9:00 PM - Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors

18
clarence smith continued
more of a jazz experience. So, that desire to play well, and
the motivation to practice, to spend time learning their
instrument is more like a college student. Most are here
to get an in-depth jazz education. They normally practice
and prepare, and work hard. You put it out there, and
they take it!
“Before I was Musical Director of KCYJ, I would tell
Mr. Brady and any group that I spoke in front of that of all
the things that I do in my musical life, as a performer and
educator, a clinician, KCYJ is right top of the list. There
is never a Saturday morning that I want to be somewhere
else. I can’t wait to get here to practice. The Brady’s have
developed a culture that makes learning possible. And,
they make it easy for instructors. Once you get here and
realize the impact that you have on the kids, and the impact
they can have on the future of jazz in this town…. I
just never realized the impact of what I do on my students.
So KCYJ is extremely important to the future of the music.
Hopefully these kids will leave here and then go to college,
maybe at UMKC or somewhere else, and some will come
back and have an impact on jazz in Kansas City.” Like, for
example, Bobby Watson. “Oh, yes, a huge impact, he’s one
of the best players on Earth, and he chose to come back,
JAM DECEMBER 2011 + JANUARY 2012
it is really important. You know, some of the students
in KCYJ have friends at UMKC, they learn from them,
and play and gig with them, and the UMKC program’s
influence can be heard in the number of great young
players who are from – or even still in – the program who
are working in town. My son is at UMKC, a trombone
player, and is working hard and having a great experience,
doing very well there.
The program
has gone to
the next level.”
As an educator and
musician, Clarence is
also a promoter of jazz,
and sees the need to tell
his students the truths
about jazz history and
its place in our culture,
and how Americans
seem to take it for
granted. “I wouldn’t
say these are dark days
for jazz, even its popularity
and awareness
of the music, it’s not
very good,” he related.
“Some s e e
PHOTO BY EMILY ATKINSON
jazz a museum
piece
you can go
see. Jazz has become music for academics, mostly done
in schools, and working hard to find an audience. The
jazz scene in Kansas City is really pretty robust, I don’t
see it in other places I visit. My jazz history students have
to go out and listen to jazz, and I have a lot of choices for
them.
“We have to do a better job of making younger people
aware. When I started teaching in Kansas City, the city of
Kansas City, Missouri, and the Kansas City school district
partnered on a Jazz Day, where they brought in every fifth
grader to the Music Hall. They would get a little pamphlet
on the history of Kansas City jazz, and they would get
a concert by a big band made up of teachers, and we’d
bring in Frank Smith and Leon Brady, and there would
be several different kinds of combos. And they don’t do
it anymore. Every fifth grader had to do that, and teachers