Kansas City’s Jobs of Note Project : Program Designed to Jazz Up Youths’ Summer

Summer job programs usually are designed to get kids off the streets, but in Kansas City a corporation, a social service agency and a university have teamed up to put kids on the streets--playing jazz.

Jobs of Note, now in its second year, recruits musically talented inner-city high school students for a summer of music classes, jazz workshops and performances throughout the city.

“Instead of putting disadvantaged kids to work washing windows and mowing lawns, Jobs of Note is an investment in Kansas City’s youth and its jazz heritage,” says John Leisenring, administrator of this year’s program and director of Jazz Studies at the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Leisenring, a trombone professor whose jazz quintet frequently performs at an outdoor cafe on the Country Club Plaza, says the biggest challenge is locating the kids who can best benefit from the program.

“What worries me is missing some talented kids who may be in a rock band that practices in somebody’s garage on Saturday mornings,” says Leisenring. “When we recruit we usually go through the band directors at inner-city high schools, and we’re figuring that most of the kids who are musically inclined will be involved in band activities.”

Minimum Wage

Students audition for the coveted positions, which pay minimum wages for an average of 30 hours per week over the seven-week summer season.

Leisenring is in charge of obtaining “gigs” for the combos that are formed from the 20 or more students selected for the program. The combos perform free throughout the city for audiences ranging from handicapped children attending parks-and-recreation summer camps to tourists browsing posh shopping districts.

“The thrust has been that the not-for-profit audiences get the first call,” the trombonist explains. “But we explore any possibility we can think of, telling people, ‘Look, here’s a chance to have an hour-and-a-half concert, and it won’t cost you anything.’ ”

Funded by a $50,000-grant from Payless Cashways, a Kansas City-based building materials specialty retailer, the program is administered through the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Kansas City.

Students selected for the program are grouped into bands of four or five players, each with a university-level music student as a player-coach.

Summer’s Schedule

The season begins with an intensive rehearsal schedule, followed by performances, plus workshops and clinics.

A prerequisite is some knowledge of an instrument--drums, bass, piano, horns--but in Jobs of Note the students learn improvisation and the basics of jazz classics by such greats as Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

A highlight of this year’s program will be a week in residence by New York jazz trumpet player John McNeil and his quartet.