Kansas City Roll Call

Now, just because it’s something cool on a Friday afternoon, here’s the latest from our favorite former Missouri state rep/poet, Lloyd Daniel.

Inspired by “Kansas City’s authentic cultural identity,” and thinking that, regardless of the national economy, we could do a better job of “using our past as a primary pillar of the city’s economic future,” Daniel recently posted an essay/poem on his Web site called “Mining Cultural Gold.” Part of the piece is, Daniel says, “a DJ-type ‘roll call’ which pays tribute to some of the many cultural legends, icons, people’s heroes, spaces and events upon which modern Kansas City is built.”

An excerpt:

This is a poem for Charlie Parker, Charlie, Mary, Memo Lona and Captain Tate. Lester Young, Thomas Hart Benton, Tom Bass, Tom Pendergast, Big Joe Turner, the Sign, the Ram and Saber Jets, Mrs. Meeks, Chuck Moore, Town Hall Ballroom, Cowtown Ballroom, the Inferno, Freedom Palace, Buck O’Neil, Ida McBeth, Satchel Paige, Owen Bush, Owen Murray, Mattie Rhodes, Mike Ross, Milt Morris, Buck Buchanon, Larry Sells, John L. Frasier, Eddie Baker, Otis Taylor, Roger Nabor, and Chucky Draper.

From there, the rhythmic list just builds and builds. See if you discover your friends or yourself — or your city — here.