A jazz combo is set up in one corner of the room — piano, drums, cello, two saxophones.

The musicians are young men, students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Music Conservatory. They are in the Jazz Program, led by Bobby Watson.

It’s a lovely time just being with friends; an evening made sweeter by a reunion with friends from 15 years past. We are eager to catch up and happily revisit old memories and restart old conversations.

Then the band starts.  In my memory of the night, everything else stops.

These young men are playing with a sophistication and touch beyond their years. It’s incongruous; baby-faced young men (no disrespect!) playing with joy, elan, and wisdom. It’s like they know a secret that the rest of us are searching for.

The drummer has blonde hair, tightly cropped. He’s slender and angular, and graceful. And when he plays, he is exuberant. Every note shows on him, in his eyes, his grin. He plays with an intensity, mindful of his part in the ensemble — at times caressing the cymbals, at times a dervish of motion. But the endearing trait is how much fun he’s having, the exuberance of his play.

I looked around the room at the rest of the crowd. All were transfixed, or transported, by the music and promise of these young men. We felt lucky to be there, to be a part of it.

The fact that it was happening here in Kansas City, just a few streets from our home, made it even better. We’d expect this in New York or maybe Chicago. It reminded me that magic is not tied to places, but hearts.

As a young man in the early 1940s in New York, Ion was a regular at the legendary taverns in Greenwich Village, and his favorites were Minetta’s and McSorley’s.

Minetta’s has given way to the times, with a recent renovation that turned it into an upscale eating establishment. But McSorley’s, as I’ve noted before, stands defiant in its refusal to change. The last major change was the result of a 1969 legal decision, which forced the establishment (founded in 1874) to open its doors to women.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a champion of change. I applaud the decision that allowed me to visit McSorley’s. But some change does bring a pang to the heart.

Like the most recent one at McSorleys, involving the wishbones.

Back to my friend Ion.  When he visited McSorley’s, those wishbones were there, pronged on the gaslamp chandelier. They were already covered with decades of grime and dust.

They’d been placed there by young men, before they headed off to war. The first wishbones, it was said, came from the Civil War. They represented hopes delayed — the wishbones became symbols of the desired return. Once back, the soldiers could retrieve the bit of bone and make a wish.

Only many of the men didn’t return. And so the wishbones remained, unclaimed.

Ion was one of the lucky ones. He returned from World War II safely, and reclaimed his wishbone. He’s the kind of guy who might have wished for an end to all wars or maybe just another pint.

Other wishes and wishbones went unclaimed, and so remained atop the chandelier, gathering dust and grime. Until this week, when a health inspector ordered them cleaned. Details at this NYT article. (The inspector also ordered the McSorley cats removed.)

In responding to the order about the health hazard of the wishbones, Proprieter Matthew Maher carefully removed the wishbones, cleaned each, and returned each to its proper place. In a loving touch, he kept the grime  and dust removed from each, and took it home with him, “because, in the context of McSorley’s, it is sacred.” (quote from the NYT article).

Perhaps like the other changes, these will become part of the lore, always evoking a pang in the heart. Perhaps the important thing is passing on the stories of this remarkable place.

Ion did. He understood me well enough to know that I’d go there, whenever I could. He knew I’d look for the wishbones and give the cats some kindness, and keep the story alive.

I saw my first crocus of the season yesterday — a tiny thimble-sized lavender-hued bloom, but unmistakable in its promise.

That’s how I think about Kansas City’s Maker Faire, coming June 24-25, to Union Station. An event of promise and optimism, a celebration of people who create things. Makers.

The focus is on doing, using our hands, minds, hearts to create. Instead of just the blind consumption that’s so often pushed as economic strategy — I don’t buy it. (Oops, sorry about that pun.)

The Maker Faire is a grassroots and inclusive opportunity, equally welcoming to robot-designers and bread-

makers, musicians and artists, quilters and craftspeople. It’s a celebration of the act of creating, making, doing.

Organizers promise diverse fare: Tesla coils, bicycles, do-it-yourself science, alternative energy cars, artisan foods, woodworking and rockets.

Check out the Maker Faire site and help spread the word. Let’s show off our creativity, our arts, our skills, our ideas at the edge of the possible.

Making is living.

See you there.

My evidence?

