The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965 Hardcover – November 24, 2009

This is a magnificent book that captures human life and creativity as played out during a thin slice of the past in a tiny nook of the globe. No other book I know is quite like it. It is special.About 1954, two people with loft space in a then 100-year-old five-story building on Sixth Avenue, near 28th, in the Flower District of Manhattan, began to allow jazz musicians to practice and jam there. For the next decade or so, the decrepit building was a favorite private late-night haunt of jazzmen, many who never were "somebody" but some who were (for example, Chet Baker, Art Blakey, Sonny Clark, Ornette Coleman, Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Art Farmer, Stan Getz, Jim Hall, Roland Kirk, Theloneous Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins, Pee Wee Russell, and Zoot Sims). In 1957, W. Eugene Smith - at a nadir in his personal life - left his family and moved into the building. From there, over the next eight years, he recorded - both with his cameras (40,000 pictures) and with tape recorders (1700 reels) -- a wide spectrum of the life that occurred in the lofts, out front on Sixth Avenue, and in the world at large as broadcast over New York radio and television.After Smith died, those 40,000 pictures and 1700 reels of tape were part of 22 tons of Smith's materials that were delivered to the University of Arizona. Sam Stephenson spent years sifting through the materials, tracking down and interviewing some of those whom Smith had recorded decades earlier, and then putting together this documentation of Smith's documentation. It is an extraordinarily rich, eclectic, and fascinating book - an assemblage of the raw events of time as it unfolded within and in front of one building in Manhattan circa 1960 (somewhat like what I imagine Walter Benjamin imagined).THE JAZZ LOFT PROJECT is comprised primarily of the following: an account of the building and its unique place in the jazz world of New York City; an account of W. Eugene Smith, his quirky genius, and his time at 821 Sixth Ave.; black-and-white photographs that Smith took of jazz musicians playing and relaxing in the jazz lofts; black-and-white photographs Smith took from a fourth-floor window of street life below him on Sixth Avenue; and transcriptions of numerous verbal exchanges that Smith caught on his tapes, including conversations among people within the building and all sorts of broadcast communications, both radio and television.As one would expect, the photographs are of exceptionally high quality. Smith truly was one of the great American photographers of the 20th Century. ("Iconic" has become a dreadfully over-used and trivialized word, but Smith's photograph from the rear of his two small children walking into a garden of sunlight - the concluding photo of Edward Steichen's famous photography collection "The Family of Man" - is iconic even in the old sense.) But the book is so much more than a book of photography. It is a record of the past that begins to approach the past itself. In his "Jazz Loft Project", Smith seems to capture and preserve in amber the transitory happenings - both significant and insignificant, sublime and mundane - from half a century ago. To now review those amber-enclosed artifacts is curiously intoxicating and exhilarating.Bassist Jimmy Stevenson was one of the lesser-knowns who once made 821 Sixth both a home and a jazz practice spot. He left the jazz world in the 1970s and in 2003 the author, with luck, found him selling wind chimes by the side of a road in California. Here is what Stevenson said about Smith's archives: "You can't imagine somebody calling you up out of the blue and telling you that they've got tapes--many, many hours of tapes--of you talking and playing music forty-five years ago. Hearing these tapes is like somebody playing back your memories for you, only these are memories you forgot you had." When I see Smith's photographs of 1950s New York street life and read transcripts of broadcasts of the 1960 World Series or ongoing developments during the Cuban missile crisis, I too - to a much lesser but still far from negligible extent - am confronted with memories that I forgot I had.There is much more in and to THE JAZZ LOFT PROJECT than I have been able to touch on in this review, and I can scarcely begin to convey my enthusiasm for it. I note that other reviewers have complained because the book does not include any audio excerpts from the tapes that are part of the 821 Sixth Avenue archive. I too would love to hear well-selected excerpts of those tapes and I hope that someday I will be able to do so. But even without any audio, THE JAZZ LOFT PROJECT is a treasure. Likely it would be especially valued by connoisseurs of jazz and/or W. Eugene Smith, but I wholeheartedly recommend it to one and all.

I bought this book at the time is was initially released. I also went to the Chicago Cultural Center to preview a traveling exhibit of much of this work. I had a chance to talk about the Jazz Loft Project and photograph the author. I love the book, it's worth it if you can find it. Gene Smith has been a favorite of mine since I picked up a camera as a teenager, long before I knew of his association with the NYC Jazz Loft Scene. If I had a complaint, it would be that I would love to see 100 more photographs....but I understand the complexities of doing so. It's a winner!

