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About Dwight Foster Jacqueline Recommends
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† IN MEMORIAM †
Oscar "Lucky" WesleyOscar "Lucky" Wesley, a longtime bass player and vocalist with local jazz legend the Scamps, died Saturday at age 82. Oscar "Lucky" Wesley, long-time base player and vocalist of "The Scamps, died from congstive heart failure Saturday, March 27, 2010. Diagnosed with stomach cancer last June, he had hoped to re-join the Scamps after undergoing chemotherapy but in January 2010 doctors discovered three blocked arteries. The Scamps, local musicians and jazz lovers who have enjoyed Wesley's performances through the years joined his daughter, Philena Wesley, April 3, 2010 to honor "Lucky" Wesley at the Phoenix Jazz Club. Services for Wesley will be at 11 a.m. April 9 at Concord Fortress of Hope Church, 11050 W. Longview Parkway; burial in Mount Moriah Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. April 9 at the church. A Guest Book has been set up for anyone who would like to express condolences and commemoration Oscar "Lucky" Wesley. While Wesley played with many Kansas City groups and musicians, his principal legacy was with the Scamps, the Kansas City jazz band that has operated in various incarnations since the mid-1940s. Wesley joined the Scamps in 1971. With his stand-up bass, Wesley helped establish the swinging Kansas City signature that fans of the Scamps sought them out to hear. "A lot of bass players play with steel strings, but Lucky played with gut strings and he knew how to make the room warm,” said Dwight Foster, a fellow Scamps member. "Lucky knew how to make things feel relaxed." Wesley's grandson Phillip Wesley, the Scamps' business manager, explained, "He really wasn't into the technical kind of playing, where you play these big long solos," he said. "But he would create this really big sound, like he wanted the audience to be able to feel it." Anytime Lucky was playing the bass, you knew it; he really knew how to make his sound stand out. He was well aware of the celebrated tradition he was working in, according to local jazz historian Chuck Haddix."Lucky Wesley came up right after the golden age of Kansas City jazz, and he really carried that torch. "The 'Kansas City style' always has been traditionally defined by the rhythm section and the bass line, and he very definitely had that distinctive Kansas City beat," said Haddix. Wesley served in the Air Force just after World War II and by the late 1940s was leading a 17-piece Air Force band. During this time he heard a song on the radio, a Duke Ellington composition called "Solitude," recorded by the Scamps. The sound thrilled him. After leaving the military, he came home to Kansas City and formed a group called the Five Aces, which, he once said, often tried to duplicate the Scamps sound. In 1950 the Five Aces appeared before about 8,000 people who filled Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium to hear a lineup of local entertainers headlined by comedian Bob Hope. After the Five Aces disbanded in the mid-1950s, Wesley joined Kansas City pianist Jay McShann’s band. But he grew weary of the road and returned to Kansas City to find steady work with the U.S. Postal Service. That was the beginning of his career with the Scamps. In a 2002 interview, Wesley told a Kansas City Star report "To say that you were a Scamp meant something." Since then he has continued pleasing audiences with his unique stage presence. "He was very charismatic, and had a smile that lit up the room," said Tim Whitmer, who hired Wesley in 1992 to play with his band, Tim Whitmer and the KC Express, at the Phoenix Jazz Club in Kansas City. "One of the things Lucky taught me was a great appreciation for the audience," Whitmer said. "He was always into having the people have a great time. Lucky had played with all the cats and he had that groove and that million-dollar smile. He just exuded the joy of music." Philena Wesley, Lucky's daughter, believes that her father received the nickname "Lucky" when he was serving in the military. "He was originally a trumpeter," she said. "But he was playing at a show, and he went to sing and somebody hit the microphone and it hit him in the mouth. He couldn't play the trumpet anymore and he taught himself the bass."
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