- Maker’s Faire. Coming to Kansas City, June 25 and 26, at Union Station. Organizers are expecting 100-200 participants, a good start. I’ve written before about the power of makers, the honor of the craftsperson, and the attractiveness of the maker movement. Now it’s becoming a respected and valid entry to entrepreneurship. And it’s bubbling in Kansas City. This nascent movement combines innovation, creativity and a little bit of anti-establishment attitude in focusing on making rather than consuming.

- Forbes magazine identifies Kansas City as 5th of the nation’s 50 largest cities in terms of the growth rate of college-educated adults, making Kansas City one of the top “brain magnets” in the country.  Here’s what Forbes said:

The two-state Kansas City region boasts strong population growth and net in-migration– and for good reason. The city has one of the lowest costs of living, one of the highest personal-income growth rates and one of the healthiest real estate markets in the country. Short commute times also add to the attractiveness of the city for families. The city is the second-largest rail hub in the U.S. and is actively growing its life science and technology sectors. Kansas City gained 38,398 graduates from 2007 to 2009, or 2.96 percent of its 25-and-older population.

- Life Sciences and KC Animal Corridor. This is perhaps the most tangible of the signs. Rising from the loss of Marion Merrill Dow, dozens of smart Kansas Citians chose to stay and build upon their expertise and passion. They could’ve left to take jobs on the East or West coasts, or gone to rebuild from there. But they planted roots here, and now those roots are flourishing. Now, I don’t want to see any of our other large corporations move out, but even if they did (thinking of the perennial Sprint rumors, for example), I now believe the same could happen again.

- Blossoming arts scene. Kauffman Center for Performing Arts, the Nelson-Atkins, the Kansas City Art Institute, the arts incubator, the Crossroads, and loads of additional artist/entrepreneurs are changing the vibes in this town.  There was a small performance last week, “A Gaelic Revival,” held at the Irish Center in Union Station.  A handful of equity actors, including some of the best in Kansas City, performed scenes from “Playboy of the Western World,” “The Plough and the Stars” and “Kathleen nee Houlihan” for an enthralled audience of about 50.  Multiply this by the dozens of events every weekend, heck, every day, and you understand what a gifted arts community we have.

- Final perspective: Six qualified and capable candidates are running for mayor. Local pundits have already noted that the city can hardly go wrong with this roster.  Even discounting that all candidates speak in glowing terms about the city’s potential, this time … it feels like most of them really mean it.  I’d like to see the next mayor embrace collaboration and build on this newly emerging power.

So, to all those HR recruiters and corporate executives who still believe that the best come from somewhere else — think again. Look here first.

It was the birds that made Australia feel so different to me. Flocks of sacred ibis soaring overhead or swooping at the treetops gave me an impression of pterodactyls; the kookaburra was just remarkably goofy and fun. Other birds (ones I haven’t yet looked up) were vaguely familiar — such as the one that reminded me of a killdeer only twice as large, the ducks with the bright teal and purple coloring, the black swans. I couldn’t get used to the cockatoos, lorikeet and parakeet screeching and zipping about. Or the giant furry fruit bats with their elegantly folded wings, hanging upside down, gently unfurling themselves and zooming into the dusk.

* * *

There’s something delicious about visiting a different season than the one you’re from. It’s autumn here, with leaves changing, cool evenings and the misty fogs in the morning. But in Australia, where it’s springtime, the air was fresh and everything was sprouting and full of promise. Cherry blossoms, tulips, primroses, daisies, and wisteria — oh, wisteria everywhere! — was a delight.  Coming back, it was jarring to see our trees turning flame-red and dropping leaves.

* * *

There was one photo in our hotel that put me in a storytelling frame of mind everytime I saw it, so that’s at least twice a day. The photo is a portrait of a man, working at what looks like a furniture warehouse. He’s facing the camera, has a pleasant-enough face so at first glance, it’s an unremarkable photo. Then you see that in one hand he’s holding a large yellow tiger cat, and in the other, a mouse — upside down, tail held between finger and thumb. The cat is the real subject of the portrait; it is a study in concentration, desire, lust, hunger and pure instinct. The cat is intensely focused on the mouse.

That’s where the imagination and storytelling comes in. What happened in the moment before the man scooped up the cat? And what happens in the moment after the photo?

This image was, oddly, one of my fondest delights of the trip. It reminded me to pause and take a second look at the sights of this beautiful city. It also served as a kind of symbol of the Australian sense of the world — one of adventure and willingness to explore, a kind of fearlessness, and a quirky sense of fun.

