Bennie Moten

Benjamin "Bennie" Moten (November 13, 1894 – April 2, 1935) was an American jazz pianist and band leader born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. He led the Kansas City Orchestra, the most important of the regional, blues-based orchestras active in the Midwest in the 1920s, and helped to develop the riffing style that would come to define many of the 1930s Big Bands.