Though originally a son of the Windy City and apart from a few collegiate adventures around the Midwest and cheery old England, I’ve called Kansas City home since I was 11 months old. I somehow successfully survived my childhood and adolesence roaming the wilds of the Central Plains and have come to regard myself as a Midwestern boy through and through. When it comes to my musical interests, I credit the eclectic tastes of my parents — reflected in their extensive collection of 45s and LPs — as my earliest introduction to music. The Beatles, Aretha Franklin, the Temptations, Frank Sinatra, the Modern Jazz Quartet, and Tchaikovsky were my earliest initiation into what has become a l...