W. Eugene Smith The Loft Project - Take Me There
Originally posted by kdotdammit at W. Eugene Smith The Loft Project - Take Me There
I saw the W. Eugene Smith Jazz Loft Projectphotos at the Center for Creative Photography MONTHS ago and never got around to writing about it. W. Eugene Smith has been around. He was a photographer for LIFE Magazine when he walked off the job and decided to life an amphetamine fueled life documenting the jazz scene in a New York loft. Bravo for him.
From 1957 to 1965, famed photographer W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) documented the late-night soirees inside a dilapidated New York City loft where some of the jazz world's greatest legends (Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk to name a few) casually performed and mingled with the likes of Norman Mailer, Salvador Dali, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and crowds full of colorful underground characters. Smith exposed 1,447 rolls of film at the loft, making roughly 40,000 pictures, the largest body of work in his career. He photographed the nocturnal jazz scene as well as life on the streets of the flower district, as seen from his fourth-floor window. Smith 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 300 musicians.
Just so you understand the numbers here, let me repeat: 1,447 ROLLS OF FILM and ROUGHLY 40,000 PICTURES. What a life!
Smith’s photos of the jazz musicians and “the scene” are beautiful as photos and also for capturing a moment that you can feel. They capture a world reverberating with fresh alive energy, a community where people disappeared together into music, music became life, and sound opened the night into rhythms never heard before. When I looked at the photos, more than anything I just wanted to GO THERE. The photos capture a kind of musical utopia on, well, jamming and freedom of creative expression. Sure, there were a lot of drugs and alcohol in the mix, but there is something about jamming jazz musicians that has always appealed to me. Jamming is community through music.
No doubt being an ex-junkie fuels my attraction to The Loft Jazz Group. Listening to Thelonious Monk pour his soul into a set of piano keys is like mainlining music. I can feel his high, and I love it.
When I was younger, simply for the point of conversation and speculation, people would sometimes ask “If you could have gone to any concert what would it have been?” Back when I was acting (keyword being “acting”) the glam/punk lifestyle, I used to think that I wanted to go to a party at Andy Warhol's factory when the Velvet Underground were playing. Now that I'm older and more wise to the shallowness of certain “glam principals,” I realize those people were a lot of nasty artificial posers, vampires in make-up and glitter. When I really think about it, I realize I would have hated being around the Factory people.
After seeing W. Eugene Smith’s photos, I decided that if I could go back in time, I'd much rather melt into a dark room in The Loft on Sixth Avenue while Thelonious Monk churned out his own brand of velvet underground. I'd feel much more at home there. I’m not talking about watching Monk, Coltrane and crew play a concert. I just want to absorb them when they’re “jamming.” I want to experience the AURA because I am damn sure that The Loft had a Big Ass Aura. Oh, and maybe I’d shoot the shit with Smith about his cameras.
Back when I was in my twenties, I used to go to blues clubs in Oakland where old black musicians got together and jammed their hearts out because they had hearts and they ripped them wide open with their music. They weren't a bunch of soulless art school zombies like I’m sure I would have found at The Factory. You can only get so much mileage out of soulless art school zombies, and then you just come up empty. Also, for the record, I want to remind you that I did not “objectify” the old black musicians. I spent a good chunk of my youth living in the black community that put the blues in Bay Area Blues.
I like people with hearts and who aren’t afraid to let their hearts rip into music and art that comes out 1,000 proof sincere. W. Eugene Smith and the jazz musicians he documented had 1,000 proof hearts even if they were laced with amphetamines, booze and heroin.
Speaking of heroin, admittedly Velvet Underground's "Heroin" is a great song. I love it. I’m not going to lie. I could listen to it forever, and there really is no better song about heroin. But I also don't think it would have existed if Thelonious Monk and crew hadn't paved the way for it.
So yeah, if I could transport myself to a musical place and time right now, I say fuck Andy Warhol, Lou Reed and that whole pompous pretentious scene. Take me to The Loft and let me disappear inside the pulsing ruptured velvet jazz of Thelonious Monk and Coltrane jamming their hearts out. Just for a while. I’d like that. And maybe borrow a camera from W. Eugene Smith and capture my visit in a few photos.
