KC Performs | Kansas City Jazz Orchestra’s Art of Improvisation
KC Performs
November 12, 2020 | Brad Austin | 1 min read
Kansas City jazz will not be silenced. Not by a pandemic. Not by anything. Not if trumpeter, composer and bandleader Clint Ashlock has anything to do with it.
“With the pandemic, most of what all of us know went away. Venues closed. Club dates stopped,” said Ashlock, artistic director of the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra.
“It’s been really rough for artists and musicians.”
Even so, Ashlock and his colleagues have taken sax legend Bobby Watson’s advice and sought to tap into the most defining of jazz skills — improvisation — to survive the pandemic. One way they’re improvising is to appear on “KC Performs,” a new program that premieres tonight at 7 p.m. on Kansas City PBS.
Don’t forget to tune in your television tonight. In the meantime, though, feel free to enjoy the jazz orchestra’s sultry version of “Ain’t Nobody Like My Baby,” featuring singer Eboni Fondren, in the attached video.
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