RICHARD ROSS:
A Gentleman Sings The Blues

© 1994 John Leisenring


Kansas City vocalist Richard Ross has a way of stopping the show regardless of the setting or circumstances. As a leader, sideman or just someone who likes to drop by a session and sit in, Richard will invariably cause people to stop in their tracks, turn their heads and tune in. In this issue of JAM, Dr. John Leisenring paints a provocative portrait of one of KC's all-time favorites.

Richard Ross

"Well, down on the farm... they all ask for you."

The film was "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge," starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. It had been filmed primarily in Kansas City and was now being shown on a 747 en route to New York from Amsterdam.

"Yes, down on the farm... they all ask for you."

It was the drummer who was singing, Kansas City's own Richard Ross. Bassist Milt Abel and pianist Alan Monroe were with him in the rhythm section. And Charles Perkins' alto sax wove its way around the lyrics of the song as the film continued. Most of the airplane's passengers, their rented headsets at varying degrees of askew, were awake enough to be involved with the scene being acted out on the screen in front of them.

And among the passengers enjoying the film was none other than Richard Ross himself, winging his way home after a series of successful gigs in Europe.

"The sheep ask, the dogs ask, the pigs ask, even Farmer Brown asks..."

At this point in the film, the facial expressions of the Bridges seemed to indicate that they were less than thrilled with the turn the lyrics had taken. But Richard Ross, drummer and singer extraordinaire, was enjoying himself immensely, both on the screen and in the audience. He'd never seen the film before, this "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge," and he found it somewhat boring.

"We were overdubbing," he later explained. "The recording was done at Ron Ubel's studio (Soundtrek) over on Broadway, and during the filming, we just acted like we were playing. I didn't think much of the story, but I thought they got the sound of the music right."

No sooner had the scene finished inside the cabin of the 747, than Richard felt a tap on his shoulder. "Wasn't that you up there on the screen?" asked a fellow passenger who was obviously an astute observer of his traveling companions. "Yeah," said Ross, more than a little surprised to be discovered inside the darkened cabin of a trans-Atlantic flight, "that was me." "I told you, Mildred," said the man, calling to his companion who was sitting some three rows back. "I told you he was the same guy."

The passenger returned to his seat, and to the trials and tribulations of Kansas City's high society of the late 1930's. And Richard Ross, who, for over forty years, has been one of the most recognizable voices on the city's jazz and blues scene, returned home to more of the notoriety he so richly deserves.

Blessed with one of the best sets of baritone pipes ever -- pipes reminiscent of Lou Rawls, Johnny Hartman and Billy Eckstine -- Richard sings the blues with abandon, and will almost never turn down an invitation to do so. He seems to know the lyrics to hundreds of blues tunes, and, like all blues singers, mixes them up and spews them out in whatever order appears to make sense at the moment.

When he is at the drum set, Richard is one of those rare individuals who can keep time while singing jazz phrasing. His ability to keep the feel right in the pocket while back-phrasing a jazz lyric is something to behold. As a drummer/singer, he was a longtime member of the Frank Smith Trio, opening the top of the Alameda Hotel in 1971 (now the Ritz Carlton) and staying there for six years before moving on to Crown Center, the Hyatt, and a lengthy stand at the Phillips House (with pianist Joe Cartwright).

The Phillips House gig was one of the most interesting. Just about anybody who came to town to perform -- Woody Herman, Yul Brynner, Lena Horne, members of the Basie band -- found their way to this street-side club on the north side of 12th street. And the city's young musicians knew that they would be welcome to sit in at the Phillips House, many getting their start on the club's little bandstand. Kevin Mahogany, whose star has ascended rather quickly in the past several years, could often be found, in those mid-Eighties days, sitting in with the Richard Ross Trio.

"I'm really proud of Kevin," states Ross. "I remember when he would come in and want to sing, and he only knew one tune. But he has certainly gotten it together since then. It makes me feel really good to know that I had a hand in helping all those kids along their way."

