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profiles By 17, he found himself opening for legendary jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis at the Uptown Theater, a moment he still recalls fondly. “That was really kind of a big deal for us to be 17 years old and doing that. I had a lot to learn still, but at 17 I thought I had it pretty well together then,” says DeWitt, who’s now 50 years old and lives in Shawnee. But as any musician can readily attest, circumstances change, the economy changes, the musical climate changes and artists themselves change. After a few years working jam nights and playing club dates, it was time to “get practical,” DeWitt says. So he landed a job in the Kansas City Philharmonic and later the Omaha Symphony, becoming the principal bass at the age of 21. His career seemed set. “I thought it would be a stable way to make a living being a musician, but it turns out that it was less stable than being a pop and jazz musician,” he says about one of many paradoxes the professional musician encounters. While the symphonic experience gave him an invaluable education and a classical pedigree that influenced his pop music, DeWitt says it was somewhat limiting creatively. As an orchestra bassist, he saw few opportunities to write, record and perform original material. During the ’90s his group the KC Bottoms Band allowed DeWitt room to stretch creatively. The group served as the house band at the Tuba in Kansas City’s West Bottoms. Guitarist Terry Swope, 58, has played on and off with DeWitt for nearly 25 years. “That was a fun little scene. [The Tuba] was a little bitty old bar. We took up almost half of it,” he says. The band filled it with plenty of original material, which DeWitt has continued to pursue since the band quit playing together about 15 years ago. His current jazz-pop solo release Midway was so successful that DeWitt raced back into the studio immediately to record its follow-up Cool-Rays, released June 1. Such career development is a credit to DeWitt’s resiliency, eternal optimism and professional savvy. Being a professional musician for more than 30 years has required him to be comfortable making compromises, a flexibility that he says some artists never are able to make,
and as a result accept all kinds of musical work to make ends meet. “I haven’t always done what I’ve wanted to do musically,” DeWitt admits. He’s played in disco bands and rock cover bands and performed gigs in remote rural areas just to keep going. “Sometimes you’re an artist; sometimes you’re a craftsman. In order to survive, you have to be willing to do both,” DeWitt says. Nevertheless, DeWitt says he’s “more excited than frustrated.” He’s learning how to become better at self-promotion and marketing, skills that he says many musicians “stumble” on. He’s even become a fine producer, engineer and singer, with a voice that recalls Steve Winwood or Phil Collins. “He’s been a real student of learning the craft of singing. I believe what he’s singing. I like the way he projects the feeling through the lyrics,” says Swope. The work ethic hasn’t changed either. He plays as many as four to five times a week and holds down a weekly residency at the 75th Street Brewery in Kansas City, Missouri, where he plays and sings alongside Mark Valentine, Ray DiMarchi and Swope in a group known as The Brew. DeWitt has a solo on almost every song, allowing him the chance to try something new. “I’m listening to him play solos, and a lot of times when he’s playing the solo I’ll go underneath him and sort of do a bass part. We’ll have a role reversal almost,” Swope says. DeWitt’s career seems to have weathered all of the frustrations, paradoxes, missteps and false starts that can do in even the most talented, seasoned musician. He clearly has a knack for reshaping his professional and creative goals to the alwayschanging musical world in which he is a small part. “I love music. I wouldn’t do it differently if I had to go back, and I wouldn’t trade out the experiences I’ve had either,” he says. sm
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