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A "Kansas City Shuffle" is an advanced form of a bait-and-switch confidence game employing misdirection, deception, and playing on the "mark's" arrogance or self-loathing. It is also the title of a 1926 jazz song named after the scheme.
For a confidence game to be a "Kansas City Shuffle", the mark must be aware, or at least suspect, that he is involved in a con but also be wrong about how the con artist plans to deceive him. The con artist will attempt to misdirect the mark in a way that leaves him with the impression that he has figured out the game and has the knowledge necessary to outsmart the con artist. Still, by attempting to retaliate, the mark unwittingly performs an action that helps the con artist to further the scheme. [1]
The title refers to a situation where the con man bets the mark money but cannot identify what state "Kansas City" is in. The mark, guessing that the conman was hoping to trick him into saying Kansas, identifies Kansas City, Missouri as his answer. The con man then reveals that there is a much less well-known Kansas City, Kansas, meaning Kansas was the correct answer.[ citation needed ]
A song with the title was recorded by the "Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra" jazz band on December 13, 1926, in Chicago, Illinois and originally released by Victor Records on Victor 20406, the flip side being "Harmony Blues" by the same band. [2]
It is one of the first songs called a "shuffle" using the distinctive triplet-driven beat. [3]
The recording is an instrumental. The tune structure is similar to the standard I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate. After a short piano introduction, the band plays two ensemble choruses with breaks by trumpeter Lammar Wright, Sr.. This is followed by solos by banjo and saxophone, a stop-time chorus featuring unison work by the reeds, a trombone solo, and finally, our chorus ensemble. [4]
A Kansas City Shuffle was introduced by Mr. Goodkat/Smith (Bruce Willis) in the 2006 film Lucky Number Slevin in the bus terminal scene, where he explained that a Kansas City Shuffle is where "They look right... ...and you... go left." In the movie, the targets are manipulated into hiring their own killers, one of whom they believe to be a patsy.
In season 6, Saul Goodman and Kim Wexler execute a Kansas City Shuffle as part of their plan to discredit Howard Hamlin. Howard believes he knows how he is being tricked and hires a private investigator to follow Goodman. However, unbeknownst to him, Goodman has switched his regular contact with one of his own, who is in on the scheme.
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands.
William James "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, his minimalist piano style, and others.
A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators at the expense of their victims ".
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, known as the swing era, when people were dancing the Lindy Hop. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Musicians of the swing era include Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Benny Carter, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Earl Hines, Bunny Berigan, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Jimmie Lunceford, and Django Reinhardt.
Music of Missouri has a storied musical history. Missouri has had major developments in several popular music genres and has been the birthplace or career origin of many musicians. St. Louis was an important venue for early blues, jazz, country, and bluegrass. Kansas City has had famous performers such as Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Lester Young, and the distinct style of Kansas City jazz. Ragtime made influence in the city of Sedalia, Missouri, due to Scott Joplin and his publisher John Stark, and through Missouri native James Scott.
The swing era was the period (1933–1947) when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States, especially for teenagers. Though this was its most popular period, the music had actually been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Bennie Moten, Cab Calloway, Earl Hines, and Fletcher Henderson, and white bands from the 1920s led by the likes of Jean Goldkette, Russ Morgan and Isham Jones. An early milestone in the era was from "the King of Swing" Benny Goodman's performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935, bringing the music to the rest of the country. The 1930s also became the era of other great soloists: the tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Lester Young; the alto saxophonists Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges; the drummers Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Jo Jones and Sid Catlett; the pianists Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; the trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Bunny Berigan, and Rex Stewart.
Benjamin Moten was an American jazz pianist and band leader born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, United States.
The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16- to 18-piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie in 1935 and recording regularly from 1936. Despite a brief disbandment at the beginning of the 1950s, the band survived long past the big band era itself and the death of Basie in 1984. It continues under the direction of trumpeter Scotty Barnhart.
Kansas City jazz is a style of jazz that developed in Kansas City, Missouri during the 1920s and 1930s, which marked the transition from the structured big band style to the much more improvisational style of bebop. The hard-swinging, bluesy transition style is bracketed by Count Basie, who in 1929 signed with Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra, and Kansas City native Charlie Parker, who promoted the bebop style in America.
Herschel "Tex" Evans was an American tenor saxophonist who was a member of the Count Basie Orchestra. He also worked with Lionel Hampton and Buck Clayton. He is also known for starting his cousin Joe McQueen's interest in the saxophone. Joe McQueen, living until 2019 at age 100, may well have been the last surviving person to have known Herschel during his lifetime.
Edward Durham was an American jazz guitarist, trombonist, composer, and arranger. He was one of the pioneers of the electric guitar in jazz. The orchestras of Bennie Moten, Jimmie Lunceford, Count Basie, and Glenn Miller took great benefit from his composing and arranging skill.
Lammar Wright was an American jazz trumpeter.
Ed Lewis was an American jazz trumpeter.
Earl Malcolm "Jock" Caruthers Sr. was an American jazz saxophonist associated with the Kansas City jazz scene.
This is a list of fictional portrayals of confidence tricks found in television and the movies.
"South" is a jazz composition by Thamon Hayes and Bennie Moten. It was introduced by Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra in 1924 and recorded again in 1928, when it became a national hit. It was Moten's most popular composition.
"Moten Swing" is a 1932 jazz standard by Bennie Moten and his Kansas City Orchestra. It was an important jazz standard in the move towards a freer form of orchestral jazz and the development of Swing music. Moten and his Orchestra, which included Count Basie on piano, achieved much success with it, although the song is most associated with Basie's Count Basie Orchestra, who recorded it in 1940.
Kansas City Revisited is an album by jazz trombonist and arranger Bob Brookmeyer featuring Brookmeyer's new orchestrations of 1920s and '30s era Kansas City jazz tunes. The album was recorded in 1958 for the United Artists label.
Paul Banks was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, composer and lyricist.
Mary H. Bradford was an American blues singer, songwriter, composer, and lyricist. She is known for her time performing and recording with Bennie Moten, Ada Brown, and Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra. She emerged alongside the early rise of blues music, with the Kansas City Call noting in November 1923 that she was one of Kansas City's prominent race artists, credited with creating "first big blues." Bradford was a contra-alto vocalist with a very brief career in music. The first album on which she was featured was with Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra in 1923. Her second and last album was recorded under the name Auntie Mary Bradford in 1928 and was a solo album.