“Donald is fluent in bebop, and I'm fluent in quantum physics,” Alexander says. Harrison and Alexander are calling their collaboration quantum improvisation. “Talking about music through the prism of quantum physics and theoretical physics has given me the keys to the vast universe, which we'll never be able to completely explore and find the answers to,” Harrison says. Harrison doesn’t have a background in science, but he says learning more about quantum physics helps him think like a scientist. “I think it's a wellspring for researchers like myself and other scientists to sort of delve deeper into the hidden codes in there,” he says. “Genius, not just only on a musical level, but also, he was playing quantum physics.” “It really starts with Charlie Parker and his genius,” Alexander says. The result became its own artistic form - bebop.įor Alexander, Parker’s musical achievement is hard to overstate. Parker’s cosmic improvisations riffed on the popular songs of the day. Charlie Parker heard them, and he took all those sounds and came up with his sound.” “Of course, all the great saxophonists (were) there. “ Count Basie told me how that sound in Kansas City developed,” Harrison remembers. When Harrison was 19, another Kansas City legend pulled him aside after a concert in Chicago. “I am a student of Bird every day, all day, because his music is like the universe is: infinite,” Harrison says “He's a lifetime of study that you can never finish because he did so much.” When Harrison was a young musician, he sought out every older player he could find who had worked with Parker. As it turned out, the two have a lot in common - including an obsession with Charlie Parker, known in the jazz world as 'Bird.' Harrison, who is known for his improvisational style, had just recorded a song called “Quantum Leap,” and he turned to Alexander for feedback.

In 2012, Alexander met National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Big Chief Donald Harrison, a New Orleans sax player and big chief of the Congo Square Nation Afro-New Orleans Cultural Group.

There were even stumbling and making mistakes. “What they were doing looked very much like what scientists would do in a lab,' Alexander says. Each jazz ensemble performs for three adjudicators who provide comments and assign ratings in addition to working with each group on stage after their performance.LaBudde Special Collections, UMKC University Libraries Charlie Parker performing in Los Angeles in the 1940s. Large jazz ensembles and jazz combos from schools in Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska will perform in 25-minute time slots. The musicians perform the swing music of Count Basie, Jay McShann, Andy Kirk and the 12 Clouds of Joy, Harlan Leonard and His Rockets, Mary Lou Williams, Joe Turner and the world-famous boogie-woogie piano master Pete Johnson, among others.Ī schedule of middle school and high school ensembles and jazz combos performing at the Northwest Jazz Festival is provided below. Both ensembles will perform in the Charles Johnson Theater.įeaturing some of Kansas City’s top musicians, Vine Street Rumble recreates the city’s jazz legacy founded at 18th and Vine. In addition to a performance by the Northwest Jazz Ensemble at noon, Vine Street Rumble will headline the festival with a performance at 5 p.m. Jones Student Union Ballroom and the Mary Linn Auditorium at the Ron Houston Center for the Performing Arts. and continue throughout the day in the Charles Johnson Theater as well as the J.W. 17, with 33 middle school and high school ensembles set to perform. Then, Northwest hosts its annual Jazz Festival on Friday, Feb. The program will feature a celebration of American music from a variety of styles. 13, in the Charles Johnson Theater at the Olive DeLuce Fine Arts Building.

The week opens with Northwest’s Studio Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Ensemble performing a concert at 7:30 p.m. (Photo by Todd Weddle/Northwest Missouri State University) The Northwest Jazz Ensemble, pictured during a concert last fall, will perform Feb.

Kansas city jazz orchestra schedule