13 minute read
Backbeat
WITH LOVE
Saxophonist Adam Larson’s new album pays homage to KC. He’s releasing it just before headlining the Prairie Village Jazz Festival.
BY NINA CHERRY
IN MARCH OF 2019, Adam Larson found himself at a crossroads: The saxophonist didn’t end up in the doctoral program he’d planned to start, and he received notice of a hefty rent increase for his New York City apartment just after his second child was born.
“My wife and I sat down and wrote down some cities we thought would be cool to live in,” Larson says. Among the list was Kansas City. “I have some friends here, and it’s in the middle of the country.”
Two months later, Larson, along with his wife and two children, moved here. “I really just moved here to get out of New York,” Larson says.
Now, only a few years later, KC has already gained a special place in Larson’s life, so much so that he’s releasing an album to pay tribute to the city this month, With Love, From Kansas City.
The album is a part of a trilogy of albums dedicated to each of the cities—and the powerhouse musicians that reside in them—that have played an important role in Larson’s journey. The first album of the series, With Love, From Chicago, was released earlier this year in February, and the final album of the series, With Love, From New York, will be released in April 2023.
Larson is joined by bassist Ben Leifer and drummer John Kizilarmut to form a tight trio for the album. The trio’s powerful chemistry resulted in an efficient studio session. According to Larson, it only took two and a half hours, straight through, to record the entire album. “One or two takes was enough,” Larson says. “It’s a lot different from the way I recorded my first five records. I was nit-picking everything.”
The album features many of Larsons’ originals along with compositions from prevailing KC jazz musicians: “ChiChi” by Charlie Parker, “Beatitudes” by Bobby Watson, and contemporary KC standard “REL” by Peter Schlamb.
The album doesn’t have any heavy edits or overdubs and captures the raw, unfiltered artistry of the composer and saxophonist. Larson showcases his compositional prowess and a wide timbral range across the seven tracks as he switches between tenor, alto and soprano saxophones.
But Larson isn’t the only one showcased. This intimately captured album highlights all of the trio members’ unique voices.
All dimensions of drummer Kizilarmut’s playing are on display in the album, from more nuanced moments as heard in Larson’s “Simple Beauty” to the more fiery, robust playing frequently heard throughout the rest of the album. But regardless of volume or intensity, Kizilarmut’s playing is, without fail, intensely poetic. Ultimately, bassist Leifer is the strong foundation, simultaneously contributing to the interplay that makes this trio so tenacious.
This month, Larson is headed on tour for nineteen performances and seventeen educational clinics. He kicks off the tour on September 2 with his official album release party at The Ship. Among his tour stops is Prairie Village, where he’ll be headlining the city’s annual jazz festival on September 10.
But after the tour, Larson won’t catch much downtime. He’ll be spending his time gearing up for his next album release and tour for With Love, From New York.
GO: With Love, From Kansas City album release, Friday, September 2, 7 pm. The Ship, 1221 Union Ave., KCMO. Larson headlines the Prairie Village Jazz Festival on Saturday, September 10, Harmon Park, W. 77th Place and Delmar Street in Prairie Village.
CURATING A BEAUTIFUL LIFE
PILLOW TALK One quick way to add a pop of color to a space is with throw pillows. But
the right pillows are important— they can determine the personality of a room. Carrie Kiefer and Morgan
Georgie of Ampersand Design Studio (@ampersandstudio) make artwork and home decor that brighten a space with vivid colors and bold patterns. They recently launched a line of quirky pillows in vibrant colors and designs.
If you’re looking to make a statement, there are wordprint options like “Come Together,” “Hi,” or our favorite, “Heck Yes!” You can also opt for a subtle design like a heart, peace sign, rainbow or flower. These pillows range in price from $50–$64 and are created in collaboration with Peking Handicraft. They’re made of one hundred percent wool hook and cotton velvet with a
polyester fill. —OLIVIA AUGUSTINE
FLOWER POWER
The ins, outs and how-tos of emerging flower trends from Kansas City’s floral TikToker
BY OLIVIA AUGUSTINE
HISTORICALLY, FLOWERS have belonged to the colorful seasons of spring and summer. But according to Kansas City TikToker and florist Lexi Nardini, there are some autumn floral trends beginning to surface for the upcoming season.