The Kansas City jazz community has always contained a plethora of helping hands. All players of worth can point to any number of people in their pasts who took them under a wing and taught them the music and the profession. In Richard's case, it was a man named Big Bob Dougherty. Even before he had graduated from Leavenworth (KS) High School, Ross was playing with Bob Dougherty's band.

"Bob was like a father to me," says Richard. "He took care of me all the time. I was a teenager, chasin' the girls and havin' fun all the time, and he watched over me. He and my father were the two greatest influences on me.

"When I started with Dougherty's band, I was only about fifteen, and we worked at a place out in Bonner Springs called The King's Paradise. People used to come out there from the city because it was way out in the country and they could raise all the hell they wanted. My father used to go along to kind of 'keep the owl on me,' keep me away from the young girls."

It was in these early years that Richard Ross started singing; and his debut was quite unplanned. One night, in The King's Paradise, at the same time Nat Cole had come out with his big hit, "Sweet Lorraine," a customer offered the band $50 for their rendition of the tune. In those days, fifty dollars was a lot of money, and the question from the band leader was not "are we going to do this?" but "who is going to sing it?" Richard volunteered that he knew the words... but had never sung before. "Man, just hum it -- do something!" was the band leader's reply.

"The words just came out," Ross recalls, "and the whole place stopped to listen. The club was packed, and when the song was over, the people started screamin' and clappin' for more. The guys in the band were just lookin' at me with their jaws dropped down. My father was there, and he didn't know that I could sing. Hell, I didn't know that I could sing! The guy paid us the $50, and from then on, I was the singer on the band."

Richard was the first in his family to become a musician, although his mother, while not a performer, was a big fan of the music and was always playing the records of Count Basie and Cab Calloway. Richard listened constantly and, as a teenager, would sneak off to Kansas City to hear regular Sunday concerts at Municipal Auditorium featuring many of the greatest players in jazz -- players like Duke Ellington, Jimmy Lunceford, Lionel Hampton and Louis Jordan. The last bus back to Leavenworth would leave at midnight, but often the concerts wouldn't be over by then. Richard would then have to stay until the next bus left at five in the morning. Many was the Sunday night that found Richard and his jazz-loving friends sitting on a 12th street curb at two in the morning eating pig ear sandwiches, then walking to the bus depot, sleeping a bit on a bench, and returning home on the five o'clock bus to catch hell from their parents. After a number of such occurrences, however, the parents acquiesced and Richard and company were allowed to attend the concerts without the necessity of sneaking.

Ross joined the army after graduating from high school, returned to Leavenworth afterward in 1954, and again took up with Big Bob Dougherty's band. In those days, the group was working at the Club Matinee on 31st street. Richard had a day job at St. Luke's Hospital and went to work at the club in the late afternoon. Then, after getting off at seven, he would go down to 18th street for a drink and something to eat, return to Club Matinee, play until 1 o'clock, pack up his drums and head out to Highway 40 to play the after-hours joints until the sun came up. After the long drive home to Leavenworth, he would barely manage to get back to the hospital in time for work.

After becoming a Kansas City resident in the mid-Sixties, Richard Ross started working at Ollie Gates' "O.G.'s" club on the corner of 31st and Indiana. The band was a trio: Richard on drums, Clarence Keys on guitar, and an organist named Frank Edwards. According to Richard, the place was always packed. And there were occasional surprise guests.

"Jimmy Smith dropped by one afternoon... and he and Frank got on the organ together -- just the two of them. They blew the place away."

