The radical origins and hauntological present of Kansas City Jazz

KC jazz and Hauntology. // Illustration by Jacqulyn Seyferth

Editor’s Note: Today over at The Pitch, we’re trying something a little different.

Ian Bennett has a longer piece deep-diving into some cultural/political writing that’s in line with some of our favorite reading at more hyper-specific lit mags and different sides of the internet.

As a KC-based writer, we thought you might dig this piece that blends the theories of Mark Fisher‘s approach to the world along with KC Jazz’s complicated history. You can follow along with Bennett’s work over at his YouTube page. Enjoy your introduction to hauntology:

Kansas City can be described as the Midwest’s melting pot. This can be seen by way of geography, its landlocked center and transitional place between the east and west. Visualized by Kansas City’s diverse sets of people originating from all over the globe. With human intricacy inevitably comes creation and art. One such artistic creation, a larger musical medium, can be seen as one of Kansas City’s largest cornerstones.

That being “Kansas City Jazz.”

As Kansas Citians, its roots in Jazz can be taken for granted as its presence is often shrouded in a veil of casual weekend normalcy. A side-show spectacle in a number of Kansas City’s cocktail bars filled with social outings in places like the Green Lady Lounge, The Majestic, and The Blue Room. And how fortunate a gift for Kansas City? The ability for people of all origins and creeds to gather amidst an artistic medium such as jazz, even if jazz is often secondary to those social gatherings.

Yet, this hidden gift didn’t come without extreme sacrifice and struggle. A struggle glossed over in contemporary watered-down narratives of history today. Struggle paved by Black Americans who still experience the same type of institutional repression and social stigmas that made it so difficult for ‘Kansas City Jazz’ to ever become a regional powerhouse. A powerhouse that further shaped the global landscape of jazz at large. We often think of things, concepts, histories as singular. Something devoid of connection and overlapping qualities. Jazz visualizes this dilemma perfectly. If you were to ask someone to define jazz the likely (and understandable) answer would be a specific musical genre. A musical discipline with a set identifiable sound. And while Jazz is certainly a musical genre, its impact demands a broader definition. It’s a cultural entity that embodies a type of historical place and narrative. Even with its most common musical descriptors, it still embodies types of dance, romantic story-telling, and even material things such as food and drink! (Which begs reminding that food shares artistic roots.) This type of singular isolated way of viewing concepts, art, and history rip the key historical, human context from it. And when understanding Jazz, its human impact is paramount.

There are complex theories and reasons as to why art has become increasingly commodified. A value primarily placed upon its ease of consumption, measured within the iron grips of capital. These reasons, while interesting, go beyond the scope of this article. It is here we will explore the contemporary effect of art. Focusing on today’s effect as something easily seen within the form of Jazz. Especially when faced with its history of grueling struggle and racism.

Jazz began its formative age in the late 19th and early 20th century. Developing within Black segregated communities. Forged within the early musical genres of ragtime and blues. By the 1920’s jazz entered its formal ‘Jazz Age’ where it began to gain global prominence. With places such as New Orleans, New York, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City being some of the founding areas of Jazz’s evolution. Contrary to accepted myth, Jazz didn’t solely originate through a single location, often believed through New Orleans alone. (Hennessey) Jazz’s origins were never singular. It grew through varied musical traditions and sounds identifiable to regions throughout the United States.

Last Thursday, the City Council of Kansas City unanimously voted to remove the requirement for individuals working in the service industry to have a liquor license. This applies to any workers in a restaurant or bar that sells or serves alcohol. For Kansas City Jazz, it distinguished itself as being rooted in a much more ‘bluesy’ sound. Crudely put, outside of explicit music theory, it’s often described as a slower, fluid mode of Jazz. Kansas City Jazz found its heart and soul within the city’s 18th and Vine. Also known as the Jazz District.

