Kansas City: A Robert Altman Film

Robert Altman's Kansas City is basically a 1930s gangster film, but much of the action takes place in the Hey Hey Club, a black-owned nightclub and gambling den where an all-day, all-night jam session is in progress, featuring such figures as Lester Young (played by Joshua Redman), Hawkins (Craig Handy), Ben Webster (James Carter), Basie (Cyrus Chestnut), Mary Lou Williams (Geri Allen), Hershel Evans (David Murray), Freddie Green (Mark Whitfield), Walter Page (Ron Carter), and Jimmy Rushing (Kevin Mahogany). Kansas City in the mid-1930s was a thriving jazz center and home to legendary bands led by Basie, Bennie Moten, Andy Kirk, and Jay McShann. The music here comes from that period and is done in that style. Producer Hal Willner and music director Butch Morris encouraged a loose atmosphere, with lots of give and take, even shouts of approval, and the musicians respond by playing for the immediate moment, rather than for some dimly imagined history. --Geoffrey Himes