Jazz Beat: Bram Wijnands Swingtet at the Blue Room

During the jazz heyday of the 1930s and ’40s, Kansas City’s Pete Johnson helped popularize a wild brand of swing — boogie-woogie, stride piano, barrelhouse blues. Today, another Kansas Citian — by way of the Netherlands — keeps the style fresh in some of the same neighborhoods where Johnson swung. Bram Wijnands’ rollicking piano opens the night every Sunday at Green Lady Lounge. Thursday at the Blue Room, his seven-piece Swingtet reimagines the sounds that 18th and Vine knew when Count Basie lived here. If you don’t like happy music, stay away. But if you want to know what Kansas City–style jazz is all about, the Bram Wijnands Swingtet will show you.