The Jazz Loft Project
Tuesday, February 16 2010
by Frank Stasio and Susan Davis
In the mid-1950s, W. Eugene Smith left the best photography job in the country, shooting for “Life” Magazine, and moved into an abandoned loft in Manhattan. He brought in some pianos and drum sets, wired the building for sound, and threw open the doors. The loft became a popular destination for jazz icons and underground jazz musicians. Duke researcher Sam Stephenson literally stumbled onto boxes of tapes of the loft sessions and spent more than a decade deciphering and cataloguing them. The result is the new book, "The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith From 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965," (Knopf/2009) and the web site, thejazzloftproject.org. Author and documentarian Sam Stephenson and frequent loft denizen and jazz drummer Ronnie Free join host Frank Stasio to tell the story of the Jazz Loft Project.
This program was originally broadcast on Wednesday, December 2, 2009.
Listen online here:
http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot1202abc09.mp3/view
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