The Jazz Loft Project Promotional Information

This section of our website is for members of the media and others wishing to publish information about the Jazz Loft Project. Biographies, logos, news releases, and high and low resolution images are available for you to download below. All photos must be credited as follows:

All photographs by W. Eugene Smith.  Courtesy of the W. Eugene Smith Archive at the Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. © The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith.

For additional information or to arrange interviews, please contact Lauren Hart, Jazz Loft Project Coordinator, at lauren.hart@duke.edu or (919) 660-3668.

---

Press Resources/Downloads

Biographies:

Jazz Loft Media Release (PDF)

Jazz Loft Project Summary (PDF)

Photos:

Jazz Loft Project: Book Cover
High Res (5.9 MB)

White Rose Bar Sign (82128027): White Rose Bar sign from the 4th floor window of 821 Sixth Avenue (ca. 1957-1964)
High Res (8.1 MB)
Low Res (112 KB)

Loft Interior (82131001): Loft interior, fifth floor (ca. 1964)
High Res (6.0 MB)
Low Res (448 KB)

Thelonious Monk (82131002):  Thelonious Monk and his Town Hall band in rehearsal, February 1959
High Res (7.0 MB)
Low Res (549 KB)

Zoot Sims (82131039):  Zoot Sims (ca. 1957-1964)
High Res (7.2 MB)
Low Res (560 KB)

Sixth Ave Street Corner (E56R35_10): The northeast corner of Sixth Avenue and 28th Street (ca. 1957-1964)
High Res (4.9 MB)
Low Res (518 KB)

Smith (E56r86_19): W. Eugene Smith at 4th floor window of 821 Sixth Avenue (ca. 1957)
High Res (6.4 MB)
Low Res (514 KB)

Logos:
Jazz Loft Logo
High Res (310 KB)
Low Res (75 KB)

---

Overview

“This collection of tapes is probably the richest source for the history of modern jazz that I’ve ever seen in my life. … It ’s miraculous to me. ”
Robin D.G. Kelley, authorized biographer of Thelonious Monk and professor at the University of Southern California

From 1957 to 1965, one of the most fascinating stories in the history of American jazz music unfolded in a loft building in New York’s wholesale flower district, at 821 Sixth Avenue, between 28th and 29th streets. There, renowned photographer W. Eugene Smith (1918–1978) lived and worked while rehearsals and jam sessions involving many of the iconic figures and underground legends of jazz played out. Smith, in obsessive fashion, wired the building to create a makeshift recording studio, amassing more than 4,000 hours of audio tape and making some 40,000 photographs of loft jam sessions and life in the flower district beneath his fourth­floor window. The results document Thelonious Monk, Zoot Sims, Roland Kirk, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, and Steve Reich, among other musicians, as well as roving visitors such as Salvador Dalí, Norman Mailer, Diane Arbus, and Henri Cartier­Bresson who contributed to the atmosphere.

The Jazz Loft Project, organized by the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University in cooperation with the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona and the Smith estate, began with the preservation of Smith’s tapes (soon the project will have completed the process of transferring Smith’s original 1,741 reels of loft tapes to digital files), which has allowed researchers at CDS to listen to them for the first time since they were recorded and to catalogue their contents. Research on the preserved tapes so far indicates that at least 300 musicians are represented. The transferred recordings reveal high sound quality and extraordinary musical and cultural content, offering rare documentation of an after­hours New York jazz scene. For example, Thelonious Monk was recorded in private collaborations with Hall Overton, a loft resident, and in rehearsals for famous concerts at Town Hall, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall in 1959, 1963, and 1964.

“You climbed the stairs and Smith would open the door, with a camera held waist ­high. He was charming, hipper than most musicians. He ’d chat you up for quite some time with the camera going click ­click ­click as fast as it could go. ”—Paul Bley, pianist and loft participant

The tapes also contain many Smith obsessions and oddities, such as recorded street noise in the flower district, late­night radio talk shows, telephone calls, television and radio news programs, and many random loft dialogues among musicians, artists, and other Smith friends and associates. One tape contains a radio roundtable with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin, moderated by Dr. Kenneth Clark. Still other tapes contain radio speeches by King (Selma, 1956) and President Kennedy (election speech, 1960). Additionally, oral history interviews completed by the Jazz Loft Project with more than 250 loft participants significantly contribute to a unique portrait of an intriguing place and time.

Smith “put mikes in windows, on fire escapes, and all over the building. He even recorded himself drilling holes through planks, stairs, and ceilings, so he could record sound at any given place in the loft at any given time. ” —Dan Partridge, Jazz Loft Project research associate

Smith is best known as a pioneering photojournalist who created seminal Life photo­essays such as “Spanish Village” (1950) and “Nurse Midwife” (1951) as well as combat images from World War II. Smith’s Minamata (1973) is considered to be one of the most important photo­books of all time. The jazz loft endeavor is his largest body of work, reflecting his passionate assertion that music and theater were his greatest influences. But the work is virtually unknown—the tapes have not been played since they were archived following Smith’s death in 1978 and few of the photographs have been published or exhibited.

Jazz Loft Project director Sam Stephenson has been studying the life and work of Smith since 1997. He has authored two books on Smith, Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh Project (W.W. Norton & Company in association with the Center for Documentary Studies, 2001) and W. Eugene Smith (Phaidon 55, 2001), and curated a traveling exhibition of Smith’s work organized by the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. He is working on a biography of Smith, Picture Paradise, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Dan Partridge, the Jazz Loft Project research associate, has worked with the loft materials since 2003.

The Jazz Loft Project will culminate with a national radio series, a seminal web site, and national traveling exhibition supplemented by a Jazz Loft book authored by Stephenson and published by Alfred A. Knopf; concerts commemorating the 50th anniversary of Thelonious Monk’s original Town Hall concert, and other programming involving Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Grammy Foundation, the NYPL, and Juilliard School.

"This is gold as far as the history of the music goes. This is one of the missing pieces of the jazz puzzle. ” —Trombonist Roswell Rudd on the Jazz Loft Project

The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University
WNYC: New York Public Radio
New York Public Library The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
Alfred A. Knopf