The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith

It was and is a slummy building on 6th Street in New York City in the flower district.  Back in the mid '50s to mid '60s, it housed lofts of distinction. Photojournalist William Eugene Smith, best known for his work for Life magazine, left his family and  spacious home in the suburbs to set up a lab in said rathole, a place that by many accounts had a foul smell and was cluttered with mountains of "stuff." Here, the distinction of the place stemmed from the guests who happened by.  Jazz greats like Thelonious Monk, Phil Woods, Zoot Sims, and Ron Free.  They would jam for hours.  Often until sunrise, when one interviewee in 2016's THE JAZZ LOFT ACCORDING TO W. EUGENE SMITH recalls the joy of seeing the flower deliveries across the street.  As if he stumbled into some sort of Eden in the midst of the concrete jungle.

Smith would hang back and document the giants around him.  Never obtrusive in his lurking.  Those who remember, those who were there, considered him another artist contributing to the scene.

Those interested in jazz, mid twentieth century NYC, and photography will have plenty to enjoy.  The first half of director Sara Fishko's documentary spends most of its time on Smith's background.  His inability to remain a family man, his battles with editors over his photos, his remarkable shots from the battlefields of WWII.  Smith was a highly complicated and obsessed Renaissance man who was meticulous in most areas of his life. His flaws are not ignored. His son gives blunt recollections.  The other talking heads in the movie describe the "millions" of photographs and negatives in the loft space.  Thousands of record albums.  Miles of reel to reel tape, which Smith used to record those parties, its astonishing music.   He also recorded sounds of the city.  Late night radio talk shows.  Everything.   An unimaginable archive.  An unenviable (though doubtless fascinating) task to sift through it all.  From it Fishko has pieced audio and visual of Smith and his friends, entirely putting us into this long ago scene.  You can almost smell the acetate and photo fixer.

We get a sketch of drummer Ron Free's brief moment in the spotlight, even getting a gig with Lena Horne, then becoming an addict and enduring a stint in at Bellevue.  Woods, who went on to do that amazing solo in Steely Dan's "Dr. Wu", gives some amazed and amused anecdotes.  

THE JAZZ LOFT goes along pleasantly, seeming to relegate itself to the Merely Interesting of Filmed Documentaries for awhile.  Then we see Monk and Hall Overton, the jazz pianist, teacher, and composer who co-owned the famous loft.  A lengthy sequence is given over to their collaboration on a redo of Monk's "Little Rootie Tootie", and it is just mesmerizing.  Fishko's arrangement of stills and audio makes us privvy to two geniuses' almost telepathic harmony.   Musicians who "talked through the piano."  Jazz aficienados will absolutely eat up these scenes, and they are what make this film a must.