Smith with his cameras
I saw the W. Eugene Smith Jazz Loft Projectphotos at the Center for Creative Photography MONTHS ago and never got around to writing about it. W. Eugene Smith has been around. He was a photographer for LIFE Magazine when he walked off the job and decided to life an amphetamine fueled life documenting the jazz scene in a New York loft. Bravo for him.
From 1957 to 1965, famed photographer W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) documented the late-night soirees inside a dilapidated New York City loft where some of the jazz world's greatest legends (Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk to name a few) casually performed and mingled with the likes of Norman Mailer, Salvador Dali, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and crowds full of colorful underground characters. Smith exposed 1,447 rolls of film at the loft, making roughly 40,000 pictures, the largest body of work in his career. He photographed the nocturnal jazz scene as well as life on the streets of the flower district, as seen from his fourth-floor window. Smith 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 300 musicians.
Just so you understand the numbers here, let me repeat: 1,447 ROLLS OF FILM and ROUGHLY 40,000 PICTURES. What a life!
Smith’s photos of the jazz musicians and “the scene” are beautiful as photos and also for capturing a moment that you can feel. They capture a world reverberating with fresh alive energy, a community where people disappeared together into music, music became life, and sound opened the night into rhythms never heard before. When I looked at the photos, more than anything I just wanted to GO THERE. The photos capture a kind of musical utopia on, well, jamming and freedom of creative expression. Sure, there were a lot of drugs and alcohol in the mix, but there is something about jamming jazz musicians that has always appealed to me. Jamming is community through music.
No doubt being an ex-junkie fuels my attraction to The Loft Jazz Group. Listening to Thelonious Monk pour his soul into a set of piano keys is like mainlining music. I can feel his high, and I love it.
When I was younger, simply for the point of conversation and speculation, people would sometimes ask “If you could have gone to any concert what would it have been?” Back when I was acting (keyword being “acting”) the glam/punk lifestyle, I used to think that I wanted to go to a party at Andy Warhol's factory when the Velvet Underground were playing. Now that I'm older and more wise to the shallowness of certain “glam principals,” I realize those people were a lot of nasty artificial posers, vampires in make-up and glitter. When I really think about it, I realize I would have hated being around the Factory people.
After seeing W. Eugene Smith’s photos, I decided that if I could go back in time, I'd much rather melt into a dark room in The Loft on Sixth Avenue while Thelonious Monk churned out his own brand of velvet underground. I'd feel much more at home there. I’m not talking about watching Monk, Coltrane and crew play a concert. I just want to absorb them when they’re “jamming.” I want to experience the AURA because I am damn sure that The Loft had a Big Ass Aura. Oh, and maybe I’d shoot the shit with Smith about his cameras.
Back when I was in my twenties, I used to go to blues clubs in Oakland where old black musicians got together and jammed their hearts out because they had hearts and they ripped them wide open with their music. They weren't a bunch of soulless art school zombies like I’m sure I would have found at The Factory. You can only get so much mileage out of soulless art school zombies, and then you just come up empty. Also, for the record, I want to remind you that I did not “objectify” the old black musicians. I spent a good chunk of my youth living in the black community that put the blues in Bay Area Blues.
I like people with hearts and who aren’t afraid to let their hearts rip into music and art that comes out 1,000 proof sincere. W. Eugene Smith and the jazz musicians he documented had 1,000 proof hearts even if they were laced with amphetamines, booze and heroin.
Speaking of heroin, admittedly Velvet Underground's "Heroin" is a great song. I love it. I’m not going to lie. I could listen to it forever, and there really is no better song about heroin. But I also don't think it would have existed if Thelonious Monk and crew hadn't paved the way for it.
So yeah, if I could transport myself to a musical place and time right now, I say fuck Andy Warhol, Lou Reed and that whole pompous pretentious scene. Take me to The Loft and let me disappear inside the pulsing ruptured velvet jazz of Thelonious Monk and Coltrane jamming their hearts out. Just for a while. I’d like that. And maybe borrow a camera from W. Eugene Smith and capture my visit in a few photos.
Smith with his cameras