Friday night is the best night for music in Kansas City. I always look forward to kicking back with friends, drinking brews, and admiring the well dressed women who spend hours on their wardrobe. At Czar Bar I let loose and ran into some familiar faces while enjoying the music of Diverse and The Good Foot. I missed the first set from Diverse. Arriving at a bar too early on a Friday night is not a good idea for me. The legal blood-alcohol limit is insanely low for a man who loves beer. I regret missing their opening set but I am certain they didn’t just turn into amazing jazz musicians during their fifteen minute break. Those skills were acquired through years of practice.

Diverse was assembled in 2008 at UMKC by Bobby Watson, the godfather of Kansas City jazz musicians. The combo entered the Gene Harris Jazz competition and beat eleven other groups for a recording contract with Origin Records. Their debut album “Diverse” did well on the jazz charts in 2009. When I first heard them on 90.1 KKFI’s “Jazz Calendar,” I thought that the band had too much help from people who know the industry inside and out. After listening to their show at the Czar Bar I realized they truly earned it. Not only does this group play good jazz, but I heard plenty of rock, funk, and hip hop influences in their sound as well. The band consists of Hermon Mehari on trumpet, Ben Leifer on bass, John Brewer on keys, and Ryan Lee on drums.

Hermon Mehari is a machine. His sound produces a range of colors and expressions that show he means business. He played with a lot of energy at Czar Bar. Many older musicians don’t have this energy because of physical limitations and years of getting screwed by club owners, record producers, and managers throughout their career. Many younger musicians can’t use this energy because they are still stumbling through fingerings and searching for their sound. Hermon owns a vocabulary of licks that can be used in any situation from bebop, funk, latin, rock, and blues. He transposes them, plays them backwards, and puts them in sequence effortlessly through the chord changes. He’s an avid fan of Kenny Garrett and his sound quotes the influence by searching for new ways to play. His sound tells me he would much rather play through a demanding bebop tune than a soft, sleepy ballad.

Ben Leifer has been around the block in Kansas City. I can’t think of many jazz musicians who haven’t tried to borrow him for a gig or two. Who wouldn’t want his feel and solo capabilities to provide a backbone for the rhythm section? At Czar Bar Ben played electric bass, an instrument I don’t hear from him often. I later asked Ben why he chose electric and he told me that the acoustics of the room weren’t supporting his upright sound. I felt that the sound engineer at the Czar Bar was among the best in Kansas City; however, jazz is always a tough concept for engineers to capture because it requires careful attention to dynamics. Upright bass, although percussive in nature, doesn’t project well. Ben’s electric bass gave Diverse a fusion sound, decorated by the beautiful colors of John Brewer’s Nord electric keyboard. Ben’s extended solos used fast finger tricks, interesting chord inversions, and beautiful bass harmonics. The features of the electric bass allowed Ben to project much better than an upright and contributed to the high energy level that Diverse harnesses during a performance.

Ryan Lee killed it. His feel is light and crisp but his tone is rich and full. He keeps nearly perfect time with his left foot high-hat and has innovative ideas about rolls and fills. When Ryan introduces a groove structure, he starts with a whisper. He then carefully adds subtle detail to each beat and sneaks in slow crescendos. He eventually reaches a volume so full and energetic that it cannot possibly become more intense. After Ryan reaches his maximum intensity, the drums push the sound further with a cacophonous burst that gets the audience to really pay attention to the stage. Combining that progression of energy with Hermon’s fast licks, Ben’s drive, and John’s glue is what makes Diverse stand out from most of the other jazz musicians in Kansas City.

John Brewer does great work on the keyboard. Although he doesn’t play dazzling solos like Ben and Hermon, he helps create the fusion sound that Diverse needs for these bar gigs. I felt that John did some creative work with tune introductions. I recall one solo he played where he was consciously holding back, playing a few scattered notes and finding odd places to fit them in between Ryan’s rhythms. I was impressed that he showed discipline not to ‘unleash the beast,’ as they say, but to rather find strange pockets of tension that contrasted Hermon and Ben’s solos.

