Kansas City Area Youth Jazz (Youth Jazz) provides a vital and unique “real-world learning” experience for the next generation of artists. Through our merit-based fellowship, high school and college music students receive scholarships to collaborate with exceptional peers and gain insights that refine their pre-career paths. Your generous support allows us to challenge, educate, and motivate these young musicians through deeply enriching musical experiences. The impact of this program is tangible each season: numerous Youth Jazz alumni now perform professionally as leaders and side musicians throughout the Kansas City jazz community. Ultimately, our program serves as a literal missing link in the music industry infrastructure and is endorsed by all of our regional educational institution program leaders.
The Opportunity
We were approached by board members of Kansas City Jazz A.L.I.V.E. with the opportunity for our 2026 Fellowship to perform in the community at a new venue space, 515 Music Hub. They offered a tax-deductible donation to support our nonprofit public charity and gave us freedom to design the event as we desired.
Maestro Lonnie McFadden came out to…
SPOTLIGHT CHARLIE PARKER event at 515 Music Hub SET 1 ( 2:00 pm) SET 2 (3:00 pm)
This Kansas City Area Youth Jazz community performance featured scholarship musicians from the ensembles that comprise the 2026 Fellowship and members of our Alumni Network.This was an opportunity to mentor fellows in all of the variables and production logistics of live performance. A learning experience in another vital aspect of doing business in the music industry.
2026 Fellowship Ensembles comprise 4 groups •The Alaadeen Ensemble •The Bill Crain Ensemble •The Bobby Watson Ensemble •The Leon A. Brady Vocal Ensemble
The core artists of our alumni ensemble were: KCAYJ Clinician Houston Smith on alto saxophone; with our special guest UMKC Professor Roger Wilder on piano; KCAYJ Alumnus Truman Mathena on bass; and KCAYJ Alumnus Kenny Watson Jr. on drum set.
KCAYJ Clinician Houston Smith was also our designated program member leading the proceedings. He also interacted with the public in attendance and any media inquiries.
# # # Learn more about us at https://YouthJazz.us
The Logistics
Kansas City Area Youth Jazz (Youth Jazz) is a spring and summer program that operates in the seasonal window of April, May, June, and July each year. The 2026 Fellowship concluded recording sessions for the soon-to-be-released 2026 FELLOWS album at the end of July and during the first week of August.
Our 2026 applied season was technically over, and many of those students were not available due to transitioning to their fall schedules. So we designed this event to include both 2026 Fellows and members of our Alumni Network from other cohort seasons.We were able to settle on a date (8/22) and midafternoon time window that maximized this great opportunity for a free public performance in the community.
The Team
We were able to call upon alumni and professional colleagues to serve as performers and clinicians. Three generations of jazz interacting with one another on and off of the bandstand. Broadly representing the KC area community on many levels. Our special guest was jazz pianist extraordinaire and UMKC Professor Roger Wilder who was fantastic as a mentor and artist. 2023+2025 KCAYJ Alumnus Truman Mathena was able to play bass and 2022 KCAYJ Alumnus Kenny Watson, Jr. came in to play drum set.
A tremendously BIG THANKS to our Youth Jazz team, Kansas City Jazz A.L.I.V.E for the grant, and the partners who created the 515 Music Hub venue.
Two of our fantastic featured Kansas City Area Youth Jazz ensemble clinicians, Houston Smith, leader of the Bill Crain Ensemble (played drums, saxophone, and regulated the proceedings) and Greg Carroll, leader of the Bobby Watson Ensemble (played piano, drums, and stylized some swinging vocals) demonstrated the bandstand model in performance. # # # Cb
