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, Ltd. musicians at a time when they needed one. Bill and Ruth Reinhardt estimated that over 700 musicians played at Jazz Ltd. Some were pioneers of Dixieland jazz. By hiring the best jazz musicians in the country, forbidding singing and dancing (which incurred a 20% war excise tax that put many jazz bands out of business), refusing business with the mob and playing only Dixieland jazz music, Jazz, Ltd became one of the longest-running jazz clubs in the country. Sidney Bechet, Baby Dodds, Edmond Hall, George Brunies, Jack Teagarden, Muggsy Spanier, Clancy Hayes, Les Beigel, Lil Armstrong, Art Hodes, Don Ewell,