All language subtitles for The.Jazz.Loft.According.to.W.Eugene.Smith.2015.1080p.WEBRip.x264-RARBG.srt

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]

W. EUGENE SMITH: The Howes
is exactly the same volume
as the other.

Oh, but the mic,
I would say,
is much closer.

Oh, probably six
to eight inches, again,

so it can easily be seen

that the Japanese mic
has the greatest sensitivity.

Yes, however, it's not
a national characteristic.

Remember that,
ladies and gentlemen.

Not a national characteristic.

Now, I have increased
the volume again.

It's back up at
twice the volume setting
of the Japanese mic.

I'm going to press
the record on button

to see if that can
make a difference.

Now it's pressed.

I don't know whether it
makes a difference or not.

Now, pressing both
the record button

and the little gray button.

And I must say,
I think it does.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

HARRY COLOMBY: There weren'
many places to jam.

And word, I think,
got out

that there's something
creative going on here.

BILL CROW: The little
bit of it that I remember

was just there were
photographs everywhere.

Stuck 'em up on the walls,
on the tables, everywhere.

CARLA BLEY:
There was no intercom,

or lock on the door,
I think you just walk in.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Whenever the word went out
that there was a place to play

we would all go there.

So this painter, Dave Young,

found this wonderful building
down in the flower district.

It was a wreck but he fixed
up a loft for himself

and the first thing he did was
to get an old upright piano

lifted up there,
and tell all of his friends

that he had a place to play.

DAVID ROTHMAN:
They had no heat.

Some illegal
hot-wired electric.

They would play,
they would start to play

and then the building
would shake.

'Cause it was not just
happening on that floor

but on the floor
directly below and the floor
even below that.

CROW: People would hea
about it and drop in.

And then, of course,
other musicians lived there.

It was like a little family.

Hall Overton was there,
a great friend of mine

who was also a classical
composer and a jazz player

and did both equally well.

He was composing,
working in there.

Always with a cigarette
in his mouth.

Always, drooping off
and the ashes all over him.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

STEVE SWALLOW: There was often
a mixture of musical styles
on any given night.

And you'd have Dixieland guys
up there, playing happily away

with the beboppers and
the post-beboppers.

Bebop, it just knocked me out.

It just, it floored me

you know and I
had to play that music.

It was a high
experience, Bebop.

It's packed with information.

BEN RATLIFF: That was a time
when jazz was going in every
direction at once.

It was all there,
and alive and present.

And you had a range of people
coming through this loft

from, you know,
I guess early twenties

to people in their
fifties and sixties.

COLOMBY:
It wasn't fashionable then.

You know, a loft
are like a major place.

It was a loft.

It was creaky, smelly,

and I remember the odor
when you walk up those stairs.

It was an old building.

My first thought was when
I went in there, by the way,

"This is gonna
go up in flames."

I always looked
for how to get out.

"Where's the door
to get out?"

PHIL WOODS: Just that
whole thing of the fun
of the music

and that was
happening at the loft.

That was happening
all over New York.

There was a spirit about

improvising that
was infectious.

ROBIN D.G. KELLEY:
If you think about
the history of jazz,

jazz has always
struggled for a place.

So imagine what it meant to
make music in a loft space

where the sounds of the city

are sort of invading
that space

and inspiring musicians
to try to mimic,
speak back to,

and engage those sounds.

Jazz musicians wake up
and they need to play.

The work is the excitement
and they're always
looking for excitement

and they're always
looking for work.

REDD:
Through so many clubs
in New York City,

there were so many people
trying to play the music.

So we were learning
from each other.

I think I was 17
when I arrived, 18?

And I instantly got a job as
a cigarette girl in Birdland

and that was my
education, musically.

I got to hear every band.

Just really stood
in front of the stage

with a tray around my neck

and if someone wanted
to buy a pack

I'd say, "Wait till the piece
is over for God's sake."

I ended up in a loft
on Sixth Avenue.

It was in the flower district.

It was illegal to live there

but we had it fixed
up like an office.

Our clothes were
in file cabinets.

And every morning we
would make it look like

we had a business there

and every night
we would take away

all that artifice
and have a house.

There were a number of
musicians up and down
that street in the 20s.

And we could
get to each other's lofts
by crossing the roof,

fire escape up to the roof,
across the building next door,

down the fire escape, knock on
the window and in we went.

SAM STEPHENSON: Gene Smith
moved into the loft in 1957

and he had a space
on the fourth floor

facing Sixth Avenue.

So much about him was what
he could see through his eyes

so I just feel
like those windows...

There was something
about that Sixth Avenue window

that reminded him
of his home in Wichita.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

STEPHENSON: He called that
window his proscenium arch.

The window had
a scene, or a play,

being acted out below
him all day, every day.

It was the same scene,
but it was always different.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

CROW: And Gene got fascinated

with the musicians
that were around there.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

CROW: Most of the time
he stayed in the background
and just lurked.

SWALLOW: And he was so much
a part of the scene that

I don't think anybody
ever experienced

a self-conscious moment.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

REDD: Usually, musicians,

especially jazz musicians,
are shy, camera shy.

