THE PENDERGAST YEARS

Kansas City in the Jazz Age & Great Depression
Coon Sanders Band

As Bennie Moten, George E. Lee, and other African American bandleaders based at 18th and Vine pioneered a new style of jazz, a number of white bands in downtown Kansas City were performing a style of hot jazz modeled after nationally popular white bands. Ironically, while Kansas City would gain renown for its great African American bands that barnstormed across country, it was a white dance band, the Coon-Sanders Nighthawk Orchestra, which first established Kansas City’s national reputation as a jazz center.

KANSAS CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY | DIGITAL HISTORY