The Doug Talley Quartet first played for a Westport Center for the Arts Brown Bag Concert on the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday in the year 2001. The year before, the quartet had recorded Doug Talley’s composition Kansas City Suite, comprised of ten movements depicting landmarks in Kansas City: 1600 E 18th Street (The KC Jazz district), the City of Fountains, The Sleeping Child (statue on the Country Club Plaza), “The Buck Stops Here” in honor of President Harry Truman, Stockyard Blues (KC Strip), Basie and the Prez, Sky Stations, Plaza Lights, the Shuttlecocks, and Pendergast. The suite was recorded live in 2001, and the quartet performed it fifteen to twenty times over the years. They found, however, that people outside of the Kansas City Metro did not understand all the references to the various places, and the suite wasn’t often performed in its entirety. The quartet was scheduled to play a Brown Bag Concert on the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in 2012, but on December 29th, 2011, a catastrophic fire gutted the usual venue ~ Westport Presbyterian Church ~ and the quartet generously adjusted to a different venue with little notice. During the 4 ½ years of rebuilding the church, the quartet remained faithful to being part of the Brown Bag Concert Series, performing at Community Christian Church. They looked forward to returning to 201 Westport Road, and when asked to participate in the Westport Rising Concert Series in celebration of the rebuilt church, they happily agreed. On June 24th, 2016, the quartet performed the complete Kansas City Suite, with an eleventh movement which Doug Talley created for the occasion: Westport Rising. After the performance, Doug told the President of WCA, Scott Myers, that it was a thrill to be able to play the complete Kansas City Suite for an appreciative audience. It’s clear that WCA provides an opportunity not only for audiences to enjoy good music, but for the performers themselves to enjoy playing works they don’t often get to do. The Doug Talley Quartet’s concert at noon on Dr. Martin Luther King’s Holiday, January 15th, 2018, will feature music by African-American jazz composers, and will be the 18th straight year the quartet has been an important part of the Brown Bag Concert Series. When the community creates art, the arts create community!
