Special Episode: Jazz Loft Jam Sessions

The Jazz Loft Radio Series | Mar 7, 2017

In this episode, thanks to W. Eugene Smith's tape recorders, we get to experience something audiences rarely hear - the unrehearsed, imperfect, open-ended, overlong, rough-around-the-edges music that jazz players made when they got together to jam at 821 Sixth Avenue. No audience present. Just the musicians playing.

The late vibes player Teddy Charles said it best in an interview:

When nobody's around, and you're just by yourself, that's when the best jazz happens. Really incredible stuff. You take chances on things. The real excitement of jazz is taking chances. Whether you make it or not. You try for something even if it doesn't happen. And that's what makes Jazz really exciting.

Featured in this episode are jam sessions with:

1 - Dave McKenna, piano; Fred Greenwell, sax; Bill Takas, bass; Ron Free, drums
2 - Bill Potts, piano; Zoot Sims, tenor sax; Ron Free, drums
3 - Paul Bley, piano; Jimmy Stevenson, bass; Roland Alexander, tenor sax; Eddie Listengart, trumpet; Lex Humphries, drums
4 - Sonny Clarke, piano; other unidentified players
5 - Chick Corea, piano; Jimmy Stevenson, bass; Joe Hunt, drums

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The Jazz Loft Radio Series

W. Eugene Smith was a famous photo essayist for LIFE magazine and a suburban family man when he left it all in 1957 and moved to a rundown loft in Manhattan. The building had already become a popular hangout and jamming space for jazz players both prominent and obscure, and Smith spent the next decade documenting the music, conversations and personalities that passed through. This program, produced and hosted by Sara Fishko and originally heard as a 10-part radio series in 2009, pulls from the 4,000 hours of audio Smith recorded.

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