A thread running through the topic is the importance of play and creativity in solving the problems of the world. This isn’t hyperbole — the discussion really looked at the largest issues in the world.

From Jane McGonigal: the idea that in playing games, we are using our best version of ourselves; the mindpower that can be harnessed in playing games to make the world a better place.

Her goal: to make it as easy to save the world in real life, as it is in online games. And she’s not joking. If we could increase our game playing time from its current 3 billion hours a week to 21 billion hours a week, the world would be different place.

I look at gaming in a new light.

From Michael Wesch, social anthropologist from K-State: Good questions and illustrations of the world on fire — and brilliant insights on the changes technology offers. We can’t live the next 100 years like the last.

Media uses us as much as we use it; and there is no opting out. Media mediates relationships, when media changes, relationships change — including the structure of our culture.

Technology in our hands creates new potential. Question is how will we use it? How will it change us? Wesch articulates the razor’s edge between a hopeful future and a more ominous one with new openness and freedom, transparency, mass participation vs. the potential for more survelliance and control, deception, mass distraction.

His goal is to move his students from being knowlegeable to knowledge-able. He explains we need (and need to teach) skills to find, sort, analyze, organize and create knowledge.

He told the story of when the world was on fire. All the animals running to escape, but it was impossible — the fires were raging and soon they were trapped.

One little bird had an idea. The little bird flew to the stream and picked up a drop of water in its beak, flew back to the fire and dropped the water. And again, and again, and again.

What are you doing little bird? The best I can.

The heroics inspired the rest of the creatures (or variously, the gods) who joined in to save the day and put out the fire, by working together in the example of the littlest bird.

From Francis Cholle:  We need a higher level of creativity to solve sustainability questions. Creativity will be the the No. 1 leadership competency in the future.We need to play more to become more creative — play eludes our analytical minds. Our analytical minds can be a handicap to creativity.

The most important skills to master:

• Think holistically; there’s more to consider than the P&L
• Think paradoxically
• Listen for the unusual. Or, stop thinking and start feeling.
• Lead by influence, not by control

Plenty to ponder.  Thanks, TEDxKC.

Suddenly all is transformed and the tension takes on a new dimension. I am inside the construction site of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Kansas City.

I admit to a constant fascination with the art of architecture and engineering — I’m stunned by the combination of mathematics and precision and emotion that is so evident in this structure.  Yes, emotion. You feel as thought the structure “knows” its purpose and embodies an appreciation of art and its impact on humanity.

Click on photo for a brief video

There is a tension in the structure — a struggle to balance, precisely, the engineering  requirements with the artistic goals. There is magnificence in the tension.

It’s both literal and figurative.

The physical structure relies on tension, with cables that flow from the curved shell to deep anchors. These cables support the glass atrium facade.

The imagery of the building is reminiscent of a musical instrument (a cello, in my mind). The tension wires are the strings, the arc of the structure is the sensuous body of the instrument, and its position on the landscape — the change to the horizon — is the music.

In this image, the participants who visit the building are part of the performance itself. We walk through the instrument and our movement resonates with the sense of breathing within the building. The building already feels alive with rhythmic tension.

You feel it inside the performance spaces where the beautiful woodwork is warming and comforting, where the chamber produces a cathedral-like sense of awe and grace. It’s a wonder at nature, like walking in a vast forest, but this time it’s the vast imagination, skill and mastery of the craftsmen that amazes.

The building soars and sings with echoes and self-reflections: it’s as though it folds in on itself, again creating a balance. The interior mimics the dramatic exterior, the lines of the exterior are reflected in the the parallel lines in the acoustically designed walls in the theater. The exterior curves are mimicked in the interior performance space.

Construction is change in action; transformation on a grand physical scale. Art, also, is change in action — a moment of tension, the creation of the artist conveyed through a performer to an audience. The impermanence of the moment juxtaposed with the searing meaning and perhaps, enduring memory in the minds of an audience.

This change, so welcome, so beautiful, so important to our culture. This building will play upon our identity and forever mark our commitment to our better instincts in innovation, art, engineering, craftsmanship.

It is a building of possibilities. It shows that there is unbound potential for us, as individuals and as a community.

The first musing is about birds and business goals, or knowing what you really want.

