Jazz Beat: Ida McBeth, at the Blue Room

Ida McBeth is a KC jazz fixture and a local icon. Since the 1980s, when she owned weekends at the Point, she has been raising club roofs with sass and swing — rollicking with some Stevie Wonder–style R&B, belting the blues, putting her soul into her own take on a jazz or pop classic. But there has been scant opportunity to hear her since the closing of Jardine’s, where she reigned, two years ago. Saturday night, McBeth performs at the Blue Room. Hear why, in a city brimming with jazz talent, McBeth is a one-and-only.