In collaboration with The Jazz Loft Project exhibit, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts welcomes Steve Reich, Joel Sachs, Carman Moore, Ethan Iverson, and Sam Stephenson to discuss famed composer Hall Overton in Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows on Wednesday, April 14 at 6:00 p.m. in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza.
This program will celebrate and discuss Hall Overtons influence on the jazz world as a pianist, composer, arranger and teacher. Hall Overton as a classical composer not only inserted elements of the jazz music style into his own work but also contributed greatly to the New York jazz scene. His work with musicians such as Thelonious Monk resulted in legendary live recordings such as The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall. The program will be introduced by Sam Stephenson, author of the book The Jazz Loft Project, a historical and musical resource, and moderated by Ethan Iverson, member of the post modern piano trio The Bad Plus. Steve Reich, award-winning composer responsible for the piece Different Trains and composition Double Sextet, will be placed in conversation with conductor Joel Sachs and composer Carman Moore, discussing Overtons teaching methods and the role he played in multiple musicians developments as well as the experience of performing Overton's work today and composing new work inspired by his pieces. Additionally, Iverson, will perform Hall Overtons Polarities, and audience members will have the opportunity to listen to a recording of the New Juilliard Ensembles (conducted by Joel Sachs) recent rendition of Pulsations.
Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows promises to be an engaging event, enabling patrons to understand the influence of Overton on incredible contemporary composers shaping the contemporary jazz music scene and tradition.
About The Jazz Loft Project
From 1957 to 1965 legendary photographer W. Eugene Smith made approximately 4,000 hours of recordings on 1,741 reel-to-reel tapes and nearly 40,000 photographs in a loft building in Manhattans wholesale flower district where major jazz musicians of the day gathered and played their music. Until the Jazz Loft Project began almost a decade ago, the tapes had not been played since they were archived, following Smiths death in 1978, at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona.
The Jazz Loft Project, organized by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in cooperation with the Center for Creative Photography and the Smith estate, is devoted to preserving and cataloging Smiths tapes, researching the jazz loft photographs, and obtaining oral history interviews with all surviving loft participants. The project began with the preservation of Smiths tapes (all of Smiths original 1,741 reels of loft tapes have been transferred to digital files), which has allowed researchers at CDS to listen to them for the first time since they were recorded and to catalogue their contents. The transferred recordings reveal high sound quality and extraordinary musical and cultural content, offering unusual documentation of an after-hours New York jazz scene.
The Jazz Loft Project at the Center for Documentary Studies was made possible through the generous support of the Reva and David Logan Foundation, with significant additional support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (The Grammy Foundation), the Duke University Office of the Provost, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Ken and Amelia Jacob, and Kimpton Hotels.
The Center for Documentary Studies has focused since its creation in 1989 on cultivating new talent in the documentary field. From international awards to award-winning books, from exhibitions of new and established artists to fieldwork projects in the U.S., from university undergraduate courses to popular summer institutes, attracting students from across the country the Center for Documentary Studies is actively engaged in sharing the documentary arts with a broad audience and in educating students of all ages and levels of expertise. For more information about The Jazz Loft Project or the Center for Documentary Studies, see jazzloftproject.org
About the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Project
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has awarded a two-year, $1 million grant to The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts to support the preservation of performing arts works and related oral histories through the audio and visual documentation of jazz, contemporary dance, and theater performances by artists or organizations previously funded by the Doris Duke Foundation; the creation of oral and video histories involving Foundation-supported artists and organizations; and the preservation of recently acquired, fragile, and deteriorating archival material related to the life and work of Martha Graham.
About The New York Public Library
The New York Public Library was created in 1895 with the consolidation of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and James Lenox with the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and open access to its physical and electronic collections and information, as well as to its services. Its renowned research collections are located in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem; and the Science, Industry and Business Library at 34th Street and Madison Avenue. Eighty-eight branch libraries provide access to circulating collections and a wide range of other services in neighborhoods throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. Research and circulating collections combined total more than 50 million items. In addition, each year the Library presents thousands of exhibitions and public programs, which include classes in technology, literacy, and English for speakers of other languages. All in all The New York Public Library serves more than 17 million patrons who come through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at nypl.org.