The scene: I’m sitting out on the patio alone early one morning, a glorious sky, cottonwood leaves dancing in the breeze, the air full of pinon and dewy freshness. Quiet. Until something like a high-powered, bullet-speed drone circles my head. I ducked a few times until I realized they were hummingbirds.

No more ducking, just delight. They swirled and swarmed, one protecting his area more fiercely than I’ve ever seen a hummingbird behave. And the noise! I’d never heard them so close, so loud, the whirring noise they make an indication of their speed and agility. I sat unmoving and felt so privileged to have them so close to me; it was a joyful time.

Later, talking about the experience with my friends (my hosts), they related a tale of a friend of theirs.

This young woman had overheard them talking about their hummingbirds, and she had interjected that she, too, would like to have hummingbirds in her garden. My friends showed her their feeder and carefully explained the preparation of the nectar and other secrets for attracting the birds.

A couple of weeks later, they chanced to visit her. Her hummingbird feeder was hanging, but she was out batting at it with a broom, screaming.

“What’s going on?” they asked.

“Well, I put up the feeder but all I get are these big moths,” she replied.

Oh no!

“Those ‘big moths’ you’re swatting are hummingbirds,” my friend explained cautiously.

As it turned out, the young woman had never actually seen a hummingbird. She thought they’d be different from the annoying little ‘moths’ that she didn’t like at all.

Her expectation was different from reality; she didn’t know that she was terrorizing the very creatures she thought she wanted.

It was such a strange story, it made me think about some of my own expectations, especially as they relate to business and setting goals, dreaming about what I really want.  Always healthy to take stock of what you desire, and make sure that (a) you can recognize it for what it really is, and (b) you’re not unknowingly swatting it away.

The second musing came from a chance encounter with an Indian woman selling pottery downtown. Her work was nicely displayed and pieces caught my eye, so I stopped and we chatted.

She explained her product. “I find the right spot, I dig the earth, I mix the water and make the clay, I shape the vessel and bake it, and then I paint it,” she said simply. “I touch it, everyday, from when it is dirt until it is finished.”

The piece I was holding had a unusual design. “My great-grandmother designed that,” she said. The pictogram showed a bird in flight when looked at in one direction; when turned in the other, it became a flower like a tulip or trumpet vine.

Sold.

This businesswoman knew her product so intimately, and was so connected to it, her act of creating it was part of the bargain of owning the piece (at least for a short time, as it was a gift). Her story was simple, moving and effective. It’s exactly what we all need in our business storytelling.

***

Final random musings:

• Congratulations to the city of Santa Fe for controlling nighttime light pollution. It’s working and it’s brilliant to see the stars there.
• While I’m at it, congratulations to Santa Fe for its Plaza concert series of free excellent music — a wonderful community service. Last week’s bands were excellent, drawing crowds of dancers and music lovers. I can’t recall when I’ve seen so many smiling faces.

One occurred while visiting a friend who lives in a remote corner of the city, who happens to have a property that abuts a small lake, fed by three streams. It’s an older house, simple and gracious, and it’s obvious that my friends there spend most of their time outdoors.  He took me on little walk through the property — first down to the lakebed, where I spotted the snapping turtles near the Russian iris in bloom, around little mounded flower bed overflowing and lush, then curving along the stream over to the upper gardens. Rounding the curve, there’s a sudden surprise — delight everywhere you look. From the tidy vegetable garden to the abundant roses and old-fashioned treats (pawpaws, buckeyes, Japanese dogwood, clematis, phlox, giant lilies and dozens more, both native and exotic) it was moment after moment of glorious exploration touching, smelling, joyous appreciation of this otherworldly garden. There were birds everywhere and we were on watch for a snake and other woodland critters, all the more fun. A magical moment.

A second moment that overwhelmed was under vastly different circumstances. We were attending a Bach Aria Soloists concert, held in the ample living room of a neighbor and acquaintance. There were about 60 people in this front room, listening in rapt attention to the beautiful music. Then, a cello solo –  Bach’s Suite No. 4, one of my most favorites. I felt as though the world dissolved for a moment and all that existed was this extraordinary sound, threading and hanging in the air, wafting and dissolving. I closed my eyes and held hands with my beloved and savored the moment, filled with joy.