Diverse had a special guest that evening at the Czar Bar. His name is Matt Chalk and his instrument is the alto saxophone. He recently won an audition to play with the Dave Matthews Band at the 2010 Grammy Awards. Matt impressed me during his guest spot with Diverse. His style is comparable to Charlie Parker with a cleaner approach to tone production. Matt’s licks included octave jumps, off beat tonguing, trills, turns, altissimo, and a command of the jazz language shown by his note choices. The tone of his alto is bright and cuts through the room. Chalk’s sound can also be described as light and airy, allowing him to float on top of the harmonic structure. Matt will be on tour with Diverse soon, and from the look of things, might just skip college all together. I asked him who his teacher was and to my surprise, found out that he is self taught.

Diverse ended their set around 10 o’ clock and I caught them for an interview afterwards:

Audio Recorded Feb 19th 2010 © Nectar Notes

By the time the Good Foot was ready to play, Czar Bar was packed. The cover for this show was advertised at five dollars on facebook; however, when I arrived the bouncer charged me eight dollars to get in. I don’t mind paying for good music but it angers me as a fan when I am told a certain price and charged an extra fifty percent at the door. This could be due to a lack of communication between the bands and the venue. It could also be a result of dishonest marketing and that is unforgivable in any circumstance.

I have issues with the Czar Bar. The main one is that the floor plan is terrible for live music. The bar is set up perpendicular to the stage; however, it faces the wall. There are tables along the wall which give fans about 7 feet of space to walk from the bar area to the dance floor, a recipe for disaster on a crowded Friday night. From the bar, a fan has to look left to see the stage, which can cause an aching neck. Also, the bartenders, although busy, kept me waiting to close my tab for thirty minutes. I was angry about this and did not leave a tip. People around me who had been waiting less time were getting served, but I had a tab to close. If the venue had adequate space to host a show like this and enough people working to staff it, they could fix a lot of these problems. These flaws of the venue caused me to leave during The Good Foot’s second set.

The Good Foot is a seven piece ensemble dedicated to the old school Soul and R & B. They have a full sound that contributes to a fun atmosphere where the crowd dances heavily and everybody can sing along with tunes they know. From James Brown to the Temptations to Aretha Franklin, The Good Foot puts on a killer live show. All of the musicians dress and present themselves well, tunes are memorized, and the funk groove is always happening in the rhythm section. The band consists of bass, guitar, drums, keyboard, trumpet, tenor saxophone, and vocals. This is the kind of band that will have success because what they lack in originality is made up for in marketability and execution. This band could play for any age group, anytime, anywhere and the fans would enjoy it no matter who they are.

Julia Hale, front woman of The Good Foot, packs some serious pipes. Her sound is full, in tune, and projects well over the six instrumentalists in the band. It seems that Julia is rooted in this style of music and her voice breaks barriers because she is a woman that has a gritty, beautiful low range. The rhythm section of The Good Foot takes a minimal approach to soul music by not allowing chops or technique to hinder a song, although sometimes I wonder if all the players in the rhythm section can rip solos. This is okay because their style does not require overbearing chops or innovative licks to sound great. Adam Wagner does a great job balancing a funky keyboard style and vocals together.

The horn section is backed by Nick Howell on trumpet and Marshall Tinnermeier on tenor saxophone. These guys blend well together through intonation and projection of sound. Nick Howell has a great rhythm sensibility that helps the band maintain their dance feel. Marshall has a more melodic approach and even though his solos are short, he says everything he needs to say. His tone on tenor saxophone is gritty and bright, piercing through the rock instrumentation with a metal mouthpiece.

The Good Foot is a band for the audience. I had fun watching people drunkenly dance at the Czar Bar trying to remember lyrics to songs they’ve heard a million times. The Good Foot has potential to take their soul review to the next level; however, I don’t think that cover bands will ever provide a breakthrough needed to push music forward. The combination of Diverse and The Good Foot was an enjoyable experience and the differences between the groups is what made the show interesting. As for the Czar Bar, I seriously hope they change the way they do business by avoiding too large of crowds, offering friendlier service, and not gouging ticket prices just to make a few extra bucks. It’s time to change the way venues treat their customers and their musicians alike.

Published Wednesday, 31st March 2010 - Written by Alex Tate