Through the 20th century, clubs such as the Boulevard Lounge, Amos ‘n’ Andy, Cherry Blossom, Dante’s Inferno, etc. became centerpieces in the Kansas City Jazz scene. But, these clubs didn’t operate as clubs in which we would envision today. A type of place where one can enjoy live music on a given evening. Subject to racial segregation and prohibition, many of these clubs, east of the segregated dividing line of Troost, were targeted simply by way of being a part of its primarily Black, east-side communities.

A common practice for many Jazz players in Kansas City was to perform during the evening in clubs that hosted ‘socially accepted’ (white) audiences west of Troost street. Places where law enforcement often turned a blind eye to liquor laws, only to then move to play in segregated clubs further east later in the night and face legal retribution. In the 1920’s, rampant city-wide corruption, extreme racism, apartheid-esque policy, and disregard for the rule of law in upper-class communities were all but uncommon. Kansas City wasn’t only a part of this, but a standout entity in cities across the United States. In his book “Take Up the Black Man’s Burden: Kansas City’s African American Communities”, Charles E. Coulter writes about Willa Glenn’s weekly column in the Sun that talked about her experiences in early 20th century Kansas City.

On the topic of Jazz, Glenn stated that “That white folks like to visit Negro cabarets even if the law doesn’t permit it. They say they get more warmth and jazz than they do at their own.” (Coulter, Charles E.) This simple snippet tells us how art and culture often originate and grow. Embedded in a type of underground spirit that is so often scorned and legally targeted during its heyday. A type of spirit so conveniently ignored in historical synopses.

Racism and segregation have always been front and center regarding Jazz. Even if it’s rarely discussed in the capacity it should. Amidst these smaller discussions the extent and scale in-which a type of racism and segregation is associated with Jazz varies immensely. More often than not, the larger ideological underpinnings of racism in the 20th century get brushed to the side. These disturbing underpinnings couldn’t be more relevant. The 20th century saw a massive shift in racist ideology. Much of the racist idealisms of the past evolved into more academic corners. Places such as eugenics and ‘race science’. (Things still ever so widely propagated today!) Areas that sought to give more ‘objective’ and ‘analytical’ nuance to their hateful dispositions. An evolution from the myths of black people being mentally deficient to now being biologically disposed to behavior such as rape. It’s hard to understate the new extremes black Americans faced at the start of the 20th century.

Kansas City author, G.S. Griffin, wrote on this new trajectory of white supremacy in the 20th century. In his (incredibly important) book Racism in Kansas City: A Short History, he quotes author Tanner Colby on this new found racist 20th century racist ideology:

“For those keen to present blacks as a threat, the stereotype of blacks as feebleminded children was of little use– children pose no threat. Racism required an overhaul. Blacks needed to be dangerous, disease ridden, violent. These images were pumped into the public consciousness through the work of newspaper propagandists and political demagogues. Scientists got behind the notion too, propagating biological and psychological theories to explain the black man’s animal nature and his criminal appetites”. (Colby, pg. 77)

This passage succinctly lays bare the ideological weight thrown into newer, modern white supremacy. For many, education on racist tactics in the early 20th is a discovery that explains the ideological underpinning on many world shaping events. Happenings such as the rise of Nazism, the rise of institutionally accepted pseudoscience of white-supremacy, and the further implementation of Jim Crow laws. It’s through these moments in history we see the unrelenting (very much institutional) force that is unwilling to compromise with emancipation and equality for all people. That every cornerstone of life for Black America was viewed as an existential threat. From their own unique ways of worship, their desire for genuine integration in society, to being able to develop newer arts and spaces such as Jazz.

KC jazz and Hauntology. // Illustration by Jacqulyn Seyferth

To exist in an environment of new extremes, this new underground musical ‘spirit’ relied upon organization. Particularly the formation of a union. In 1917, the Local 627 formed. Known as the “Colored Musicians Union”, its inception played a massive role in the cultural scene within 18th and Vine. 