Somebody comes and says
"Okay, hold that pose,
you know, just act natural."

You never even
noticed he was there.

Gene was never in the way.
You know, he was a way.

He was beautiful.

WOODS: We used to cal
him Lamont Cranston

'cause he was the
shadow, you know.

He was just around
all the time.

And he started buying
recording equipment.

CROW: Tape machines
were reel to reel
and didn't work well.

Tapes were constantly jamming
or flying off the spools.

STEPHENSON:
The portable tape recorder
was introduced

into the culture
in the mid-1950s.

Before that, the tape recorder

was the size of
a suitcase or a bed.

SMITH: This mic happens t
run up two floors.

I was trying to run both
machines off the one.

COLOMBY: He recorded
the television, the radio,
the telephone.

WOMAN: [ON PHONE
Your number please?

SMITH: LA 4, 6935.

WOMAN: [ON PHONE
Who's calling please?

SMITH: Uh, Eugene Smith.

WOMAN: [ON PHONE
Mr. Eugene Smith.

SMITH: No company, I'm
photographer in New York.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
WNYC, the voice of
New York City and WNYC FM.

The internationally known
authority on etiquette

Mrs. Emily Post died at her
New York home
at the age of 86.

He got little,
little microphones

only about that big around,
about that long.

And he would bore
holes in the floor

and stick these microphones
up from his loft
into Dave's loft.

The bit from a drill came up
through the floor and then

a microphone came up
after the hole was made.

That was Eugene,
placing another mic.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

He was just there as part
of what was happening.

Like part of the band.

He was part of
the rhythm section.

Only instead of playing
the drums or the bongos
or the bass or the piano

he was playing his camera.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I had seen him already
in Lifemagazine

and was quite
impressed to meet him.

And once I got to go in
because he was standing there

as I walked in and
he invited me in

and showed me
a lot of pictures.

He had these photographs
on shelves in folders

and he just would
pull things out
and show 'em to you,

and he had some
things on the wall.

JOHN COHEN: There's something
about his work
that was special.

It didn't look like
all the rest of the
photographs you saw.

I didn't know Smith then,
I just knew of him.

And I knew he was around, and
he was one of the big guys.

He was one of the most
admired of the photographers.

Gene was really considered
a kind of saint

among photojournalists
in that era.

His work was really...

Well, it was called a picture
essay and it was the best

kind of achievement
a photographer could have,

a long story about
a single subject.

You have to understand,
that this was
before television

and a major way of getting
news and information,

generally, was through
the picture magazines,

Life being the biggest one,

Look being it
close competitor.

It was the photographer
that ruled the day

because that's how the
stories were being told.

VICKI GOLDBERG: He was very
interested in the drama of the
black and white photograph.

There are very strong darks
and very bright highlights
in his photographs.

His pictures, of all sorts,
do deal with the dark
and light.

And he was very
good on the darks.

He took himself seriously.

He thought of himself
as a Rembrandt.

I may exaggerate in
saying Rembrandt,

but I don't think that's
so farfetched.

BILL PIERCE: In the morning,
there would be
a crowd of people

at 821 Sixth Avenue
at the front door

who wanted to come up
and talk to Gene

and everything, because he
was famous, he was a star.

And my job would be to go down
and say to the crowd,

"Mr. Smith would
love to see you

"but, unfortunately,
he has to work today."

STEPHENSON:
He was revered.

I think he was at the very top
of the photography pyramid.

Just one story, I think,
that illustrates that
is Larry Clark

from Tulsa, graduated
from high school

and came to New York.
And part of the reason why

he came here was
to meet Gene Smith.

He put on a suit and
went to 821 Sixth Avenue
and knocked on the door.

The address was available
in the phonebook.

And there's a photograph
of him in the loft that day.

Diane Arbus, there's a
photograph of her in the loft,

she brought some
of her work over.

There were photographers
stopping by all the time.

INTERVIEWER: What was it like,
what was the place like?

A dump. [CHUCKLES]
Extremely cluttered.

At first,
it was only one floor

and then he rented
more and more floors

but it was just junk.

I mean, it was just piled
and piled with stuff.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

STEVE REICH:
When I walked in the room,

three walls, floor to ceiling
filled with photographs.

But that was just
the beginning.

That was what was
the underlying layer.

Then into those photographs

were stuck many
other photographs

so they were
kinda leaning out.

So you felt all these walls
were just leaning in on you

with photographs.

He was like
a mad scientist.

He'd have this big old desk

and it would be pictures and
negatives and tapes.

PIERCE: Prints
layouts, dummies.

I mean, the loft was
packed with stuff.

At the same time,
he's doing the jazz things,

he's shooting out the window,
he's... I mean this man

worked and worked and worked
and worked and worked.

Gene used to work so
long in the darkroom

that what he would do

is he would do the same thing
that every college student

on writing his
thesis would do.

Load up on amphetamines.

At different points,
he'd be taking pills
to go to sleep

and he'd be taking pills
to stay awake so he
could get work done.

If he had a deadline coming,
I mean, he really
wouldn't work seriously

until he had a
short time till the deadline,

and then he would work
straight through, nonstop,

no sleep, hardly any food
and then he'd completely

just about go into a coma till
he recovered three, four days.

