Jay “Hootie” McShann Jazz Pianist Who Helped Create Kansas City’s Sound

Jay McShann, born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, on January 12, 1916, was a veteran pianist closely identified with the Kansas City sound of jazz and blues.  He relocated to Kansas City in 1936 and organized his first big band by 1939, the Jay McShann Orchestra.  He was rediscovered in 1969 and began touring regionally and nationally.  As an elder statesman of jazz, McShann maintained a vibrant career for more than 70 years.  He died on December 7, 2006.

Jay “Hootie” McShann played with fellow pianist and bandleader Count Basie who together  established what came to be known as the Kansas City sound: blues rooted jazz driven by swinging horns laid over a powerful but relaxed rhythmic pulse.

One of the piano men he heard and would be influenced by was Earl “Fatha” Hines whose live broadcasts from Chicago’s Grand Terrace Hotel he would listen to. By 15, he was working with saxophonist Don Byas and other groups across the Southwest.

While traveling to Omaha in 1936, his bus stopped for two hours in Kansas City. McShann walked into a club, heard the music and never left. Within two days, he found work. He absorbed the energetic, blues-drenched style of Pete Johnson and other boogie-woogie masters, and in a city filled with now legendary musicians McShann established himself as a leading pianist and bandleader.

In 1937, he heard saxophonist Charlie Parker playing in a way that he had never heard.  Charlie was 17 years old at the time. 

Traveling to New York’s Savoy Ballroom in February of 1942 they did a stellar performance that was broadcast live, gaining them a huge audience in the process. Just as they seemed poised to take its place among the Swing era’s elite, WWII and the Petrillo Recording Ban put an end to the group’s rise to the top. As all commercial recording was to come to a halt in August of 1942 the Jay McShann big band made its last recordings on July 2nd. McShann himself was drafted in 1943 and served in the Army during part of World War II. After being discharged he settled in Los Angeles, where he started working with singer Jimmy Witherspoon. Between 1945 and 1950 they found success with a string of R&B flavored recordings like “Money’s Getting’ Cheaper”, “Shipyard Woman Blues”, and the huge hit in ’49 “Ain’t Nobody’s Business”. Sometime in 1950, McShann returned to Kansas City, where he owned a trash-hauling business and limousine service for a few years. Although out of the limelight he never strayed far from music. In December of 1957 he teamed once again with Witherspoon on a date for RCA Victor, after which he spent many years in relative obscurity.

His career picked up momentum once again following a successful European tour in 1969, and for the rest of his life Jay McShann either working solo or leading ensembles of various sizes, handling the vocals himself, performed and recorded frequently, both in the United States and overseas.There was a constant period of production that went from the ’70’s ’80’s ’90’s and amazingly into this century. His records sold very well, and he garnered fame and fortune with a new market of younger listeners.

In 1996 he teamed up with guitarist/producer Duke Robillard for “Hootie’s Jumpin’ Blues” following this with another great record in 1999, “Still Jumpin’ the Blues”, featuring Robillard and Maria Muldaur. They are both on the Stony Plain label.

He appears in “The Last of the Blue Devils,” a 1980 film about Kansas City jazz.  He was featured in a documentary about his life in 1978 and his 2003 recording, “Goin’ to Kansas City,” was nominated for a Grammy Award. He appeared in Ken Burns’s 10-part jazz series in 2000 and in a 2003 documentary on the blues directed by Clint Eastwood.

Jay McShann will always be identified with that swinging Kansas City jump blues sound he helped to define. He was fortunate in having had the health, fortitude, and longevity to have enjoyed the benefits reaped after a life long dedication to music. Jay McShann died Dec. 7, 2006 in Kansas City at the age of 90. 

Jay “Hootie” McShann left a mark in Kansas City as a memorable pianist and formed the Kansas City jazz and blues sound.

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