The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith

For many years Life/Magnum photographer W. Eugene Smith lived in a creaking loft on 6th Avenue in New York. Below him lived composer/arranger Hall Overton, while above him, jam sessions went on until the wee hours of the morning. Thelonious Monk rehearsed there with Overton for the famous album The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall (1959).
Between 1957 and 1965, Smith obsessively documented what happened in the building, taking some ten thousand photos and making thousands of hours of recordings – not only of those jam sessions, but also of his own phone conversations and the radio. This fascinating time capsule forms the heart of the documentary The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith, which focuses on the life and career of Smith, a workaholic who kept himself going with amphetamines and sleeping pills. Among the interviewed jazz musicians are Carla Bley, Bill Crow, Steve Swallow, and Overton students Steve Reich and Chuck Israels.

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