The Jazz Loft Radio Series show image

The Jazz Loft Radio Series

Episodes

Special Episode: Jazz Loft Jam Sessions

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, drums2 - Bill Potts, piano; Zoot Sims, tenor sax; Ron Free, drums3 - Paul Bley, piano; Jimmy Stevenson, bass; Roland Alexander, tenor sax; Eddie Listengart, trumpet; Lex Humphries, drums4 - Sonny Clarke, piano; other unidentified players5 - Chick Corea, piano; Jimmy Stevenson, bass; Joe Hunt, drums
The Jazz Loft Radio Series |

Episode 1: Introduction

Few people in history had as much access to the greatest jazz musicians of our time as W. Eugene Smith. The famous LIFE magazine photographer moved in 1957 to a rundown, bohemian loft on 6th avenue, in the heart of Manhattan’s Flower District. During this time, the likes of Thelonius Monk, Chick Corea and Hall Overton slept here, smoked here, and played here—and Smith captured nearly of all it on a series of unparalleled audio recordings. Those tapes finally resurfaced, more than two decades after Smith’s death in 1978. Producer Sara Fishko first made use of Smith's archive to create these pictures in sound, giving us intimate access to a time and a place long gone.
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Episode 2: Enter W. Eugene Smith

Before photographer W. Eugene Smith lived in a rundown loft in the thick of New York’s jazz scene, he lived in another world. A native Kansan who earned a scholarship to Notre Dame, Smith was a staff photographer for LIFE magazine -- considered photojournalism's top job in an era when photographers were major stars. What compelled him to leave that life behind?
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Episode 3: The Tapes

W. Eugene Smith recorded more than 4,000 hours in his Manhattan loft. Some 139 different personalities—musicians, writers and artists—make appearances. The conversations are one thing, but the impromptu jam sessions, involving remarkable musical collaborations, add to the incredible story of what became known as the Jazz Loft.  
The Jazz Loft Radio Series |

Episode 4: Hall Overton

By day, Hall Overton was an instructor of classical music at Juilliard. By night, he was living, teaching, and playing jazz piano at the Jazz Loft. In this episode, some of the musicians who knew him best share their memories of the brilliant, self-effacing man with an ever-present cigarette dangling from his lip.
The Jazz Loft Radio Series |

Episode 5: Before the Loft

Like many of New York City's most influential artists, most of the prominent jazz musicians of the 1950s came from someplace else. After World War II, returning soldiers flocked to New York, bouncing from clubs to studios to lofts in search of a place where jazz could flourish.
The Jazz Loft Radio Series |

Episode 6: Drummer Ron Free

Ron Free, a prodigious drummer from Charleston, South Carolina, was the Jazz Loft’s "house drummer" from 1958 to 1960. Holing up in W. Eugene Smith’s apartment for weeks at a time, he jammed with everyone from Thelonious Monk to Chick Corea. Eventually, Free's personal struggles with drug addiction forced him to leave New York. But Smith’s tapes provide the enduring proof of Free’s musical legacy.
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Episode 7: Flowers at 6 AM

In the early mornings, as each all-night jam session at the loft came to a close, musicians stumbled out into the fragrant air of the surrounding flower shops. For W. Eugene Smith, the Flower District was more than a neighborhood -- it was an obsession, and a subject crucial to his evolution as a photographer and an artist. This episode explores the peculiar harmony of a neighborhood that bustled with flower merchants by day and cleared out by night, giving jazz musicians the place all to themselves.
The Jazz Loft Radio Series |

Episode 8: Monk at Town Hall

In early 1959, a genuine stir was created in the loft -- even among the more seasoned jazz players -- when Thelonious Monk turned up to arrange his music and rehearse with the help of drummer Hall Overton. Monk and Overton had a rare chemistry, and the result of their labors made a little history on February 29th, when they took the stage at New York's Town Hall.
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Episode 9: More Tapes

The commercial jazz world relied on by-the-hour club dates and recording sessions, but the after-hours loft scene gave musicians the luxury of forgetting time, as they played through long, uninterrupted, all-night jam sessions. In this episode, hear immersive samples of the young Chick Corea and other musicians from W. Eugene Smith's recordings.    
The Jazz Loft Radio Series |

Episode 10: Times Change

It was hard not to notice that by the early 60s, things had changed dramatically for the Jazz Loft set. Folk and rock music had gained in popularity. Life in New York was becoming more expensive. The late-night jam sessions slowed down, and Smith became more isolated as the loft scene faded away. Finally around 1965, his tapes stopped rolling for good. 
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About

In 1957, W. Eugene Smith packed up a truck with all his work and belongings and drove south (from his house in Croton-on-Hudson) to a rundown loft building in Manhattan’s Flower District. For over a decade, he recorded -- in thousands of still photographs and endless hours of tape-recorded sound -- the daily life of the place. 

Smith had left a stellar career as LIFE Magazine photo essayist. He had also left his wife and four children. His new project became this loft -- not fixing it up, but rather capturing it in all its musical, eccentric and beat-up detail. 

The Jazz Loft Radio Series uses the audiotapes recorded by Smith (he wired the whole, 5-story building from the ground floor up) to explore the music, conversations, stories, dramas and characters that emerge from this 4,000-hour archive of material. The tapes were discovered in the late 1990s in the W. Eugene Smith archive at the Center for Creative Photography by Sam Stephenson. Stephenson’s research has been a primary resource for the project. The radio series was produced at the same time as Stephenson’s book, The Jazz Loft Project. Both the book and radio series first appeared in November of 2009. The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith (2016) is a documentary film produced by WNYC Studios in association with Lumiere Productions.

For WNYC

Host/Producer: Sara Fishko
Technical Director: Edward Haber
Consulting Editor: Julie Burstein
Assistants/Associates: Oliver Kramer, Nina Goodby, Noel Black, Alexander Yellen, Laura Mayer
Web Team: Laura Mayer, Valentina Powers, Allison Lichter, Otis Hart, Elizabeth Zagroba
Executive Producer: Dean Cappello

For The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke

Project Director: Sam Stephenson
Research Associate: Dan Partridge
Jazz Loft Project Coordinator: Lauren Hart
Digitization and Research Funding by The Logan Foundation

The Jazz Loft Radio Series show image

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.

To request a transcript for an episode of this show, please use the form on this page, and select the “I Need To” and “Request Transcripts” options.

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