Kansas City Loving: Fountains, Jazz and Barbecue!

A lot can change in a few years. When Little Willie Littlefield recorded the song and released it as a single, it flopped miserably. So why, seven years later, would Wilbert Harrison decide to take a chance on the tune? Maybe he was one of the few people who actually heard and appreciated Littlefield's version of the Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller-penned ditty. Regardless of his motivation, Harrison entered the studio with a determination to shake things up a little bit. To that end he brought along "Wild" Jimmy Spruill to play guitar on the cut---Jimmy had earned his nickname in part because he was fond of playing his guitar with his teeth. Oh yeah, this was going to be good! With his hands poised on his piano keyboard and a nod to Spruill, Harrison launched into the song, his voice literally dripping with joy. "I'm goin' to Kansas City/Kansas City here I come!" The song deservedly shot straight to the #1 position on the Billboard chart, no small feat in 1959 when the airwaves were being dominated by a singing G.I. named Elvis Presley. Long considered a rock'n'roll classic, the song referred to is of course "Kansas City." Few people know though, that the song used to have one more word in its title, a word that by omission creates an irony in light of the fact that the bouncy song has been adored by millions. The original title? "Kansas City Loving." And Kansas City is surely very easy to love. Let me count the ways…

Barbecue! 
I once got an autograph from former MTV associate and current Sirius Satellite Radio host Mojo Nixon. Mojo signed my poster, "Go straight to heaven---Go Karts, barbecue and John Lee Hooker." Now that's a pretty decent afterlife. But these three things can be had before you get fitted with a halo (or horns) and as far as the barbecue goes there is no better place to indulge than Kansas City. There are in fact so many 'cue joints in K.C. that no one really has a count on them. How cool is that? Can you imagine making it a project---one a week, one a day, mmm maybe two a day? And with so many choices, ask a dozen people which place is the best and you'll get twelve different answers. So you just have to be brave. Vegans, please skip to the next section! For the rest of you, here are some ideas. If your time in Kansas City only allows for one 'cue stop, make it at Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue. They have three locations in the area so you don't have to drive clear across town to dine there. Jack Stack is kind of a fancy place for a barbecue joint---no you don't need to wear a tie to get in---but the ambiance and the service here are on a par with any fine dining restaurant. If at all possible you want to go to Jack Stack with your friends, the more the better, and here's why: Everything they serve is delicious and ordering a la carte can be daunting---there are five kinds of ribs to choose from let alone four kinds of burnt ends, pulled pork, ham and turkey and beef brisket. There's chicken and salmon and all kinds of fixin's (the cheesy corn bake is a must) and on and on. You want to taste as much of it as you can, right? So go with a group and order one of Jack Stack's buffet feasts. They come with all the basic stuff and you can customize add-ons to suit individual appetites. These family-style meals come in four sizes starting with a 6-person array. If you're wondering what kind of sauce is on the meat, well you do that yourself and you'll have several tasty options. Go ahead and get a little messy---your server has a whole lot of wet-naps and you'll get your share. You'll leave Jack Stack stuffed but it won't be long until you're craving more, so pick up one of their catalogs on the way out the door. That's twenty-eight pages of mouth-watering food that you can have delivered anywhere in the country! www.jackstackbbq.com. Two other joints that I can highly recommend are Arthur Bryant's (3 locations) and Gates Bar-B-Q (five locations). Both of these chains have been feeding Kansas City for a long time; Arthur Bryant's since the '20s and Gates since 1949. As to all the other joints in town, let's just say I've got plans…

