Enjoy Kansas City Jazz!  KC's Premiere Jazz Club & Jazz Museum

It's been said that jazz was born in New Orleans, and it grew up in Kansas City.  There were four major stops along the earliest jazz portals, including New Orleans, Kansas City, Chicago, and New York.  During its golden age, the Kansas City jazz scene was a thriving force, brimming over with plenty of economic development and artistic output beyond category - during a time when the country was at the height of economic downfall and prohibition.

Under the rule of Mob Boss Tom Pendergast, the 1920s, 30s and 40s saw the Historic 18th & Vine Jazz District as an epicenter of activity, often coined as the "Paris of the Plains."  Compared to New York's famed 52nd Street, 18th Street was the heart of the community where you could find everything from clothes to cars, doctors or dancing, and plenty of jazz, as the jam sessions lasted 24 hours a day.  It was a community full of spirit, diversity, and an incredible hub of commerce, culture and entertainment.

18th & Vine was bristling and buzzing with a unique musical force, a scene ripe with riffs, built upon jumpin' jazz blended with blues, Bird's blossoming bebop, and Kansas City's signature swing.  This is the place where John Coltrane first met Charlie Parker - right on the corner of 18th & Vine - and the same area that nurtured the careers of legendary names like Count Basie, Big Joe Turner and Mary Lou Williams, and hundreds of others who shaped the sounds of jazz.