Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:33:50 -0500
From: allen baddour
Subject: kudos to one of our own
Kudos to North Chatham resident Sam Stephenson for his work on the Jazz Loft Project:
[from the New York Times]
“THE cardboard boxes are everywhere, stacked almost to the ceiling, in the Manhattan loft where W. Eugene Smith, the renowned American photojournalist, once shared living space with Hall Overton, an obscure composer and pianist. Inside the boxes are wigs, maybe thousands, the inventory of a Chinese business that now holds the lease. Nothing about this nondescript building in the flower district betrays its decade-long history as a bustling clubhouse for the jazz scene, beginning in the mid-1950s
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/arts/music/22chin.html?_r=1#secondParagraph>
So it takes some effort to picture Thelonious Monk, one of jazz’s great composers, pacing these floorboards early in 1959 as he prepares for his momentous large-group debut at Town Hall, which would help lay the groundwork for a career beyond clubs. It takes imagination to place him and Overton at a pair of upright pianos, hashing out chord voicings for one
after another of his songs. But these things did happen; that much we know from an extraordinary cache of tape recordings made by Smith, who had wired most of the building with microphones.”
[and a few paragraphs later…]
“The larger story of the loft has been an immersive project for researchers at Duke, who have interviewed 300 people in 19 states. Sam Stephenson, who directs the effort and whose book on the subject, “Rhythm of a Corner: W. Eugene Smith and a New York Jazz Loft 1957-1965,” will be published by Knopf this fall, described a convergence of forces, saved for posterity by the will of one man’s obsession.”
[for the complete article]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/arts/music/22chin.html?_r=1
Go Chatham!
—
Best,
Allen Baddour