09/27/02

A jazzman will rest in dignity
By STEVE PENN, The Kansas City Star
 

Oliver Todd wasn't a big band leader on par with Count Basie or Bennie Moten.

Nonetheless, Todd, a close friend of jazzman Charlie Parker, was a very talented man.

During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Todd's band, known as the Hottentots, was able to hold its own against any band in Kansas City.

Over the years, Todd, who played trumpet, piano and organ, rubbed elbows with many legendary jazz musicians, such as Basie, Mary Lou Williams and Lester Young.

Todd died on July 16, 2001, at age 83 and was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery. It's been virtually impossible for anyone to find the burial plot for this marvelous musician who was named one of the 38 original Elder Statesmen of Kansas City Jazz .

Todd's grave is unmarked. Not by choice, but by circumstance.

Todd didn't make a lot of money. Before her husband's death, Bernice Todd took out a burial plan with a funeral home. When her husband died, she was able to bury him, but she couldn't afford a marker.

The Coda Jazz Fund is rectifying that.

The fund was established earlier this year to help pay the funeral and burial expenses of jazz musicians whose families can't afford the cost. As a result of the generosity of the operators of Brooking Cemetery, a marker for Todd's grave was donated at no cost.

The fee to install the marker is being paid through the Coda Jazz Fund.

Todd's new grave marker will be unveiled at a ceremony at 3:15 p.m. Sunday in Forest Hill Cemetery. Todd's grave is just north of the cemetery's south entrance at 6901 Troost Ave.

Bernice Todd will be at the ceremony.

"I'm thankful," she said. "I'm thankful a few people still remember Oliver. I'm thankful to the people who saw the need and came to the rescue. The Coda Jazz Fund is a project that's really needed.

Many of the musicians from Oliver's era just didn't make a lot of money."

Even without wealth, Todd was a musician worthy of no less.

"Oliver was a polished musician," his widow said. "He was also very gracious."

Todd moved to New York in the early 1970s. But, with five children and a wife back in Kansas City, he quickly moved home.

"He told me he just couldn't hang with those crazy guys out there," Bernice Todd said. "He told me that wild scene wasn't his bag."

Saxophonist Ben Kynard was a member of the Hottentots.

Todd wasn't known for hitting many screeching high notes on the trumpet, opting to play melodically in the lower register instead, Kynard recalled.

"Oliver had a wonderful band," Kynard said. "He really knew his chords because he played piano. During the late 1930s, we were working four to five nights a week. Oliver could make his trumpet sound like a reed instrument sometimes. Nobody does that anymore."

Jazz musicians like Todd are artists. They're originals.

Sadly, not all jazz musicians earn the money they deserve. So when the end comes, some have nothing.

That's when the Coda Jazz Fund comes in. The fund ensures that career musicians like Todd at least receive the funerals and burials they so richly deserve.

To contribute, send donations to The Coda Jazz Fund, P.O. Box 412116, Kansas City, MO 64141-2116.

- To reach Steve Penn, call (816) 234-4417 or send e-mail to spenn@kcstar.com.