A New Temporary Exhibition at the Truman Library and Museum, May 22 - December 31, 2025.
An extraordinary collection of photographs of Kansas City’s jazz musicians will celebrate the music they brought to life in Kansas City.
The portraits are by Pulitzer-prize winning photographer Dan White, who started taking jazz musician portraits in 1987 as a way of documenting the vibrancy of the music and the players on the Kansas City jazz scene. The jazz portraits will be exhibited at the Truman Presidential Library in Independence in an exhibit scheduled to open May 22 and continue through December.
“I began photographing jazz musicians in 1987, hoping to create a visual record of these talented artists and to help preserve Kansas City’s tradition as the birthplace of jazz,” said White.
The exhibit will feature 50 black and white portraits White took over a 19-year period from 1987 to 2006. The exhibit will include recent color photographs of a new generation of KC jazz musicians. The black and white photographs include musicians with national reputations such as Jay McShann and Claude “Fiddler” Williams. It also includes lesser-known musicians who made the Kansas City jazz scene special.
“It has been an extraordinary experience to meet, listen and photograph these amazing musicians,” said White. “I only wish I had started sooner.” About three-fourths of the musicians in the black and white portraits have passed. Many were members of the Musicians Protective Union Local 627. The Mutual Musicians Hall, located in the 18th and Vine jazz district, is on the National Register for Historic Places and continues as a venue for live music.
The exhibit will include information about the musicians from Chuck Haddix, who has an exhaustive background on Kansas City jazz. Haddix is host of the weekly NPR radio show “The Fish Fry” which he has hosted and produced for 30 years and director of the Marr Sound Archives, a collection of 350,000 historic sound recordings housed in the Miller Nichols Library at the University of Missouri–Kansas City.
The exhibit will inspire public programs at the Truman Library and other venues sharing the Kansas City jazz story.