Kansas City jazz Kansas City jazz Kansas City jazz is a style of jazz that developed in Kansas City during the 1920s and 1930s, which marked the transition from the structured big band style to the musical improvisation style of Bebop. The hard-swinging, bluesy transition style is bracketed by Count Basie who in 1929 signed with the Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra and Kansas City native Charlie Parker who ushered in the Bebop style in America. "While New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz, America's music grew up in Kansas City". Kansas City is known as one of the most popular "cradles of
Jazz standard to be recorded by their artists. Certain songs were pushed by recording executives and therefore quickly achieved standard status; this started with the first jazz recordings in 1916, with "That Funny Jas Band from Dixieland (1916)" by Collins and Harlan for Thomas A. Edison, Inc. on Blue Amberol in December 1916 and in 1917, when the Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded "Darktown Strutters' Ball" and "Indiana". The first record with 'Jass' on the label, "The Original Dixieland One-Step" was issue 18255 by Victor Talking Machine Company in 1917. Originally simply called "jazz", the music of early jazz bands is today