The legendary jazz loft at 821 6th Avenue existed and functioned under the tutelage of photographer W. Eugene Smith between 1957-65. Smith's legacy consisted of some 40,000 photographs and more than 1700 reel to reel tapes which yielded more than 4000 hours of listening. Here are some of the musicians who participated over the years in the loft sessions: Thelonious Monk, Hall Overton, Pepper Adams, Roland Kirk, Zoot Sims, Sonny Clark,Joe Farrell, Gil Coggins, Bill Crow, Don Ellis, Ronnie Free, Lin Halliday, Freddy Greenwell, Dave McKenna, Freddie Redd, Wilbur Ware, Bill Evans, Henry Grimes,Bill Takas,Jimmy Raney, Jim Hall. This is,of course, just a partial list of participants. It should be noted that Monk was there mainly to rehearse and prepare for the famous 1959 Town Hall concert. The photographic collection showed many pictures of musicians but also included shots taken from the loft window of various street activities. The tapes included not only musical performances but as well some taped radio and tv shows and some conversations taped between people in the loft. Particularly I enjoyed the one between tenorist Lin Halliday and pianist Sonny Clark. Some of the tapes can be heard on the Jazz Loft web site and some can be heard on the WNYC web site. It would be nice if they could be edited and in part released as a CD set. The book is of tabletop size and weighs in at nearly four pounds. Get it.

On a quick thumb-through, this looks like a book I'll spend lots of random hours with. Very nicely put together, and what I expected of the BOOK.Alas, I should have read *all* of the Amazon reviews prior to purchase. Like others, I expected at least one CD with this, and was disappointed at the absence of one (or more). I learned about this book from a year-end review of "best books." Both that review and the title of the book led me to think that it included audio (as apparently others also thought). And as much as I looked forward to the photography--and I looked forward eagerly to that--I also looked forward to hearing the rehearsal/jam banter as well as the music. Had the title been "...Photographs and Transcripts", it would be more accurate, and you wouldn't be reading reviews like this one.One other observation: the description says "deckle edge", but the book is not. That doesn't matter to me one way or the other, but it might to some people.Bottom line is that I'll keep the book and peruse it in leisure moments. But I agree with others who misunderstood that we feel just a little bamboozled.

"Life" magazine photographer Smith documented the comings and goings and happenings at his NY loft in late 1950s/early 1960s. So many of these photos - particularly those with Monk - are both memorable and natural. I recommend to all who are interested in NY jazz in the period, both well-known and less celebrated, plenty here to delight the eye. Even more intriguing are the tape boxes that are also pictured - Smith recorded street noise, TV/radio shows, conversations, and most crucially, hours and hours of the musicians playing 'after hours' in jam sessions, and notably Monk & arranger Hall Overton in rehearsal for the Town hall concert of 1957. Also Mingus, Jimmy Giuffre, Zoot Sims, Bob Brookmeyer, Paul Bley and the wonderful pianist Sonny Clark [and many many more]. I only hope that some of the music -particularly Sonny Clark! - eventually surfaces on CD or is otherwise made available somehow. A fascinating and worthwhile document would thus be enhanced.

ALL GOOD

Für Kenner und Liebhaber von W. Eugene Smith ist dies sicherlich ein tolles Buch. Diesen sei nicht von dieser wertigen, schön aufbereiteten Dokumentation des Lebens in 821 Sixth Avenue abgeraten. Es handelt sich bei diesem Buch tatsächlich viel mehr um eine Dokumentation. Das Buch enthält viele Photos, aber auch viel Text, Interviews und Hüllen von den Magnetbändern, auf denen die Sessions aufgenommen wurden - das ist dann mehr etwas für Liebhaber...Wenn jemand (wie ich) auf der Suche nach einem Photo-Band mit tollen Photographien von vielen verschiedenen (bekannten) Jazzmusikern ist, wird er/sie enttäuscht werden. W. Eugene Smith hat die unglaublich Anzahl von 1450 Filmen innerhalb von 8 Jahren verschossen - dafür jedoch das Haus 821 Sixth Avenue nicht verlassen. Er dokumentierte das Leben auf der Straße durch ein Fenster im 4ten Stock. Gleich das erste Photo im Buch zeigt ihn mit 6 verschiedenen Kameras (z.T mit kräftigen Teleobjektive) am Fenster stehen. Ein bisschen gruselig... Die Ergebnisse sind auch dementsprechend distanziert. Sie können allein von der emotionalen Wirkung nicht mit Meisterwerken wie z.B. den "nah dran" Bildern von Cartier-Bresson oder den "Schnappschüssen" von Robert Frank mithalten. Die Bilder der Jazzmusiker sind sicherlich nicht schlecht - schon garnicht wenn man die schwierigen (dunklen) Verhältnisse bedenkt, unter denen sie vor ca 50 Jahren entstanden sind. Aber berauschend kann man sie auch nicht nennen. Dafür waren die Verhältnisse einfach zu widrig, die Beleuchtung schlecht, die räumlichkeiten beengt. Wer Bilder von Zoot Sims, Ronnie Free, Roland Kirk oder Hal Overton sucht, der findet sie hier. Ich hatte neben Thelonious Monk noch ein paar bekanntere Persönlichkeiten erwartet...