Its origins served as protection for musicians who were often stiffed on pay and taken advantage of. This union not only served the role as a central protection for Jazz artists and particularly vulnerable musicians throughout Kansas City, but worked as a community organization that helped fill the cracks of an absent local government that led to dire conditions in East Kansas City. An absence that left many Black Kansas Citians destitute. Author and Historian Lorenzo J. Greene details these conditions in his text “Missouri’s Black Heritage”: “Hemmed in on all sides, Eighteenth and Vine grew denser. Jerry-built “apartments” were tacked onto tenement homes in back alleys. Families were crowded into crudely subdivided basements. One study conducted in 1912 found that 20 percent of the houses in Eighteenth and Vine lacked any water supply at all, 50 percent had no sink, and bathtubs averaged one per every twenty-two residents. Infection rates ran twice the city average for pneumonia, tuberculosis, and other communicable diseases.” (Kremer et al. 162) For many Black Americans, life was a continual uphill battle. With a massive lack of infrastructure and political representation, unionization in Black communities played a role in not only worker protections, but facilitating larger services that were not available to them in Downtown Kansas City. For Jazz, it wasn’t just idealisms that facilitated harm in isolation, it perpetuated a vicious cycle of material poverty and inadequacy for thousands of Black Kansas Citians. And with Jazz, that cycle kept rolling.

Moral panic around Jazz was a national conundrum. National discourse connected Jazz with pathological language such as insanity, devilish behaviors, and criminality. Even the local Kansas City Kansan published an article in 1922 describing Jazz within the vein of ‘Vampires, Jazz, Joyrides and Turkish Immorality’. (Allen Tipton, Carrie) Mirroring a type of moral panic that arose during the infamous Red Scare of the 1950’s, the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960’s, Satanic Panic in the 1990’s, and most felt, of the contemporary moral panic around LGTBQ+ and black communities today. Reactions from merely demanding that their right to exist be recognized and respected. Racially charged, slanderous designations, deferring to black, transgender and queer people as ‘woke’, ‘criminals’ and ‘pedophiles’. All as equally preposterous, harmful and cartoonish as the reactionary fear of the 1920’s that deemed Jazz as something vampirish, satanic, and racialised. Fear being the common denominator with every iteration of moral panic. A type of genuine cowardice aided in a severe, often willful, ignorance of history.

There is often a type of malaise when analyzing history and culture within the 20th century primarily by way of living in the 21st. And being 21st century citizens, malaise could be seen as a defining feeling. And yet, many would argue that ‘malaise’ fails to accurately describe the real weight of the issue. The issue of mental health at large. There are few who would argue that mental health isn’t a national crisis or a defining moment in 21st century life. In May of 2022, The White House wrote an issue brief on mental health at large, highlighting some disturbing data: from the year 2008, to 2020 we’ve seen depressive episodes for people under 25 more than double from 8% in 2008, to 17% in 2020. That’s an over 100% increase in depressive episodes among young people. (“Reducing the Economic Burden of Unmet Mental Health Needs | CEA”) Yet, there’s a depth to the issue that statistics on its own doesn’t hold. Despite the wording of malaise holding less severity than ‘depressive episode’, it does hold a larger sociological weight, one that allows us to broaden the scope of mental health and its potential origins, outside of standard medicalized, individual, disorders. So much of the development of modern psychology individualized mental health as something innately separate from social phenomenon. Things that can be easily explained by ‘chemical imbalances’ and isolated personality disorders. Isolated personal biology. While modern medicine, developments around psychology at large, shouldn’t be taken for granted, it’s also vital to see how this grants a form of immunity for our institutions and power at large. In a world where so many are overworked, underpaid, subject to abuse, and discrimination, surely the rapid rise in depression and mental health woes cannot be easily chalked up to chemical imbalances?

