 The Jazz Loft Project: W. Eugene Smith in New York 1957--1965 "See, actually I'm doing a book about this building itself . . . out the window and within the building because it's quite a weird, interesting story."---W. Eugene Smith, recorded on his loft tapes, ca. 1960 The Jazz Loft Project: W. Eugene Smith in New York 1957--1965, a book by the Jazz Loft Project's director, Sam Stephenson, documents in photographs and text the legendary after-hours jazz jam sessions and other occurrences that took place at 821 Sixth Avenue from 1957 to 1965. The book, a compilation of behind-the-scenes images and impressions from a bygone era, is the result of Stephenson's extensive original research, which began with the W. Eugene Smith archive at the Center for Creative Photography in 1997 and extends into the culture of offstage jazz and midcentury urban America.In this book, Stephenson brings together 180 of Eugene Smith's photographs from the jazz loft, research of Smith's extensive audiotapes from the loft, and more than 300 oral histories of surviving musicians and other loft participants, collected by the Jazz Loft Project. Published by Alfred A. Knopf Inc., the book will be available in November 2009. |
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The Jazz Loft Project, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, 1317 W. Pettigrew Street, Durham, NC 27705
jazzloftproject.org | 919.660.3668 | 919.681.7600 fax | lauren.hart [at] duke.edu