En
visitant New York pour but de mettre mes aquarelles de jazz en
sécurité , donc hors de la cave du club de jazz au Cornelia Street
Cafe vers la 8ème étage du fameux Jazz Record Center et pour
exploiter des autres possibilités de l'exposition dans des clubs de
jazz new-yorkais en 2014 on avait croisé le Jazz Loft du photographe
W.Eugène Smith sur 821 Sixth Avenue.
Gene
Smith avait 38 ans quand il abandonnait sa famille et sa carrière
de photographe chez LIFE pour s'installer dans ce fameux loft avec
ces appareils photos et des enregistreurs. Peu après ce loft est
venu la rencontre des musiciens de jazz après leurs concerts
'officiels' dans des clubs de jazz et cela leur donnait la
possibilité de faire le bœuf et toute tranquillité.
Thelonious
Monk, Hall Overton, Zoot Sims et environ 300 autres musiciens sont
passés dans cette période de 1957 jusqu'au 1965; Gene Smith était
là pour enregistré tout sur environ 1447 bandes magnétiques et il
a fait environ 40.000 photos.
Après
la mort de Gene Smith, Sam Stephenson a trouvé les bandes et les
photos et il a passé sept années pour faire un peu de l'ordre et
pour établir, avec le soutien de Duke University, une magnifique
exposition et livre: The Jazz Loft Project.
Ce
livre est que disponible en anglais sur amazon; malheureusement il
n'existe pas ou peu des articles en français sur l'internet. Si cet
histoire vous intéresse: achetez ce livre! En dessous vous trouvez
un interview (4 pages) réalisé par All About Jazz avec l'auteur du livre:
Sam Stephenson.
Une
vrai histoire du jazz, peu connue!
.jpg)
Thelonius Monk au Jazz Loft
le photographe Gene Smith
Sixth Avenue
- 1,099Recommend It!
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Interviews
Sam Stephenson: A "Loft-y" Vision of Jazz
When, in 1997, writer, scholar, and archivist Sam Stephenson serendipitously came across audio tapes, photographs and other documents involving jazz musicians congregating in photographer W. Eugene Smith's Manhattan loft in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was surprised as anyone. The wall of cartons had been unopened since before Smith's death in 1978. Stephenson and his cohorts spent several years studying the documents, including tapes in which one can hear jazz musicians conversing, brainstorming and playing in a relaxed, informal setting. Now, there is an exhibition of selected materials from these archives at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, as well as a book that contains a narrative of the project and some of Smith's multitude of photographs taken at or from the loft.
For photography enthusiasts, the value of this project is, of course, inestimable. Smith was one of the greatest of American photographers, legendary for his documentation of the Pacific campaign of World War II for Life Magazine, with whom he had severed ties before he moved from the ease of his home and family in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., to live in the dilapidated loft space at 821 Sixth Ave. in mid-Manhattan, in a building he promptly wired with microphones and recorders to capture all the sound that went along with the multitude of photographs that he was to take there for several years.
For jazz aficionados, the particular significance of The Jazz Loft Project is that it shows, in sound and pictures, a microcosm of the intensely creative jazz scene of the time, with luminaries and lesser-known musicians congregating, jamming and talking uninhibitedly before and after their gigs at the many nightclubs that sprung up in New York at that time. Three of the most frequent musical denizens of the loft were Thelonious Monk, his big band arranger Hall Overton, and legendary saxophonist Zoot Sims, joined at various times by Gerry Mulligan, Roy Haynes, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Pee Wee Russell, Charles Mingus and a multitude of others. Much if not most of jazz is created in the off-stage moments and hours between performances, and The Jazz Loft Project offers an intimate glimpse into how the music comes about in the woodshedding process and the relationships that develop between the musicians.
Whatever his personal and artistic motives were, Smith anticipated the reality television shows and live Internet video websites of today, where cameras and microphones witness the everyday goings on of lives in progress. Such direct witness adds to and qualifies what people do onstage, and when this is applied to jazz musicians who, at that time especially, kept some distance from their public, something a little different—unexpected, even—can be seen that may change perceptions about the jazz scene
Chapter Index
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