It
was the jazz loft scene before the “Loft Jazz Scene.” In the mid-1970s,
downtown lofts like Sam Rivers’ Studio Rivbea were an important venue for the
fiery Free Jazz artists that were not getting commercial club bookings. They
were sort of following in the tradition of W. Eugene Smith, who hosted round-the-clock
jam sessions in his Flower District living space from 1957 to 1965. As a professional
photographer and amateur reel-to-reel tape-recorder, Smith documented a great
deal of the music and the comings and goings of the musicians drawn to his
scene. Treasures from his chaotic archive are revealed in Sara Fishko’s The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith,
the documentary component of WNYC’s multimedia Jazz Loft project, which screens
during this year’s DOC NYC.
In
the late 1950s, Smith was widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading
photo-essayists, but like a good jazz musician, he badly mismanaged his career.
Although not a musician himself, he shared a natural affinity for jazz artists,
like his neighbor, Hall Overton. If jazz fans are having trouble placing that
name, Overton was an accomplished jazz and classical composer who co-led
sessions for Prestige with Jimmy Raney and Teddy Charles. He also arranged
Thelonius Monk’s compositions for a ten-piece orchestra performance at Town
Hall. Naturally, they rehearsed those demanding charts at the Sixth Avenue loft
space, where Smith duly recorded them at work.
Fittingly,
one of the musicians Fishko interviews is the great Freddie Redd, featured in
both the Off-Broadway production of Jack Gelber’s The Connection and Shirley Clarke’s film adaptation. Indeed, its
fictional narrative seems not so very far removed from events that transpired
there. Unfortunately, that included heroin use, as drummer Ronnie Free explains
in detail.
There
is a lot of great music in Jazz Loft,
but Fishko also gives Smith his due as a photographer. Thanks to his
painstaking printing techniques, the contrast between light and shadow in Smith’s
black-and-white images is often resembles Renaissance painting. In some ways,
the film also functions as a time capsule, incorporating eccentric details of
the late 1950s-early 1960s era, such as radio show hosted Long John Nebel, a
sort of forerunner to Art Bell and George Noory, to whom Smith often set rather
bizarre but expensive telegrams.
In
addition to Redd and Free, Fishko includes the reminiscences of Phil Woods
(always a lively interview subject), David Amram (who seems like a nice fellow
based on a few email exchanges), Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Dave Frishberg,
Bill Crow, and Overton’s colleague, Steve Reich, as well as some contemporary
perspective from Jason Moran. That is quite a diverse but talented ensemble.