By definition, this type of malaise is sociological, even historical, not something merely psychological. A malaise highlighted by the extreme cultural, musical movements that the 20th century brought. We saw evolutions from Jazz and Blues, into what we now know as classic rock. Experimental types of progressive rock, metal, grunge, all the way to soul, American R&B, hip-hop and rap. It is so incredibly difficult to overstate how much variation, evolution, and creativity took place in the 20th century. And as 21st century people tuning into 20th century music, we often feel ‘haunted’ by this bygone era. A time and place of radical movement, change, and creativity. To be left with its often over packaged, commodified ashes in the 21st century. Yet, the things still present are the reactionary superstitions of the past: moral panic, racism, sexism, and rampant classism. Amidst this cultural carryover, It often feels as if the 21st century is incapable of producing radical cultural monuments as lasting as American Jazz. At times, it feels as if nothing new can occur. For all genuinely concerned with change, growth, and progress, this is stifling. From feelings of malaise, to a ‘hauntedness’ of 20th century art, this language was first expressed by the late philosopher and cultural theorist, Mark Fisher. He detailed the concept of ‘Hauntology’ in his 2014 book, “Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures.”

Fisher’s concept of Hauntology refers to the current cultural, political landscape in the 21st century as something innately haunted by “ghosts” of the 21st century. This is undoubtedly vague language, but his thesis is quite simple. Fisher theorized that in the 21st century we’ve entered a cultural and political moment where the future is ‘dead’. We can see this ‘death’ in two ways: The first being a general lack of hope for the future, the rise of mental health woes, and larger economic and political instability. The second is that of art. To Fisher, art has hit a point of severe limbo. All ‘new’ art is now recycled from 20th century aesthetics. We can see this with the revival and mish-mash of 80’s and 90’s fashion. The re-emergence of vinyl records, cassettes, and physical media in general. With sociological trauma, large-scale economic and political insecurity, Fisher see’s a culture that is reverting to nostalgia as a creature comfort, something that shields us from the turmoil of today. For all who can relate to this feeling, an immediate question is how did this happen? How did we enter a period that could even resemble a future that is ‘dead’? This is where Fisher’s thesis comes alive and starts to make more material sense. 

To Fisher, the reason for ‘lost futures’, an age ‘haunted’ by 20th century nostalgia, is the advent of neoliberalism. A far-right political doctrine that has been the baseline for public policy for the past 40 or so years. For many, neoliberalism is a confusing term because its use of ‘liberal’ doesn’t match how we often use it in the political language of today. For that, it deserves some background: in mainstream terminology, liberalism is often designated as something innately progressive and left-wing, while conservatism defines right-wing, economically and socially conservative politics. In mainstream media punditry, and normal day-to-day discussion. Yet, it couldn’t be more incorrect when contending with actual political theory. Without opening the bag of worms that is political theory, the term neoliberalism draws upon an academic rendition of liberalism: as an overarching political philosophy of private property, contracts, and market economics.

Thus, liberalism is the larger framework our economic, social and political systems exist within, as ‘liberals’ or conservatives alike. While language evolves and has multiple meanings, there is often a confusing irony with using ‘liberal’ as a slanderous attack against one’s character, given by way of our reliance on the systems around us, we’re all liberals by default! It’s an old saying that doesn’t get applied nearly enough in political discourse, that being, we are more accurately defined by what we do, how we live, and less by what we think. Neoliberalism is defined as a reemergence of the original, austere, laissez-faire market economic liberalism of the past.

(Note: This is what we can call an abstract ‘academic’ definition of neoliberalism. Many would argue [and I agree] this isn’t the *actual* way neoliberalism functions. Economists such as David Harvey posit that neoliberalism isn’t a true subtraction of the state for the mere facilitation of ‘free-market’ economic freedoms. It’s the remodeling of the state as something that purposefully intervenes to protect corporations and large businesses. It expands on the state, increasing its role, but exclusively for large business. Instead of a state whose welfare system is for the working class, it’s now shifted into corporate welfare. Things such as the 2008 and 2020 bailouts, tax subsidizations going to giant oil conglomerates, and military contracts to weapons manufacturers as such examples. For more on the intricacies of neoliberalism, in an accessible format, I highly suggest David Harvey’s ‘A Brief History of Neoliberalism’.)

