'Loft Project' captures New York jazz scene

THE JAZZ LOFT PROJECT: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith From 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965. By Sam Stephenson. Knopf. 268 pages. $40.

In bringing to light the past existence of a freak-of-nature set of circumstances in the jazz life, Sam Stephenson tells a compelling story of weighty, historical significance.

"The Jazz Loft Project" is a print rendition of the multimedia tale of eight years in the life of W. Eugene Smith, a mid-20th-century photographer and engineer who lived and worked in a decrepit, nondescript, five-story building in Lower Manhattan. While there, Smith took pictures and recorded sound from everywhere in a building that was bursting with a nocturnal bohemian scene, jazz musicians in particular.

Smith shot 1,447 rolls of film and recorded 4,000 hours of stereo and mono audio tapes with music from some 300 musicians. The high-quality progressive jam sessions he recorded were serious but laid back.

A composer/arranger/pianist named Hall Overton, legendary to New York musicians, classical and jazz (though he had no pop culture profile at all), also lived in the loft. Thelonious Monk rehearsed at the loft under the guidance of Overton for his famous 1959 Town Hall concert.

Coming to 821 Sixth Ave. (near 28th Street) to hang out and work with Overton and each other were the likes of Monk, Zoot Sims, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Roy Haynes, John Coltrane and many others.

Also routinely ascending the ancient staircase in the 1853 building were Salvador Dali, Doris Duke, Norman Mailer and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Then there was the neighborhood: garden variety prostitutes, drug addicts, cops, building inspectors, students and thieves thrown into the eclectic mix.

This large-format book contains Smith's images and transcriptions of some of his audiotapes, some funny, some profound, all interesting. A central character in this project is gifted, hard-working Charleston drummer Ron Free, who lived at the loft from 1958 to 1960. In his early 20s at the time, he and Smith were close, according to Stephenson, who found and interviewed Free for the project.

Stephenson, a writer and instructor at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, has been researching Smith, the eccentric object of this homage, for 11 years. He's completely successful here in conveying the feel of that time in New York City, its jazz scene and the freedom of expression ever-present in the storied edifice.