The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith

The starkly dramatic pictures taken by W. Eugene Smith during World War Two and in Vietnam while on assignment for “LIFE” magazine helped to bring him recognition as one of the pre-eminent photojournalists of his generation. But he also nurtured a love of jazz and a fondness for the people who play it, and when he rented a dilapidated New York loft in 1957 it became an open house for like-minded musicians, whose activities he recorded in still photographs (40,000 frames) and on film and 4,000 hours of audio tape. Zoot Sims and Roland Kirk were among the regulars, and Thelonious Monk used the space to prepare a 10-piece band for a celebrated Town Hall concert in 1959. Smith died in 1978, aged 59. This fascinating full-length documentary film makes use of his archive, along with newly recorded testimony from those who knew and admired him.