KC jazz and Hauntology. // Illustration by Jacqulyn Seyferth

Neoliberalism started to gain massive political power in the late 1970’s, and with the rise of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher; some of the main faces of neoliberalism, brought upon an onslaught against vital social programs for working class Americans. Welfare benefits to disabled individuals were slashed and mental health funding nearly evaporated overnight. For workers, unions and collective organizing were violently destroyed, workers’ purchasing power immediately fell, and has continued to fall for decades while seeing drastic increases in income inequality. (Hanauer and Rolf) Industries were deregulated, the Environmental Protection Agency budget was cut by 22%, while Reagan’s administration hired fossil fuel corporations’ staff members to the agency. This effectively killed many of the regulatory accomplishments in the 20th century that helped protect increasingly endangered natural areas. All of this brought lasting harm to natural habitats and air quality in cities across the United States. The new socio-political strategy was that of de-regulation of the largest for profit organizations in the world. (Sullivan) From the beginning of the 20th century, and the ushering in of President FDR’s New Deal in America, to many advancements in European worker-led political gains, a mediation of destructive corporate practices that hurt the public. We saw genuine progress in the expansion of democracy across the workforce. Union membership rose, public works programs hired thousands to create new common areas, parks, and even national parks as a whole. In general, what we saw in the period of FDR’s New Deal and social democracy across Europe, wasn’t revolutionary, it didn’t reinvent the economic wheel, but it did expand democracy further throughout society. Places where democracy held little consideration. Places such as the workforce where the de facto mode of organization is aristocracy. And for many publicly traded companies, oligarchy.

This democratic expansion helped create a more egalitarian system as a whole, creating the middle-class as we knew it, and moved society in a healthier, stable direction. This all fell apart when neoliberalism became the de-facto political system across the West.

This description of neoliberalism is a bit technical and may immediately appear to be outside of the realm of art, jazz at large and Fisher’s concept of hauntology. But, it’s arguably the most defining piece of this dilemma. When austerity strikes, when corporations lobby to roll back social programs, lower taxes, cut regulation at large, it wasn’t just the Environmental Protection Agency, healthcare, and programs meant to protect working class Americans. It was the arts and humanities.

With the institutional decay of the arts, we’ve now firmly entrenched the social logic of production above all else. Profit above all else. Education, music, aesthetics; art at large, be damned. For many, even if newly introduced to these concepts, the dots may be starting to connect. If we have been stuck in a state of cultural malaise, a suspension of anything new, the shift from an economic and political system that found value in funding the arts and humanities, it’s no wonder we’ve reverted back to nostalgia as something novel. Because that’s all that can *truly* exist in neoliberalism. It’s simply not as profitable to truly create and innovate. It’s much easier to make a profit from art when you can constantly recycle the same product with a different, newly colored veneer. In order to make a living from art, speed and quantity (at the expense of quality) is paramount to survival and the ideological corporate philosophy of “infinite economic growth”. Particularly for small artists. But, large corporations aren’t immune to this, either. Look at cinematography in franchises such as Disney: Marvel, and Star Wars have become soulless husks of their former selves, squeezed of its creative origins to simply make a quick buck. So often, the only music that garners mainstream praise is rinse-and-repeat composition, with the same type of hyper-produced layering of sound that feels a mile wide, but an inch deep.

The largest video game franchises such as Call of Duty are the exact same product, released and sold for $70 each year. Raking in billions in profit. And this is just the creative side as distribution reinforces this dilemma further: Netflix and streaming platforms prioritize mundane mid-sized television series or films that are cheaper to produce. Canceling shows that have higher ratings and passionate fan bases simply because quotas of quantity outweigh artistic quality in business analytics. The neoliberal rendition of art is one of absolute profit, production, and turnaround. Rather than art for a betterment and development of us as a people.

