Thoughts of Daniel Freeman staking claim to the first homestead in America rarely coincide with the sounds of Kansas City jazz.

Sunday afternoon, however,  jazz music filled the Education Center at Homestead National Monument of America as poet Daniel Freeman Jaffe read poems from his book “Dan Freeman.”

Jaffe, along with Kansas City jazz musicians Greg Richter, Joe Straws and Tom Pender, set an interesting mood for Jaffe’s poems about America’s first homesteader.

Jaffe, who was inducted as an Elder Statesman of Kansas City Jazz, said he enjoys combining “non-jazz poetry with jazz.”

His study of Daniel Freeman perhaps exemplifies that art form.

Freeman, Jaffe said, was a character with many different levels.

“Whatever quick conclusions you come to about this character are likely to be oversimplifications,” he began his reading. “It is very hard to imagine any figure who is more complicated.

“He was an enormous ego,” Jaffe added, stating Freeman’s children referred to their father as “Number One.”

“When folks stopped at his homestead on their way west, he told them he was number one. Anytime he was interviewed, he began the interview by reminding them he was Number One.”

Jaffe’s fascination with his namesake developed in the 1960s during a tenure as a creative writing professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, park ranger Susan Cook said during her introduction.

“With the name Daniel Freeman Jaffe, everyone assumed he was a descendent or relative of Freeman, and so they kept asking him,” Cook said. “Finally, he decided he had to research him to find out who he was.”

Jaffe published a book of poems about Dan Freeman in 1967. In researching the book, Jaffe said, he came to know more about Freeman than he could have hoped.

“When I started researching Dan Freeman, I realized there was levels and levels and levels,” he said.

Eventually, through his research, Jaffe learned more about the Homestead Act in general, giving much credit to Freeman as a figurehead of American history.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that there would not be a Homestead National Monument if it wasn’t for the fact that he had such an enormous ego,” Jaffe said. “There were a lot of people who had claims, but they have all faded into the mist.”

“Freeman was so great everyone remembered him even if they found him extraordinarily difficult - that was an understatement, believe me,” added Jaffe.

Cook said Homestead National Monument officials found out about Jaffe from Beatrice resident Duane Smith.

Smith, who first saw Jaffe perform at a jazz poetry performance in Brownville, said he admired the way Jaffe brought his poetry alive through jazz.

Jaffe, who has published more than a dozen books, including three about the Midwest, said 2009 is a special year.

“It is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth date,” he said. “We are reminded what happened during the Lincoln years - a lot of important things.”

Lincoln’s long list of accomplishments might have overshadowed one of the greater ones, Jaffe concluded.

“Of course we think of (Lincoln) as the war president, but sometimes people forget during his tenure the Transcontinental Railway was completed,” Jaffe said. “We think of him as the man who passed the Emancipation Proclamation - it didn’t mean much then, it was barely a start, but it was a start.

“And, of course, the Homestead Act,” he added.