Music Stories

Donna Summer, the queen of disco, died Thursday at her home in Naples, Fla., after a long struggle with cancer. She was 63. Born LaDonna Andrea Gaines, she grew up in a large Boston family singing gospel music and became an icon of a powerful cultural movement, a celebrated sex queen and a staple of gay club life.

She wasn't always comfortable with those roles, and in her later years returned to gospel music. Summer's hits of the '70s and early '80s included Last Dance, Heaven Knows, On the Radio, Bad Girls and She Works Hard for the Money. She had three consecutive No. 1 platinum albums and 11 gold albums, and was a five-time Grammy winner.

 For the last two and a half years, the Black House Improviser’s Collective has made its home in an unoccupied floor of a downtown office building provided by the Charlotte Street Foundation.

Back in Kansas City’s classic jazz era of the ‘30s and early ‘40s, it was not uncommon to hear a full stage of horn players making music together.