Nardini graduated from Mizzou last year with a major in event management, a plant science minor and a floral design certificate. Soon after, she opened the floral division of Platinum XP, a preexisting event-planning business focused on corporate events. Now, Nardini is in the process of rebranding the division to focus entirely on weddings, her greatest passion regarding flowers.
Nardini has grown a following on TikTok. She’s most popular for her vlogstyle “day in my life as a florist” videos. She shares videos of herself driving boxes of flowers around the city and setting up beautiful arrangements and also gives a glimpse into her life as a young person living downtown. From building a bouquet to documenting her nightlife in the city, Nardini is truly the flower girl of Kansas City.
What is the reason behind the emerging obsession with autumn floral arrangements? Fall weddings.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, wedding planning was one of several industries to take a punch. With several of those spring and summer weddings canceled or postponed, it seems the desirability of getting married during that time of year declined as well.
Wedding planners are finally starting to regularly book events again, and their most popular season isn’t spring or summer—it’s fall.
“Usually it’s spring, but fall is completely booked,” Nardini says. “Everyone wants a fall wedding, which I understand because the color scheme is really pretty, the warm tones.”
Fall is the new wedding season, Nardini says, whether the color palette matches classic autumn reds, yellows and oranges or leans into a more sleek black-and-white look.
Another surprising floral trend resurfacing: The return of baby’s breath. Nardini says that she, like most florists, can’t stand the dainty filler flower, but it has been a popular request throughout the summer season, and she doesn’t see that changing. Nardini says she is warming up to the approaching trendiness of baby’s breath. “I recently did a wedding and it was just completely baby’s breath with white roses,” she says. “It was actually very pretty and modern.”
Nardini offers some tips about how to create the perfect arrangement on your own. “It’s all about the prep work,” she says.
Begin by stripping the stems of all additional leaves, especially toward the bottom—this creates a more elegant look. Next, cut the stems to the desired length. A common mistake, Nardini says, is cutting the stems too short. Ideally, a great arrangement has a variety of flowers at a variety of lengths.
When picking out flowers, Nardini recommends getting a big flower, a couple of accent flowers and a filler. The biggest flower is usually something popular like a rose or peony. The accent flowers should be smaller. The filler, often baby’s breath, is used to fill in the gaps.
As we move into September, with autumn air nearly in reach, think about adding a floral arrangement as your centerpiece. With new trends like fall palettes and baby’s breath emerging, there’s an easy blueprint to follow. If you can’t seem to figure it out, you can always hop over to Nardini’s TikTok (@lex.n.lilacs) for some floral inspo.
WIDE OPEN SPACES
Three local home design projects by Mid-West & Co. that feature ‘great rooms’—trendy combinations of kitchen spaces and living rooms
BY DAWNYA BARTSCH | LAURA FOOTE PHOTOGRAPHY
FOR DESIGNING DUO JANNA COGLIZER and Megan Shepherd, the Covid lockdown was a defining moment. Stuck at home, these corporate world co-workers and good friends concluded it was time to recalibrate. “Covid was a reset for both of us,” Coglizer says. Working from home without the office buzz, Coglizer was left with just her work and the realization that it was the people she worked with who made her professional work life interesting. She thought, ‘This is what I do?’ Coglizer wanted to do work that she felt more passionate about. Her longtime friend Shepherd, who worked for the same software technology company as Coglizer, came to a similar conclusion: “Life is very short, and how are we spending our time? Does this bring us joy?” Shepherd’s job in the corporate world wasn’t doing it for her, either. Shepherd and Coglizer had been remodeling and designing spaces on the side. Finally, they decided to follow their passion for design and build a business with one mission in mind: Love your home. That’s how their design business Mid-West & Co. was born. “How we spend our time is very important; our homes are very important,” says Shepherd, who describes their style as a combination of mid-century modern, Western and Southwestern styles. Their objective is to incorporate these ideals into all their designs, and that most often starts with a combination kitchen and living space or “great room.” This trend of kitchens and living areas melding into one vast space without walls, where families cook, entertain and work together, continues to gain in popularity. “The great room is the heart of the home,” Shepherd says. “It serves as more than just a living room or formal sitting room. Our goal is to create a cozy yet functional space that the entire family can enjoy together.” And that’s exactly what Mid-West & Co. is doing.
