The Jazz Loft Project

Once a photographer for Life in World War II Okinawa and Iwo Jima, W. Eugene Smith photographed and recorded jazz musicians at his Manhattan loft from 1957 to 1965. It was here that now legendary musicians like Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Alice Coltrane or Steve Reich met for late-night jam sessions.

In that period, Smith made over 4000 hours of recordings and took nearly 40,000 photographs. The Jazz Loft Project is trying to uncover and document these moments, a book by Sam Stephesonwas recently published. Rare audio-footage of that loft's era was aired by WNYC in a 10 episode radio-series, which is also available on-demand. Throughout this month, NPR will also report about The Jazz Loft Project.

(via Grain Edit)