A third moment was almost a blending of the other two — a combination of a beautiful vast horizon of undulating lush hills all around, and the Kansas City Symphony. I was happy just with the vista, watching the cattle and the wild swallows at dusk, the occasional cowboy riding along in or out of the view. I was enjoying this with some 3000 other people, quietly relaxing on blankets or foldout chairs, on this natural amphitheater-like hillside.

As I relived these moments later, it occurred to me that I was missing something. These were not random moments, but the result of hours and hours of devotion and passion. There was work, heartfelt work, handprints on each, that made the difference. I was the beneficiary of the passion that went into each of those magical moments.

Was it work? Or a slow accumulation of invested dedication and passion? There need not be a difference, I understand, between working and living, between labor and labor of love.

It’s not magic at all.

Less than a month ago, a famous painting was auctioned at Sotheby’s. It was expected to be sold for $300,000 to $500,000. It actually went for $1.5 million.

While this isn’t terribly surprising, it’s notable for the story that goes along with the painting and the sale.  It’s a Kansas City story, and in many ways, a tale of American identity and attitudes.

The painting is sometimes called the American Leonardo. It’s formal name is  “La Belle Ferronniere” or Portrait of a Woman done in the style of Leonardo DaVinci.

John Brewer, author of a new book The American Leonardo — A Tale of Obsession, Art and Money, was in Kansas City recently. He gave a vivid retelling during a talk at the Kansas City Public Library.

The story begins with a young couple in love in 1919. It’s Harry Hahn, a mechanic from Kansas, who marries a French girl Andree. A favorite aunt, Louise DuMont, gives the couple the old painting, believed to be a DaVinci — it had been authenticated as such by a French dealer.

The young couple comes to the US, where Harry opens a car dealership in Junction City. They intend to sell the painting to launch their fortunes in the US.

In 1920, Kansas City didn’t even have an art museum. The Nelson wouldn’t exist until 1927, and in the whole of the US, there were not a single museum with a DaVinci. For Kansas City, with big city aspirations, this would be a coup and could help change it’s cowtown image.

One of Kansas City’s best-known business leaders, J.C. Nichols, heads up a consortium to raise funds to buy the work. Quite exiting, until a reporter happens to seek a comment from Sir Joseph Duveen, who was a famous (and famously arrogant) art critic and dealer. Duveen might have been the most influential dealer at the time, having developed art collections for all the major American industrial giants — Mellon, Rockefeller, JP Morgan.

Duveen proclaimed the work a fake. Never mind that he’d never seen it firsthand.

Oh, the uproar! The deal to sell the painting in Kansas City falls through and Hahn decides to sue Duveen for slander and damages.

Now the egos really get inflamed. Duveen enjoys the publicity of the lawsuit at first, and hires European art masters to back him up in court. More egos, this time with a tinge of old world snobbery and intellectual superiority of intuitive judgment. They can “sense” the legitimacy of a work.

In the trial, Hahn’s attorney focuses on scientific evidence and plays up the contrast between American values (Show Me) and European snobbery. The jury is pretty solidly in Hahn’s camp, and Duveen settles out of court with Hahn in 1929.

Back to Kansas City. The Nelson has opened and is on an acquisition spree for great art. The city needs the best dealer money can buy and they hire … Duveen! He is the guest of honor at the Museum’s opening.

There are many other twists to the tale of the painting, which is mostly locked away in a bank vault over the ensuing decades.

Hahn later divorces and bitterly attacks what he calls the “art racket.” He writes a book, with support of Thomas Hart Benton, the Kansas City artist, and Frank Glenn, a rare book dealer. The book tells the story of the little man fighting against the art monopolist, but the book may have had its own ulterior motives in reigniting the controversy.

Now, with the January 2010 sale of the painting, we prepare for a new chapter.

Recent evaluators estimate that the painting dates from the 17th century, and they note that it contains pigments consistent with those Leonardo DaVinci would have used — perhaps even more consistent than a never-doubted DaVinci in the Louvre.

Meanwhile, we don’t know who the new owner is — only that it is an American in the entertainment industry. Another new character, another mystery.

This industrialist now owns a beautiful painting and it hardly matters if the painting is an authentic DaVinci or not.

Perhaps the true value is the story itself, the artwork as a foil for a study of human nature, greed, ego, cultural biases, the tension between art and profit.

Maybe this fascinating painting will again be the subject of critical assessment and scientific review, and maybe, just maybe, there’s a new ending to the tale.