A sporting goods store isn’t usually the first venue associated with jazz music. But every Tuesday at noon, the foot-tapping sounds of Dixieland jazz waft across the Snappy Sport Senter parking lot.

For more than a decade, the Rocky Mountain Rhythm Kings have entertained customers and jazz lovers alike at a free weekly concert at the Kalispell store. The eight-piece band has been a Flathead Valley fixture for more than 20 years.

The band began in about 1988 as a duo who played mostly ragtime music, with Karla West on piano and Paul Lawrence on tuba. They were soon joined by a washboard player and then by a banjo player, West said.

“That’s how the Rhythm Kings came about,” she said. “Because we were basically just a rhythm section.”

In those days, the Rhythm Kings played at the Gateway West Mall, now the Gateway Community Center, West said. Every week the band would set up in the mall food court around noon and play for the lunch crowd.

The Rhythm Kings continued to expand, as cornet and trombone players and then a vocalist joined the lineup. With the increased list of performers, the Rhythm Kings’ sound ultimately evolved from ragtime to Dixieland jazz.

With that move, the band carved out a unique niche for itself, West said.

“We’re it as far as Dixieland goes in the Flathead Valley. There is nothing else,” she said.

Dixieland succeeded ragtime in America’s jazz history, West explained. It lasted from about 1900 until the 1930s, when it transitioned into swing ensembles and then big band.

“It was a short time in our jazz history,” she said. “It’s fun to keep that style alive.”

The band’s steady gig at the mall continued for several years, but eventually, the Rhythm Kings moved across town to Snappy Sport Senter.

The band tried playing at Kalispell Center Mall, but the mall is such a busy spot that it’s all but impossible to have a steady gig there, West said.

“They have so many shows ... we never knew from one week to the next” whether the band could play there, West said. “They could never guarantee we’d ever have a spot to play. On a year-round basis, it’s very busy there.”

The mall has been generous in providing space for other music events, such as the annual Glacier Jazz Stampede, West said, but a consistent weekly performance spot was out of the question.

That’s when B.J. Lupton, the owner of Snappy’s and a fellow jazz musician, offered his store to the Rhythm Kings.

“That was before they built their big events center,” West recalled. “We were right in the middle of the store, in the shoe department. The employees would push the merchandise out of the way and a piano was brought in.”

These days, the Rhythm Kings’ weekly performance takes place in Snappy’s event center behind the main store. While the center is often used for shows and events such as fly tying classes, West said, it has also attracted more musicians than the Rhythm Kings.

“It has become a very popular place for rehearsals for various groups,” she said, adding that Lupton “is so generous to allow people to use the space.”

The space has chairs, music stands, a piano, a drum set — “everything we could ever want,” West said. “It’s been kind of fun. And people come and listen.”

Through their weekly gig, the Rhythm Kings have received several referrals, she added. 

“We get a lot of casual gigs out of our noontime shows,” she said.

Those gigs include birthday parties and church celebrations, including jazz Masses and gospel services, West said.

The Rhythm Kings are also scheduled to play at the annual ALERT Banquet April 27, a fundraiser for Kalispell Regional Medical Center’s ALERT helicopter. 

“Any kind of party where they like an upbeat style of music everyone can kind of relate to and dance to,” West said of the gigs the band is invited to play.

For more information about the Rocky Mountain Rhythm Kings, contact West at 862-3814 or email her at glacierjazz@hotmail.com.

Kristi Albertson, editor of This Week in the Flathead, may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.