Ross loves to talk about a long and varied career in which he has worked with many of the jazz greats. He also enjoys telling stories on himself. During his time with pianist Frank Smith, the original Kansas City Jazz Festival had its annual kick-off party at the Continental Hotel. As Richard tells it, Smith was notorious for hiring out his band and then sometimes neglecting to disclose the details to the band members. At one pre-Jazz Fest party, Richard walked through the Continental lobby on his way to the bandstand only to come across Ray Brown, Herb Ellis, Clark Terry, Jimmy Rushing and valve trombonist/tubist Rich Matteson. "Boy, this is really going to be something," he thought as he mounted the stand... soon realizing that all of them were preparing to play as well. "My nerves really started to sing; and they really sang when I learned that I was playing with all of them at the festival the next day. Frank hadn't mentioned who we were going to play with. I have never been so nervous, before or since."

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"(Richard) is one of the strongest constants in Kansas City jazz. He stayed in town and played when many others left for supposed greener pastures. He has taken care of two generations of Kansas City jazz cats, helping, nurturing, supporting and encouraging. He is a treasure." -- Kevin Mahogany

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As a singer, Ross counts his greatest influences as Lou Rawls, Al Hibbler ("I don't think people realize how great Hibbler really was"), Billy Eckstine, and his candidate for most underrated singer -- Johnny Hartman. Richard likes singers with a different way of phrasing, and has patterned his own singing style after those who are a bit unusual. Still, his strongest suit remains the blues.

"People come to me all the time and ask me to sing ballads and jazz tunes. I like to do that; but the blues is my forte, and it is the blues that I am most comfortable with."

In 1989, a gig at the City Light club at 74th and Broadway proved to be one of the most important of Richard's career. Debra Brown, a singer and teacher from Kansas City who had moved to Holland some years before, happened to stop in and hear Richard sing. She was most impressed, and helped set up Richard's first tour of Europe. He was there the entire year of 1990, staying with Debra and her husband in Baarn, Holland, for six months and then moving on to Amsterdam for the next six.

It was during that trip that Richard worked with innumerable musicians, many of whom, like drummer Ed Thigpen, had international reputations. And then there were others not as well known, but just as talented. While performing in Holland for the first time, Richard met and worked regularly with pianist Bram Wijnands and his trio, subsequently arranging for all three to come to Kansas City. Each eventually settled here, and all got married here. (Bram and drummer Jurgen Welge are still in town; bassist Jos Machtel has since returned to Holland.)

Since that pivotal year of 1990, Richard Ross has returned to Europe many times, playing in Spain, Poland, France, Sweden and Germany. He loves the people and the jazz fans he finds there.

"When (people) reach my age," he muses, "they don't usually have the opportunity to travel and see things. My life now is a true education; I am seeing things and meeting people that I never would have dreamed I would meet. I am having a lot of fun, and I have made so many friends in every country in which I've performed."

What, then, is Richard's importance to Kansas City and to jazz therein? Kevin Mahogany perhaps states it best.

"He is one of the strongest constants in Kansas City jazz. He stayed in town and played when many others left for supposed greener pastures. He has taken care of two generations of Kansas City jazz cats, helping, nurturing, supporting and encouraging. He is a treasure."

Richard, too, speaks eloquently to these subjects.

"I wish that musicians here in Kansas City would work toward a better understanding and appreciation of each other. We should all be trying to help each other out, not trying to hold down the other guy. I feel that if we stick together, we can go a long way.

"I would also like to see improvement in the club scene here. I want to tell the club owners that people like jazz and would like to see and hear more of it, not less of it. Kansas City is a jazz town, and when people come in for a visit, they want to hear the music. It is a real shame to have so many talented artists in town with so few places to perform."

It appears, then, that when Richard sings "Down on the farm, they all ask for you...," he is really singing to the music and to the city. They all do ask for jazz, that the music be good, available, and of an interesting variety, and that Richard Ross always be at the head of the parade, singing the blues, encouraging the musicians to more and greater heights, and pushing the various establishments toward the music he loves.

After nearly five decades at the forefront of Kansas City jazz, therefore, and with the concept of retirement simply out of the question, we can rejoice in the knowledge that Richard Ross will be leading that parade for a long time to come.

Editors note: Richard Ross died 9/23/97.


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