This program will celebrate and discuss Hall Overtons influence on the jazz world as a pianist, composer, arranger and teacher. Hall Overton as a classical composer not only inserted elements of the jazz music style into his own work but also contributed greatly to the New York jazz scene. His work with musicians such as Thelonious Monk resulted in legendary live recordings such as The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall. The program will be introduced by Sam Stephenson, author of the book The Jazz Loft Project, a historical and musical resource, and moderated by Ethan Iverson, member of the post modern piano trio The Bad Plus. Steve Reich, award-winning composer responsible for the piece Different Trains and composition Double Sextet, will be placed in conversation with conductor Joel Sachs and composer Carman Moore, discussing Overtons teaching methods and the role he played in multiple musicians developments as well as the experience of performing Overton's work today and composing new work inspired by his pieces. Additionally, Iverson, will perform Hall Overtons Polarities, and audience members will have the opportunity to listen to a recording of the New Juilliard Ensembles (conducted by Joel Sachs) recent rendition of Pulsations.
Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows promises to be an engaging event, enabling patrons to understand the influence of Overton on incredible contemporary composers shaping the contemporary jazz music scene and tradition.
About The Jazz Loft Project
From 1957 to 1965 legendary photographer W. Eugene Smith made approximately 4,000 hours of recordings on 1,741 reel-to-reel tapes and nearly 40,000 photographs in a loft building in Manhattans wholesale flower district where major jazz musicians of the day gathered and played their music. Until the Jazz Loft Project began almost a decade ago, the tapes had not been played since they were archived, following Smiths death in 1978, at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona.
The Jazz Loft Project, organized by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in cooperation with the Center for Creative Photography and the Smith estate, is devoted to preserving and cataloging Smiths tapes, researching the jazz loft photographs, and obtaining oral history interviews with all surviving loft participants. The project began with the preservation of Smiths tapes (all of Smiths original 1,741 reels of loft tapes have been transferred to digital files), which has allowed researchers at CDS to listen to them for the first time since they were recorded and to catalogue their contents. The transferred recordings reveal high sound quality and extraordinary musical and cultural content, offering unusual documentation of an after-hours New York jazz scene.
The Jazz Loft Project at the Center for Documentary Studies was made possible through the generous support of the Reva and David Logan Foundation, with significant additional support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (The Grammy Foundation), the Duke University Office of the Provost, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Ken and Amelia Jacob, and Kimpton Hotels.
The Center for Documentary Studies has focused since its creation in 1989 on cultivating new talent in the documentary field. From international awards to award-winning books, from exhibitions of new and established artists to fieldwork projects in the U.S., from university undergraduate courses to popular summer institutes, attracting students from across the country the Center for Documentary Studies is actively engaged in sharing the documentary arts with a broad audience and in educating students of all ages and levels of expertise. For more information about The Jazz Loft Project or the Center for Documentary Studies, see jazzloftproject.org
About the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Project
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has awarded a two-year, $1 million grant to The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts to support the preservation of performing arts works and related oral histories through the audio and visual documentation of jazz, contemporary dance, and theater performances by artists or organizations previously funded by the Doris Duke Foundation; the creation of oral and video histories involving Foundation-supported artists and organizations; and the preservation of recently acquired, fragile, and deteriorating archival material related to the life and work of Martha Graham.
About The New York Public Library
The New York Public Library was created in 1895 with the consolidation of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and James Lenox with the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and open access to its physical and electronic collections and information, as well as to its services. Its renowned research collections are located in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem; and the Science, Industry and Business Library at 34th Street and Madison Avenue. Eighty-eight branch libraries provide access to circulating collections and a wide range of other services in neighborhoods throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. Research and circulating collections combined total more than 50 million items. In addition, each year the Library presents thousands of exhibitions and public programs, which include classes in technology, literacy, and English for speakers of other languages. All in all The New York Public Library serves more than 17 million patrons who come through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at nypl.org.