Jazz, Baby, Jazz
Kansas City's love affair with jazz music is legendary and a good deal of its past is chronicled at the American Jazz Museum www.americanjazzmuseum.com. The museum is located in the 18th & Vine Historic District on the same street where Count Basie hung out, the same neighborhood where Big Joe Turner never failed to keep the joint a-rockin'. Home-towner Charlie Parker walked these streets and the spirit of his sublime sax playing still oozes from every brick, every plank in surviving buildings. The overall ambiance here makes it easy to picture this area as it was in the '20s or '30s---sidewalks crowded with partiers drifting from club to club in search of the night's hottest jazz. The American Jazz Museum is full of photos of just such scenes, pictures that almost bring to life other pieces of memorabilia on display; instruments, clothing and other personal items of the players. Of course hundreds of jazz recordings are ensconced here and one of the most stunning displays is an array of lit neon signs that are originals that were salvaged from long gone clubs. Part of the museum is interactive and you can don headphones and play with various jazz tones.  The museum is very well laid out and easy to explore on your own but you may want to take a short tour with one of the museum's docents. If you are lucky enough to take a tour with education specialist and docent Dennis Winslett you are in for a special treat. It's very difficult to stump Dennis with any question about jazz but the real fun begins when he busts open his backpack. No, Dennis doesn't carry his lunch in there, that's his saxophone! Want to know how Charlie Parker played compared to an "ordinary" player? Dennis can tell you but he'd rather demonstrate "Bird's" unique phrasing for you. Thankfully there are a lot of people in Kansas City who have the same attitude as Dennis who are keeping the area's jazz tradition alive. The city has about 20 venues that host live jazz and on any given night you can hear it performed in many different styles. In one night's club-hopping I took in the Megan Birdsall Quartet at Jardine's www.jardines4jazz.com, Scamps at the Phoenix www.phoenixjazz.com, the Kansas City/New Orleans Jazz Cooperative at the Truman Room and the Tim AuBuchon Quartet at the Blue Room. Birdsall is a young vocalist who is gaining notoriety on the scene while Scamps bill themselves as the longest consecutively running group in the world having started out in 1932. The group blasts out rollicking classics like "Route 66" and they often back up long-time local favorite, Mama Ray. The Phoenix used to be a brothel so the building itself has a long tradition of providing "entertainment." At the Truman Room more traditional sounds were going down as the Cooperative covered songs like Victor Herbert's "Indian Summer."  Vocalist David Basse sat in with the group for a few songs, dazzling the audience with his Tony Bennett-style cool. It was also a night of traditional jazz at the Blue Room (adjacent to the American Jazz Museum) where AuBuchon's group featured guitarist Steve Grismore as they tackled numbers like Ornette Coleman's "Tears Inside." Also, just re-opened is the Drum Room, located inside the Hilton President Hotel www.drumroomkc.com. Once again featuring live jazz, the original Drum Room opened in 1941 and has an incredible history of hosting everyone from Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack buddies to the Marx Brothers to Patsy Cline. The Drum Room is one of the swankiest places in town to sip a martini and enjoy some relaxing music. If you think you don't like jazz, a night on the town in Kansas City will surely change your mind. And if somehow you really don't have a feel for this most distinctive of American genres, Kansas City is jumping with every other kind of music played live as well. But that's another story!

A Fount of Fountains 
As you travel around Kansas City you'll notice an abundance of fountains. This is not a coincidence as the city prides itself on having more fountains (per capita) than any other metropolis in the world. The fountains are sort of like the city's barbecue joints---some are famous and easy to find while others are little treasures tucked into more intimate spots. Perhaps the most famous is the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain located at 47th Street and Broadway Boulevard in the Country Club Plaza District. Designed by French sculptor Henri Greber in 1910, the oft-photographed landmark features four giant equestrian figures, each representing one of four great rivers---the Mississippi, Volga, Rhine and Seine. A very nice coffee-table book of the fountains is widely available in the city and it will lead you to such beauties as the Crown Center Square Fountain and the Rozzelle Court Fountain. The Plaza District has a high concentration of fountains big and small and a walking tour will show you where they all are amongst the bustling shops of the area. But why not explore The Plaza like a jet-setter on a Segway human transporter? If you've never ridden a Segway, no problem. The folks at The Segway Experience will give you a ½ hour safety and instruction lesson before you go zipping off to learn about the area's history and shopping hot spots. Actually the machines are set to go no faster than 12 m.p.h. which is just right to be exhilarating but not scary. The tour guides are very knowledgeable and they give a brief run-down on each fountain but if you want to know more, just ask. And you never step off of your Segway for the entire tour; by the end you'll be maneuvering like a pro. Small tour groups go out daily from the Intercontinental Hotel at 401 Ward Parkway and it is a good idea to make a reservation. 816.531.0600, www.segwayexperience.com. It is also a tradition in Kansas City for newly built free-standing business buildings to include a fountain somewhere in their design. So just when you think you've seen them all…

