Sam Stephenson

DESCRIPTION:
In 1957, W. Eugene Smith, a former photographer at Life magazine, moved out of the home he shared with his wife and four children in Croton-on-Hudson, New York and moved into a dilapidated, five-story loft building at 821 Sixth Avenue in New York City’s wholesale flower district. 821 Sixth Avenue was a late-night haunt of musicians, including some of the biggest names in jazz—Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk among them—and countless fascinating, underground characters.

Between 1957 and 1965 W. Eugene Smith made approximately 40,000 exposures both inside the loft building at 821 Sixth Avenue, of the nocturnal jazz scene, and of the street below as seen through his fourth-floor window. He also wired the building like a surreptitious recording studio and made 1,740 reels (4,000 hours) of stereo and mono audiotapes, capturing more than three hundred musicians, among them Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Roland Kirk, Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, and Paul Bley. He also recorded legends such as pianists Eddie Costa, and Sonny Clark, drummers Ronnie Free and Edgar Bateman, saxophonist Lin Halliday, bassist Henry Grimes, and multi-instrumentalist Eddie Listengart.
http://www.jazzloftproject.org/

COMMENT:
An amazing and immersive experience into the life and the jazz scene of the 60's. The relationship between the inside (the apartment) and the outside (the street seen from the apartment's window) creates a strong, almost musical counterpoint. At the same time, it reflects another "inside": the everyday life and feelings of an artist realizing embracing life while realizing the failure of a project (documenting the city of Pittsburgh).… (més)

This is one of the most interesting and amazing books on jazz, photography, or any subject, that I have ever come across. How Sam Stephenson managed to sift through so much material and distill it to a reasonable amount that could fit in a book, 250-odd pages that captures what feels like the essence of a fascinating time and place, is a miracle. Spending time with this book feels like visiting that scene.

It took it slow reading the book as I savoured and re-read each page before moving on to the next. Once done I visited the web site (and subscribed to the blog) which has more material, more stories, news, interviews, and about an hour of sounds and music (with more coming, apparently). The book lives on, on the web.

http://www.jazzloftproject.org/… (més)

Reviewed by Mr. Overeem (Language Arts)
A coffee table book with a difference. This book chronicles the obsessive "life recordings" ace photojournalist Gene Smith made during his residence in an "earthy" Manhattan loft between 1957 and 1965, using not only photography but also ROUND-THE-CLOCK tape recording. The data? Enough to fill over 650 CDs. This might not seem interesting until you realize that the loft was also the favorite jamming spot of New York's greatest jazz musicians (including Thelonious Monk), and that Smith recorded television and radio programs like they just don't broadcast anymore.… (més)