May 11-13 Spring Tour with Jazz Ensemble and Show Choir

This year, I accompanied the Jazz Ensemble and the Show Choir on the groups' annual and wonderfully successful Spring Tour from Monday, May 11, through Wednesday, May 13.


I gathered the photographs for your convenience into the following four sections:

1. Plattsmouth High School
   
   
2. Lees Summit Retirement Community
   
   
   
3. Worlds of Fun
   
   
4. Lunch at Bryant's and the Jazz and Negro Baseball League Museums
   

After packing the bus between seven and eight on a beautiful Monday morning, the group headed to Plattsmouth High school for the first of three concerts on the schedule.



At Plattsmouth High School, the groups performed for over a hundred very enthusiastic music and band members in the school's excellent theater.


In the following video, you can hear the Misty Blues perform "Louder Than Words" from Tick Tick Boom:









And for a very energetic and responsive audience, the Jazz Ensemble offered in the following video their version--and what has become, as I noted in another blog entry, their signature song for the year--"Car Wash":





From the Plattsmouth show, you can also watch The Misty Blues' "It Had Better Be Tonight" and the Jazz Band's performance of their very popular "Respect."



After the Plattsmouth audience of high-school students, the groups loaded the bus and headed for Kansas City where that evening at 7:00 they performed at Lees Summit to a very different but equally enthusiastic audience of over a hundred people who live in a large--over 2,000 folks-- retirement community there.


From the Misty Blues' performances, you can watch here their version of Earth Wind and Fire's September:





And From the Jazz Ensemble's offerings, enjoy the exciting Big Noise from Winnetka:



From the Lees Summit videos, you can also watch Jane Henry's sultry "Fever" and the Misty Blues' We Belong.



The final performances of the Show Choir and Jazz Ensemble took place on Tuesday in what turned out to be the most challenging venue, Worlds of Fun.


As the following image indicates, the stage on which the Jazz Ensemble and the Misty Blues performed looks like a train station--and for a very good reason:



In fact, if you watch near the conclusion of Moanin', you will see behind the stage's "train car" background, the white puffs of the train's steam engine as the sedate ride through the park pulls into the station:






And as you can tell from watching the Misty Blues perform "Handful of Keys," the youngsters on the nearby rides make their presence emphatically know. But, as the saying goes, the Jazz Ensemble and the Misty Blue played on, matching the youngster's enthusiasm and joy:



For your pleasure, I also uploaded from the Worlds of Fun fanfare the Jazz Ensemble's "Afro Blues" and the Misty Blues' "September."

The excitement continued after the show concluded, for the entire group spent the remainder of the day experiencing the excitement of the various roller coaster attractions.

Somewhere, the photographs of Tom Ediger and me on The Patriot ride--55 seconds of horror--offer a very good definition of terror.

But I post a picture from Worlds of Fun that includes me and Tom, pleased to stand on firm ground with happy members of the group:


The final day of the tour, Wednesday, we did not get started until 11:30 when we hopped on the bus for lunch at Arthur Bryant's BBQ, a famous restaurant that certainly lived up to its reputation.

After a delicious lunch, we spent three hours at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum, two places worth your visit.

I close this entry with a photograph of everyone from the Spring Tour gathered around the bust of Charlie Parker; indeed, The Bird Lives.