Jay McShann

Jay McShann (born James Columbus McShann, January 12, 1916, in Muskogee, Oklahoma; died December 7, 2006, in Kansas City, Missouri) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader and singer, known as “Hootie.” He grew up around the dance halls of Oklahoma and Kansas City, taught himself by listening to records and watching other pianists, and established himself in Kansas City in the mid-1930s, when the city was one of the busiest blues and swing centers in the country.

From 1939 he led his own big band and recorded for Decca. On the 1941–42 sessions the alto saxophone section held a Charlie Parker still in his early twenties — Parker’s first important professional job. The band’s “Confessin’ the Blues” with vocalist Walter Brown became an early rhythm-and-blues classic, and McShann’s own “Hootie Blues” stands as a signature Kansas City jump tune.

After the big band broke up in the late 1940s he worked around Kansas City with small groups and spent some years outside music. The revival of the 1970s brought him back to international stages; the 1979 documentary “The Last of the Blue Devils” filmed his reunion with old Basie-era colleagues, and he went on to tour Europe and Japan frequently and was still recording in the 1990s. His piano is Kansas City to the bone: a walking boogie left hand, short blues figures in the right, and a voice that carries the same ease. He received the NEA Jazz Masters award.

This catalog adds “McShann’s Piano” (1967, Capitol ST 2645) and “The Last of the Blue Devils” (1978, Atlantic SD 8800). The first re-records his signature pieces — “Vine Street Boogie,” “Moten Swing,” “Confessin’ the Blues” — in trio and quartet formats with guitarist Chuck Norris, electric bassist Ralph Hamilton and drummers Jesse Price and Paul Gunther. The second comes from the revival years, with Buddy Tate and Paul Quinichette on tenor saxophone, Joe Newman on trumpet, Milt Hinton on bass and John Scofield on guitar, and liner notes by Stanley Dance.

Cover photograph: Billboard promotional portrait, public domain; body photograph by Phil Wight in Edinburgh, around 1995, CC BY 2.0. Both from Wikimedia Commons.