll be playing cuts from it. Eboni and I have also talked about doing some Julia Lee songs.”

Lee, born and raised in Kansas City, was a pianist and vocalist in her brother George Lee’s band, which at one time included Charlie Parker. Lee said that she specialized in “the songs my mother taught me not to sing.”

“She was the queen of risqué lyrics and double-entendres,” Ashlock said. “She had hits like ‘Come on Over to My House’ and ‘Snatch and Grab It.’ Her songs told a lot of the story of Kansas City. That puts her in that icon status.”

Ashlock says this is the first year the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra will be performing in two locations. In addition to their regular venue, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, the group will also perform in the Folly Theater. On Oct. 27 to 28, the group has a program planned for the Folly that will almost certainly include more Julia Lee.

“For that particular concert I’m planning on diving into music that represents the 100 or so years of Kansas City jazz,” Ashlock said. “Certainly we’ll do some older stuff, but I also wanted to think about Bobby Watson and Pat Metheny and Logan Richardson and some of those other figures from contemporary Kansas City.”

Jazz pianist and composer Vince Guaraldi made an immortal contribution to music to the holiday season when he composed the score for “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” First shown on TV in 1964, the show has been a holiday staple ever since. Ashlock says they’re planning to give a warm welcome to Charlie Brown and his friends on Dec. 5.

“For the past couple of months, we have been in talks with the ‘Charlie Brown’ people and the Vince Guaraldi people to get the rights to all of that music,” Ashlock said. “If we can afford the rights to that show, and I think we will, we’re going to do the first licensed big band presentation of ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas,’ including the visuals to show behind the band as we play. On top of that, we’ve got Lee Langston signed up to be vocalist.”

On Feb. 9 and 10, the conversation continues with Lisa Henry. Henry began singing in the Baptist church when she was only 6. By the time she was 17, she was singing in Kansas City nightclubs.

“Lisa is one of those contemporary Kansas City jazz figures that should have more acclaim than she does,” Ashlock said. “She was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk (Institute of Jazz International ) vocals competition, which is the big young people’s jazz competition. She’s sung at the White House and was an international jazz ambassador to Africa. She is just a phenomenal vocalist and historian and educator. That concert is going to be themed around her music and artistry.”

Grammy-winning jazz pianist John Beasley will be the special guest March 9 on a program called “The Genius of Monk, Bird, and More.”

“John is a renowned jazz pianist and bandleader and founder of the MONK’estra, which is one of the more critically acclaimed big bands which have come out in the last 10 or 20 years,” Ashlock said. “‘Bird Lives’ was the name of the record he made with the SWR Band, a German radio band. He won a couple of Grammys for his arrangements on that. I really wanted to bring him in to work his charts with the band.”

The season will conclude May 17-18 with vocalist Deborah Brown and saxophonist Bobby Watson, whom Ashlock calls “two massive figures in Kansas City jazz.”

“Deborah has a lot of ideas for the concert, and Bobby’s got a lot of originals and different things he’d like to do.

In addition to its concerts, the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra also does laudable educational work.

“We provide a lot of free opportunities for kids to hear music,” Ashlock said. “We bring music into schools, lunchrooms and assemblies. We’re going to have a Friday morning concert for young people at the Folly, like the concerts Leonard Bernstein did way back when. But through the jazz idiom. So I’m writing a one-hour program. It was such an influential thing for me to go to the Kansas City Symphony when I was a kid to hear them play music for kids. We want to do that with jazz.”

For tickets and more information, 816-225-4949 or kcjo.org.

Sept. 23: “In the Key of KC” featuring Eboni Fondren. Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

Oct. 27-28: “Talk of the Town.” Folly Theater, 300 W. 12th St.

Dec. 5: “The Music of Vince Guaraldi” featuring Lee Langston. Kauffman Center

Feb. 9-10: “Conversations” featuring Lisa Henry. Folly Theater

March 9: “The Genius of Monk, Bird and More” featuring John Beasley. Kauffman Center

May 17-18, 2024: “This Is Kansas City” featuring Deborah Brown and John Beasley. Kauffman Center

Lyric Opera — Sondheim on Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim, who died in 2021 at the age of 91, is considered by many to be the father of the modern American musical. The Lyric Opera of Kansas City will celebrate his unique genius with “Sondheim on Sondheim” on May 6 and 7 at the Muriel Kauffman Theatre.

The program will feature songs from Sondheim’s mind-boggling number of hit musicals, like “West Side Story,” “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Into the Woods” and many more.

The Lyric’s “Opera Dives Deep” lectures will help shed light on the works of Sondheim. On May 1, John Tibbetts will discuss a little-known opera Sondheim wrote for television called “Evening Primrose,” at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center, Brookside Room, 4801 Rockhill Road.

7:30 p.m. May 6 and 2 p.m. May 7. Muriel Kauffman Theatre, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. $33.50-$139.50. 816-471-7344 or kcopera.org.

MAPAA — Voices From the Metropolitan Opera

The Mid-America Performing Arts Alliance will give us a taste of some outstanding vocal talent when it presents “Voices From the Metropolitan Opera” May 5 at Pine Ridge Presbyterian Church. Virtuoso voices from the Met will perform opera favorites and Broadway standards, and those voices will be accompanied by some superb musicians, like pianist Tatiana Tessman and cellist Jesse Henkensiefken.

7 p.m. May 5. Pine Ridge Presbyterian Church, 7600 N.W. Barry Road. Free. mapaa.org.

Ensemble Ibérica — 10 Years

Congratulations to guitarist Beau Bledsoe and his Ensemble Ibérica for bringing the rich diversity of Spanish music to Kansas City for 10 years. This enterprising group will celebrate with a 10th anniversary concert featuring vocalist Fedra Barrera on May 2 at the MTH Theater. The ticket price includes a premium bar and hors d’oeuvres. There will also be a live auction to help keep the group going strong for years to come.

7 p.m. May 2. MTH Theater, Crown Center, 2450 Grand Blvd., Suite 301. $35-$60. tinyurl.com/3zu4dn8t

Kansas City Chorale — ‘Romancero Gitano’

The Kansas City Chorale conducted by Charles Bruffy has a Latin-flavored program coming up on on May 5 at Visitation Catholic Church and May 7 at Asbury United Methodist Church. “Romancero Gitano” will feature works for chorus and guitar by Tedesco, Jeffrey Van and Mark Smythe.

7:30 p.m. May 5 at Visitation Catholic Church, 5141 Main St., and 2 p.m. May 7 at Asbury United Methodist Church, 5400 W. 75th St., Prairie Village. $20-$25. 816-444-7150 or kcchorale.org.

You can reach Patrick Neas at patrickneas@kcartsbeat.com and follow his Facebook page, KC Arts Beat, at www.facebook.com/kcartsbeat.