ShawneeDispatch.com

I wish I could whistle.

Other men – and quite a few women, too, for that matter – have this ability, but not me. My stepdad could do it – he could call a horse in from a pasture half a mile away, I suppose – and he tried to teach me but I never could.

Some do it by just aligning their tongue and teeth in a certain way and then rapidly expelling air through their mouths. I’m sure it has something to do with the venture effect. Some people do it by sticking their fingers in their mouths. All I get are wet fingers.

I should mention at this point that I’m not talking about the whistling one does by puckering one’s lips; I can do that well enough. The problem is, you never get any appreciable volume by whistling that way.

No, I wish I could twist my tongue and teeth around in a way that you could hear it a block or more away. Oh, well.

Now I don’t obsess on this lack of facility; it’s just that, once in a while it would be nice to let her fly – to join in the chorus of applause in a concert, for example.

If I could have whistled I would have done so Saturday night. The wife and I attended the Mark O’Connor Hot Swing! Concert at Kansas City’s Folly Theatre.

It was our first visit to the restored Kansas City landmark. (I was there once many years ago, in its previous incarnation, but that’s another story.)

Mark O’Connor is a jazz violinist, and his ensemble featuring guitarists Frank Vignola and Matt Munisteri, bassist Gary Mazzaroppi and vocalist Heather Masse pays honor to the music of the late Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt. Saturday’s concert, which marked the 100th anniversary of Reinhardt’s birth, was the final event in the 2009-2010 Folly Jazz series.

To say the music was good is like saying the sea is wet. It just doesn’t go far enough. It was exquisite. In my youth I played around with the guitar. I haven’t played for years, but I can still remember how frustrating it was to practice and play and know that no matter how much you tried you could never bring that kind of transcendent sound out of what is essentially a wooden box.

Django Reinhardt is widely considered the greatest of all jazz guitarists. In 1934 he and Parisian violinist Stéphane Grappelli formed the “Quintette du Hot Club de France,” and their recordings are still prized today by jazz aficionados. He died in 1953.

Guitarists as diverse as classicist Julian Bream, bluesman B.B. King, country musician Chet Atkins and rockers Carlos Santana and Jerry Garcia have acknowledged Reinhardt’s influence.

Even if you’re not familiar with his name, you’ve probably heard his music, which has been featured in films like “The Matrix,” “Chocolat” and “The Aviator,” and wafts through the background of several Woody Allen movies.

We thoroughly enjoyed the evening, although I confess I find it hard to describe the music. The adjectives that come to mind – light, springy, effervescent – all seem paltry and inconsequential.

Of course the musicians’ virtuosity was complete. O’Connor after all was mentored by Grappelli. I marveled at the speed and fluidity of the unamplified guitar passages. I especially enjoyed the playing of Munisteri, the rhythm guitarist. Often his hands were a blur as they flew over the strings.

I think part of the charm of the ensemble was that the instruments were, for the most part, unamplified. Except for folk musicians and classical guitarists, it’s rare anymore to see acoustic instruments in concert.

There. I think I’ve just proved that it’s as hard for me to describe the music as it was for me to whistle. I guess you had to be there.

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