More Fun! 
The artsy side of Kansas City spills out onto the streets of the Crossroads Arts District www.crossroadscommunityassociation.org on the first Friday of every month for the aptly named "First Friday in the Crossroads." The Crossroads is packed with art galleries displaying works done in every conceivable medium and the shops stay open late on First Friday as the Crossroads turns into a massive street party. Most of the hip stores are within easy walking distance of one another but there is also a trolley that you can hop on to get to some of the "outlying" galleries. A good place to start (and Road Trip readers love to eat, right?) is Grinders at 417 E. 18th Street. Pizza, sandwiches and salads are prepared quickly here even when the place is full so you can munch and then hit the galleries. This is also a good place to return to when you're done shopping or window shopping because they rock out with live music in the space behind the eatery during First Friday. The characters you meet during First Friday can be as much fun as gazing at the art, take for example Bruce Burstert. Bruce co-owns Smith and Burstert Oriental Carpets, (122 Southwest Blvd.) a funky room filled with new and antique rugs. But take a look around and you'll notice the space has a piano too and if you ask Bruce about it you'll find out that he's a passionate musician and he may even sing a little opera for you!  Then there's Melody Hoskins of Standstill Productions (816.813.2421). Melody paints her face and hands a bronze color and stands stationary as if she were a statue or a very life-like mannequin. But drop a dollar in her tip box and she'll bow to you and blow you a kiss! The streets and the stores are filled with such colorful personalities during First Friday that it is no wonder that Kansas City turns out in droves to celebrate among the 60 specialty retailers every month. Of course in a vibrant city this large there are a million things to do, but here are a few more things you might want to squeeze into your itinerary: The Liberty Memorial Museum www.libertymemorialmuseum.org is the nation's World War I memorial---it is the only museum in the country that is dedicated solely to the history of that conflict. The museum is actually below ground level and atop it sits the memorial, a 217-foot tall tower. You can take an elevator to the top of the tower where an observation deck affords an amazing view of the city. Baseball fans and historians will want to tour the Negro League Baseball Museum (1616 E. 18th Street) that is located in the same building that houses the American Jazz Museum. A walking tour here leads you through a maze of memorabilia and ends up with your arrival onto a baseball diamond where statues at each position represent some of the greatest players of the era. This museum in my opinion is one of the best put-together sports museums in the country www.nlbm.com. The Arabia Steamboat Museum (400 Grand Blvd.) is another place well worth seeing. The Arabia was a 171-foot-long steamboat laden with 200 tons of brand new merchandise that wrecked on the Missouri River back in 1856. It wasn't until 1988 that she was discovered in a Kansas farm field (the river had changed courses in the area many times over the span of more than a century). Besides a staggering amount of vintage merchandise the museum also displays various parts of the ship herself and a piece of the "snag" that sunk her. Union Station, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is Kansas City's lovingly restored train station, first opened in 1914 www.unionstation.org. Walking into the mammoth open hall at Union Station is breathtaking as it has been restored to opening-day grandeur. One room here houses a huge mural that is a reproduction of a photograph taken back in the day and it shows that the restoration stayed true to the original architecture and design. The photo shows the station overflowing with people waiting for trains and you can see the expressions on their faces as they anxiously await the arrival of loved ones or hang on to the last few minutes before having to say goodbye. The corridors that once led to departure platforms are today filled with memorabilia, shops, eateries, etc. Because of the station's affiliation with the Smithsonian there is also a room that houses traveling Smithsonian displays. Union Station was also the site of the "Kansas City Massacre" where FBI agents had a shoot-out with gangster Pretty Boy Floyd and other hoodlums back in 1933. Bullet holes remain on the buildings exterior and a small plaque commemorates the tragedy that left 5 dead. And speaking of "bad" guys, Frank and Jesse James also roamed these parts. But as I've had to defer once already, that's another story!

And it Never Ends…
Perhaps more than any other American city, Kansas City is in the middle (beginning?) of a renaissance that has an incredible amount of cultural development on the table for coming years. Among the projects are an expansion of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, a new performing arts center scheduled for completion in 2009 and the almost finished development of the $835 million Power & Light shopping and entertainment district. So really, save yourself some time and just go ahead and plan on coming back! And now back to where we started with our Kansas City excursion and the song "Kansas City." You'll want to go to the famous intersection of 12th Street and Vine that's mentioned in the song. Well, it no longer exists, at least not as an intersection. But the city has created a park at the former intersection and to honor the instrument that the song's hit-maker Wilbert Harrison played, the park is in the shape of a piano. The park runs slightly uphill and if you get just the right angle you can get a photo that shows most of the piano shape. A street sign marks the spot where 12th and Vine used to be and that's a very appropriate place to relax a bit and take a moment to look forward to your next opportunity for some Kansas City loving.

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