About this Event
David Leshare Watson and the drummer Mickey Roker had been good friends for a long time before Watson's mother told him they were cousins. "I had no idea," he's said. On Big Town, his 2007 album on his own Music In The Vines label, Mr. Roker plays drums, and Michael LeDonne, Mr. Roker's pick, plays piano. The title track is a Joe Locke melody with a Watson lyric that salutes New York jazz history and his cousin.
Watson was born in Fort Myers, Florida, on May 30, 1937, and grew up in Philadelphia. After four years in the Army, he spent four more tending bar at the Showboat Jazz Theater, where he learned from Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McRae, and Betty Carter, and taught himself drums.
He moved to California on January 3, 1971, and turned pro that year, singing and playing drums at places like Sweetwaters. In California he and Michele Hendricks led a band called Chelsea; on a couple of gigs Jon Hendricks sat in, and the members of the Manhattan Transfer did too after a concert in San Francisco.
He co-founded the Sonoma Valley Jazz Society in 1989 and started Music In The Vines in 1998, debuting on it with Imprisoned Splendor. From 2012 he was part of the Portland jazz scene, and he and Pete Petersen co-founded Re-Birthing The Cool, a band that plays Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis and Gil Evans, and Dave Pell charts. He'd moved to Kansas City by late 2023, and Christo's in Salem, Oregon, billed his November 2025 return as a semiannual engagement. That show sold out.
The Blue Room, 1600 E 18th St, Kansas City, MO 64108. Saturday, November 14, 2026. Shows at 8:30 pm & 10 pm. $10 per show.
Event venue & nearby stays
Blue Room, 1600 East 18th Street, Kansas City, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.