About this Event
"Stan Kessler and I are excited to bring our new group to the historic Blue Room," Brian Scarborough wrote on his calendar. Friday it's trumpet and trombone up front, two Kansas City players who write their own music.
In 2024 Kessler made an album of nothing but duets, his trumpet with six Kansas City pianists, and Plastic Sax said Two's Company "may be the most valuable release of the year to emerge from Kansas City's jazz community." He was in the Kansas City Youth Symphony in the late 1960s, has played with Clark Terry, Paquito D'Rivera, and Bobby Watson, co-founded the Brazilian jazz band the Sons of Brasil in 1991, and now directs the Kansas City Jazz Academy's advanced 18th Street Combo.
Scarborough won the National Solo Jazz Competition at the 2015 American Trombone Workshop, his bio says, and he's played more than 60 musical theater productions, including the first North American tour of Hadestown. Every tune on his two albums as a leader is his own. Plastic Sax called Sunflower Song (2020) "one of the most consequential acoustic jazz albums made entirely by Kansas City musicians in recent years," and said the 2024 follow-up, We Need The Wind, "soars on an uplifting current of optimism."
The Blue Room, 1600 E 18th St, Kansas City, MO 64108. Friday, October 30, 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
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