Big Shots

Part of the Jay McShann legend is that the future king of Kansas City boogie-woogie piano was Omaha-bound when his bus stopped here and the musicians he knew in town convinced him to stick around. He would go on to midwife Charlie Parker’s career while cementing his own journeyman bona fides. McShann died in 2006, and a portrait of the artist in his twilight — smart suit, gentle smile, knowing eyes — feels like the center of Dan White‘s rich exhibition The Fine Art of Jazz. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer shot these intimate black-and-whites over a two-decade period, and the results survey the city’s jazz legacy while paying tribute to its surviving practitioners. You can see them daily at the Kansas City, Missouri, Central Library (14 West 10th Street). The photos stay up through May 23. For more information, see kclibrary.org.

April 10-May 23, 2010