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1 THE MCKENZIE HOUSE Jennifer and Nick McKenzie, who have three young children, bought their 1990s Overland Park home just over a year and a half ago. It needed to be not only updated but also transformed into a space where the McKenzies could comfortably live their daily lives and entertain.
Coglizer and Shepherd came in and completely gutted the space, altering the layout to fit the family’s needs.
“It’s a traditional house and they were able to update the space, give it a modern edge, but still have it blend with the rest of the house,” Jennifer says.
The light fixtures and hardware, for instance, are trendy yet classic, fitting with other traditional elements in the home.
For the kitchen island, Coglizer and Shepherd designed a half-octagon shape rather than the ubiquitous rectangle, creating additional usable counter space and making it easy to work in the kitchen, keep an eye on kids and socialize all at the same time.
The McKenzie’s kitchen and great room are a mix of down-home comforts, such as raw wood beams, Windsor spindle dining chairs, glam touches of shiny brass drawer pulls and a gold sunburst mirror above the fireplace.
The built-in bar that sits in between the kitchen and living area is stained a warm brown color, mimicking that of the island but serving as a contrast with the white kitchen cabinets.
The backsplash was created using white and gold tiles, giving the bar area an adult, sophisticated feel even with kids playing nearby.
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THE COULTER HOUSE Although a very beautiful, traditional Leawood home, Kerry and Whitney Coulter didn’t feel like their home quite reflected their style, says Shepherd, who grew up with Kerry.
“It didn’t feel like home to them,” Coglizer says.
Coglizer and Shepherd were able to update the space without changing the footprint of the kitchen and great room. They gave it a more modern color scheme by trading out countertops, tile, fixtures and other hardware throughout the space.
“Several of our choices in this house were bold and unique but not too dramatic—we wanted to make sure it went well with the rest of the house,” Coglizer says, referring to the sage color used for the island and ceiling in the eating nook.
Originally, the cabinets framing the oven hood had glass doors. Coglizer and Shepherd replaced the doors with a custom-made brass mesh grill, which still allows a peek inside yet updates the look with something both unique and traditional.
Handmade and hand-painted white tiles from Spain were chosen for the backsplash.
“The tiles aren’t perfect, and they add a lot of texture,” Coglizer says. “They’re very special.”
Always looking to add personal touches to their projects, Coglizer and Shepherd surprised the homeowners with a custom oil painting of a Midwest landscape by Brianna George of Studio St. George. George is a childhood friend of Kerry who grew up in Kansas City but now resides in London. Right now it’s proudly displayed in the kitchen above the range.
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3 THE BOAN HOUSE One of Whitney Boan’s favorite things in her Mid-West & Co.-designed great room is her boucle upholstered chair.
“It’s like a big teddy bear,” she says. “Every morning I have my coffee there.”
Whitney and Brad Boan built their home in Olathe from the ground up. The process was a bit overwhelming, which is why they decided to enlist the help of Coglizer and Shepherd.
“We have kids, and [Coglizer and Shepherd] helped us pick out things that they really can’t destroy,” Whitney says. They even kid-proofed her white Crate and Barrel sofa, which was upholstered in a performance fabric.
“It’s not as scary as it sounds,” Whitney says. “Red wine was spilled on it, my daughter got chocolate on it, I have two dogs—it’s all come off.”
The Boans were excited about the personal touches that Coglizer and Shepherd sprinkled throughout their large living space, including a small sculpture of a golf ball, a nod to Brad’s hobby, and books on gardening and flowers, one of Whitney’s passions. She owns a floral business called Adorn Floral Design.
Several of the landscapes in the Boan home were done by local artist Katie Mulder of Katie Mulder Creative and framed in vintage frames found by Coglizer and Shepherd on one of their antiquing adventures.
PRESENTED BY ZIWI PETS
CUTEST IN KC! PET CONTEST
e’ve spent the summer searching for the cutest pet in the
WKansas City metro area and we’ve finally crowned a winner. After more than 750 entries and a month-long voting process, our readers have named “Otis”, the cutest in KC. He was chosen from among ten finalists and is featured here alongside the other notable “cuties”.
Otis receives a prize package of premium dog food and chews from Ziwi Pets and a 3-night stay in Kansas City’s newest luxury pet hotel, K9 Resorts, which is fit for a king. Congratulations Otis!
