The correct answer is Jay McShann
Staying in Kansas City on a lark, McShann freelanced in the Lone Star and other clubs lining 12th and 18th Street. McShann received his nickname “Hootie” one night after becoming literally intoxicated by Kansas City’s nightlife. “I remember the first time I went to the Greenleaf Clube and the guys said we got a new cat in town,” McShann chuckled. “They told the bartender to ‘fix us that special drink you fixed for us a couple of nights ago. We got a new cat gonna sit in here and blow tonight.’ They had pale beer, and they put alcohol in the bottom. It was hot in the summer, and it was so cold you could see the frost on the outside of the container…[I]t tasted so good and cold, I said wow. They said, ‘man, you ready for another,’ and I replied, ‘yeah.’ After about the third one they said when you going to blow. I said I was ready, but when I tried to get up I couldn’t get out of the seat. They said, ‘man, this cat come up here and got hootied.’ So from then on the cats started calling me Hootie.” A hale-and-well-met fellow, McShann easily found a niche in Kansas City’s musical community.
– Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix, from Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop — A History
__________
A documentary on Jay McShann