We can see why things like Jazz, genuine art that encompass years of history, feel like haunted weekend commodities. Separate and alien from its historical foundations of struggle and place that demanded radical solidarity and community. As social creatures, none of us are immune to the sway of economic and political systems. And as such, we are all a part of this dilemma and overarching consciousness. A social consciousness that is now rooted in extreme commodification of any and everything. The implications here are immense. From the way we interact with signs and symbols, art, and work. How we think of our own place within 21st century America. What we personally value, and does power and our institutions reflect those values at large?

This has likely been a tough read so far, but there is genuine hope. The one thing that neoliberalism can be described as, is calcifying. It has limited progress, genuine creativity and movement. Because true creation and experimentation isn’t profitable. Thus, Fisher’s thesis of art in the 21st century being ‘recycled’ is a direct result of this calcification. So, what’s the hope here? The ironic hope here is that neoliberalism’s calcification stage has effectively ended. Our economic and social orders are decaying. They are, according to almost every metric, falling apart. And while this is a scary thought, it’s also a gift in knowing that we are now, after all this time, being forced to contend with the detrimental neoliberal policies of the past 40 or so years. Even if its end has been best visualized as decay. And yet, this decay is one of extreme honesty: there is a record low in American faith in our institutions.

The Supreme Court and judiciary at large has shown it’s true face as an institution that is *inherently* political. Exposing the naive myth of the judiciary as something neutral and unbiased. Congress, particularly the Senate, has increasingly shown its extreme anti-democratic roots. With both parties siphoning money from the largest bidders. Granting entities such as Amazon, Walmart, Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil exclusive access as the largest voices regarding economic policy.

We’ve been faced with two choices: enable the same corporate pillaging of the American working class, and use vulnerable people such as immigrants, queer and Black communities as scapegoats. Or we can holistically organize from the basis of community. Recognize the value of humans across all walks of life and our inherent capacity for novelty and creation. Choosing to mold our society and institutions from that central ethos. The quiet kernels found in formations of radical art such as Jazz.

Fisher correctly diagnosed the lack of novelty and increased cultural stagnation in 2014, but what he didn’t predict is how quickly this stagnation would end. Even if we are in decay, this now leads us to choice. And luckily, even with diminishing time, it’s still up to us.

Works Cited

Allen Tipton, Carrie. “Who’s Afraid of the Jazz Monsters?” History Today, History Today, 10 October 2019, https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/whos-afraid-jazz-monsters. Accessed 12 April 2023.

Colby, Tanner. Some of My Best Friends Are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America. Penguin Publishing Group, 2013.

Coulter, Charles E. Take Up the Black Man’s Burden: Kansas City’s African American Communities, 1865-1939. University of Missouri Press, 2016.

Gotham, Kevin Fox. Race, Real Estate, and Uneven Development: The Kansas City Experience, 1900-2010. State University of New York Press, 2014.

Hanauer, Nick, and David M. Rolf. “America’s 1% Has Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%.” TIME, 14 September 2020, https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/. Accessed 18 April 2023.

Hennessey, Thomas J. From Jazz to Swing: African-American Jazz Musicians and Their Music, 1890-1935. Wayne State University Press, 1994. Accessed 12 April 2023.

Kremer, Gary R., et al. Missouri’s Black heritage. University of Missouri Press, 1993.

“MUSICIANS LOCAL 627 AND THE MUTUAL MUSICIANS FOUNDATION: THE CRADLE OF KANSAS CITY JAZZ.” MUSICIANS LOCAL 627, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2003, https://web.archive.org/web/20180810193913/https://library2.umkc.edu/spec-col/local627/text/bands/index.htm. Accessed 20 04 2023.

“Reducing the Economic Burden of Unmet Mental Health Needs | CEA.” The White House, 31 May 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2022/05/31/reducing-the-economic-burden-of-unmet-mental-health-needs/. Accessed 14 April 2023.

Sullivan, Patricia. “Anne Gorsuch Burford, 62, Dies; Reagan EPA Director.” Washington Post, 22 July 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3418-2004Jul21.html.