Ruthell’s Beauty Salon, formerly the place of business for Mrs. Ruthell Winkfield, is the place that Adam Jones has chosen to resurrect. (seen here in about 1978 — photo by Bernard “Step Buddy” Anderson)
It will be known as Ruthell’s Cafe and Club. In the heart of the Jazz District at 18th and Vine, Ruthelle’s is a project that brings together community members, artists, vernacular architecture, smart design, historic preservation, music and great food to another valued city block of Kansas City. This is a carefully considered project that fuses fine art with social priorities and most importantly foregrounds KC’s modern jazz enduring legacy.
As a visual artist who cut his teeth in KC playing jazz and world music with BCR, I am so proud to be a part of this project. In digging deep into the history of the 18 artists in the paintings, my connection with the music has led me down a rich path that keeps on calling. The neighborhood offers up a motherload of jazz history and Black Life in the Midwest. For myself, the city is still so familiar in its myriad ways from my memories of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The East Side opens up in a way I never really fully understood before.
As a young student I was familiar with Milton’s and I played in a few of the bars that no longer exist. The industrial grit of KC was something that burned into my psyche. Dumpster diving was a necessary activity to further my art. I hung with a group that thrived on repurposed industrial waste. We wallpapered our apartments with overprints, plastered our cars with self-adhesive silkscreens, reused rolls of blueprint paper that was normally refuse. Salvage was our salvation. Knowledge of downtown’s manufacturers, postcard printers, silk screeners and paper suppliers provided my art supplies. The soundtrack and the food were from Milton’s, Ruby’s, Sanderson’s and Bryant’s of course.
So when I was asked if I would paint portraits of these pioneers I simply — could — not — wait — to start the process. It is with this entirely local spirit of adventure that this restoration project moves ahead. We hear the sax solos, we breathe with the vocalists, the piano riffs, the bass lines and the rhythms egg us on. Barbecue for lunch is the reward and the city is an instrument we can hear and play. The artists who came before us gave us some real stuff to think about. The new kids are all around us with their own takes on jazz all over again. The Kansas City Jazz Hall of Fame will be for them one day — we hope.
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Adam Jones and Cliff Baldwin have been collaborating for over 40 years. In 1980 while students at the Kansas City Art Institute they formed an avant-garde minimalist vocal quartet and performed a set of text-songs, Winds Against Us along with Fluxus pioneer Davi Det Hompson. Later projects centered around renovating neglected structures in New York and Missouri. In 1995 they salvaged materials from multiple midwestern locations to restore the J. V. Wilson Barn, now a Long Island landmark.
in 2004 Baldwin and Jones teamed up again on the historic Frederick Hotel, a 19th century gem located on the banks of the river in Boonville, Missouri. In 2008 they formed the In-Site Group to pitch their solution for artists studios on Governor’s Island in New York City as the island was reopening. Finally in 2021 Ruthell’s Cafe and Club brings the team together again to produce the Kansas City Jazz Hall of Fame.
