Smith exposed 1,447 rolls of film at his loft, making roughly 40,000 pictures, the largest body of work in his career, photographing the nocturnal jazz scene as well as life on the streets of the flower district, as seen from his fourth-floor window.
He 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, among them Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Roland Kirk, Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, and Paul Bley. He also recorded such legends as pianists Eddie Costa and Sonny Clark, drummers Ronnie Free and Edgar Bateman, saxophonist Lin Halliday, bassist Henry Grimes, and multi-instrumentalist Eddie Listengart. But guests to the loft included more than just jazz musicians. Norman Mailer, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, and Salvador Dali all visited during its active years.
More than 200 vintage prints will be on display in the exhibition, including approximately 40 master prints. Smiths 5x7-inch work prints will further tell the story of the loft. Listening stations will give access to remastered selections from Smiths reel-to-reel tapes which caught everything from rousing jam sessions to historic radio and television broadcasts, loft conversations, and street noise.
“Smith was an idiosyncratic master of darkroom printing, says Sam Stephenson, Director of the Jazz Loft Project, a multiyear initiative based at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. He said 95% of his art occurred in the darkroom, not in the exposure of negatives. His vintage prints--most of them exhibited for the first time--accompanied by his recorded sound will provide unique access to a bygone time and place."
All of the photographs featured in the exhibition are also included in the new 288-page hardcover book The Jazz Loft Project written by Sam Stephenson and published by Alfred A. Knopf. More information about the book can be found on The Jazz Loft Projects website, jazzloftproject.org.
The Jazz Loft Project is also the subject of a ten-part radio series produced by WNYC and the Center for Documentary Studies.
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Sam Stephenson: A “Loft-y" Vision of Jazz
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