This Weekend at the Blue Room
October 1–5, 2026
Saxophonist Owen Pirch, a Kansas City Jazz Academy graduate, opens the week Thursday at noon. Friday, trumpeter Chalis O’Neal, who studied jazz at UMKC under Bobby Watson, plays Indigo Hour, and the Norman Liggins Band follows with two sets, A Night of Jazz. Saturday, trumpeter Nick Hmeljak plays two sets; Plastic Sax ranked a July 2025 night he played with four bandmates No. 1 among the year’s performances by Kansas City musicians. Monday, drummer Blue Noyes, who held the drum chair in this year’s Sisters in Jazz combo, hosts the jam with her quartet. And a fun thread in the credits: drummer Jaylen Ward plays on O’Neal’s The Influence and was in that quintet with Hmeljak, and Eddie Moore produced Hmeljak’s new single and plays piano on Noyes’s album.
This Weekend’s Lineup
Thursday, October 1
Jazz @ Noon: Owen Pirch — 12 pm (free)
Friday, October 2
Indigo Hour: Chalis O’Neal — 5:30 pm ($5; AJM members free)
Norman Liggins Band – A Night of Jazz — 8:30 pm & 10 pm ($10 per show)
Saturday, October 3
Nick Hmeljak — 8:30 pm & 10 pm ($10 per show)
Monday, October 5
Monday Night Jam Session: Blue Noyes — 7 pm ($10; AJM members, musicians & students free)
Jazz @ Noon: Owen Pirch — Thursday, 12 pm
Owen Pirch came up in this building. He’s a graduate of the Kansas City Jazz Academy, and in its 18th Street Combo, based here at the museum, he played alto and wrote the band a blues head called “Somethin Fishy.” Since then the Columbia Jazz Orchestra, an 18-piece big band, has premiered his arrangement of Dexter Gordon’s “The Panther,” and he leads his own band, the Owen Pirch Group. He plays tenor as well as alto. Thursday at noon he’s back where he started. Free admission.
Indigo Hour: Chalis O’Neal — Friday, 5:30 pm
Chalis O’Neal nearly gave up the trumpet. An embouchure change right after high school derailed his playing, and his older brother, pianist Harold O’Neal, talked him into sticking with it. He went on to study jazz at UMKC under Bobby Watson and has made two records: Flirting (2021), where Kevin Rabas of Jazz Ambassador Magazine wrote of one track, “It’s hip. It’s sexy. It’s fun,” and The Influence (2025), on which he raps that his music is “hip-hop meets swing with a little bebop.” He’s hosted the Monday jam here five times since 2024. $5; AJM members free.
Start Friday with the trumpet →
Norman Liggins Band – A Night of Jazz — Friday, 8:30 pm & 10 pm
The Norman Liggins Band played Indigo Hour here on July 3, the Friday of the Fourth of July weekend. Three months later it’s back on a Friday as the headliner with A Night of Jazz. Spend your Friday night at the Blue Room: come early for Chalis O’Neal at 5:30, then settle in for the band’s two sets. $10 per show.
Nick Hmeljak — Saturday, 8:30 pm & 10 pm
On a Sunday in July 2025, Nick Hmeljak and four bandmates spent a night at Westport Coffee House debuting new originals, and Plastic Sax heard “energetic hard bop with vigorous integrity.” In December the blog put that night at No. 1 on its list of 2025 performances by Kansas City musicians. Hmeljak finished his jazz studies degree at Middle Tennessee State in 2023, moved to Kansas City that year, and has studied with Adam Larson and Stan Kessler. In June the Charlotte Street Foundation named him a 2026–2028 studio resident. His collective Open Channel released “Time Crunch” in August, and its debut album, Alive, is due this fall. $10 per show.
Monday Night Jam Session: Blue Noyes — Monday, 7 pm
Blue Noyes started playing the drum set at 2. She’s a jazz studies major at the University of Kansas, and in 2026 she held the drum chair in the Jazz Education Network’s Sisters in Jazz combo, which debuted her piece “Reflections II” at the network’s conference in New Orleans. Eddie Moore is the pianist on her 2024 album, First Steps, four standards she arranged with trumpeter Nic Weaver. Monday her quartet hosts the jam: the featured set at 7, then the bandstand opens to whoever signed up at the door. $10; AJM members, musicians, and students free.
Owen Pirch Thursday, Chalis O’Neal and the Norman Liggins Band Friday, Nick Hmeljak Saturday, and Blue Noyes’s quartet at Monday’s jam. See you at the Blue Room.
The Blue Room · 1600 E 18th St, Kansas City, MO 64108 Full calendar and tickets: americanjazzmuseum.org/blue-room