SMITH: Now we offer you
the New York premiere

of Holmboe's Concerto No. 10.

HARBUTT: His darkroom,
in the loft, was spotless,
which it has to be.

He would have music playing.
He always had music going on.

At that period,
a lot of people were
imitating his printing

'cause it was so beautiful,
I mean really.

It put all other prints
a little bit to shame.

PATRICK: I spent a
lot of time in
the darkroom with him.

And a lot of time
watching him.

He used a lot of ferricyanide,
which is a bleach

painted on with artists'
brushes or cotton swabs,

depending on the
area he had to lighten.

He was a really
careful printer.

He would print for
hours and hours.

Hours and hours and
hours on one print.

They use to sell paper
in 250-sheet boxes

and he claimed,
on one print,

that he went through
a whole box before
he got the right one.

PATRICK: I remember him
working on the Spanish
village, on the wake scene

and if you look at the faces,

he even went as far as
touching up the eyeballs
to brighten the eyes.

Look at the fingernails,
there's a nice glisten

and that's all ferricyanide.

Now that's a beautiful
example of what

ferricyanide can do.

So he can print this all dark
and bring out some highlights

but then have the spotlight of
greatness on the great man.

Essentially what you do, is
you take a photograph that's

well-exposed and
then you print it dark

so that it's too dark,
it looks just like this,
or like this.

And then you take
it out of the fixer

and with a little brush
and this terrible, poisonous
ferricyanide

you go [CLICKS TONGUE]
and it starts to bleach
the image

so the whites become whiter

and when it gets
just far enough,

you put it back
under the fixer

and it stops the action,
then you can

do it with more
care or less care

and he was a
master at doing it.

Look at this, look at how that
light gives her a halo.

It's not really the
light of a Coleman lamp

but it's the light
of a picture.

So, saved by the bleach.

Or made by the bleach.

[PIANO PLAYING]

CARMAN MOORE: I knew
he was famous, I knew he was
a famous photographer,

you know, ofLife Magazine.

Life Magazine,of course,
to an Ohioan was, like

just short of the Bible.

Just to see him up there
in that rat's nest, you know.

COHEN: Gene brought
that pictorial sense
from an earlier time

and maybe a sense of audience

which was very effective
when you try to reach a mass
audience likeLife Magazine.

But the word on the street
was that he, you know,

he argued with Life Magazine
all the time

for the right to control the
compositions, the layouts.

If you worked for
Life Magazin

they gave you the film,
you used your camera,

they took your film after
you shot the pictures,

then somebody else
developed it,

somebody else made
the contact prints,

somebody else circled which
ones to be enlarged,

somebody else enlarged them,
someone else did the layout,

somebody else did the titles.

Everybody accepted
that convention

and, suddenly,
into the middle of this,

Eugene Smith is saying no.

Well, he had very high ideals.
He was a perfectionist

and he was very clear that
he knew how to lay out

the story that
he had brought in.

Gene had a reputation
of being stormy and he

wanted things done his way and
the editors wanted things

another way and there
was often this tension.

He did argue all the time.

I'd hear him,
I'd overhear conversations

complaining about this
editor or that person.

I don't know
if this is true

but from what I hear,
he offered to jump
out of the window

so often if they didn't
do what he wanted

that one of the editors
finally said to him,

"The window's open,
Gene, go ahead."
[LAUGHS]

He quit 100 times
and realized he had to
try to support a family.

And he'd succumb.
You know, he started doing

advertising work, whatever...

You know, stuff that he didn't
want to do, he hated it

because he had this
tremendous debt.

And with that many kids
and that many people...

His career at Life
was doomed.

And he finally
quitLife Magazine
at the end of '54.

Gene fell into my arms,
if you wish, because
I was then

trying to run Magnum,
the international cooperative

and that was the only place
for Gene to go.

Let's go east, across the
country to Pittsburgh.

MORRIS:
The first major assignment

that I was able
to get for Gene

was one he
should've turned down.

It was to photograph
Pittsburgh.

It was a disaster
from the start.

Smith was hired to make
100 photographs

for a book commemorating
Pittsburgh's bicentennial.

He was 36 years old when
he went to Pittsburgh.

He was in his prime, he was
in his physical prime,

and his artistic prime.

He was prone

to these cycles of
extraordinary effort followed
by periods of collapse.

When he had worldwide acclaim
atLife Magazine, I think

there's really no other
way to say it, but it,

it heightened his ego.

But he had severe self-doubts

and he would have to mount
these ever-growing projects

to prove his worth.

What happened is he erupted
with 22,000 photographs
in a four-year odyssey.

At that point in time,
in the history of photography,

it was outrageous.

It was considered lunacy.

I think that kind of
explosion was inevitable.

It happened in Pittsburgh.

It would've happened if
he'd gone to Cincinnati

or London or Rome,
or wherever. I think
he was gonna erupt.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When Gene finally came
back from Pittsburgh
he went to his darkroom

in Croton-on-Hudson
to work on all this film.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

He had thousands of negatives.

He had sheets of board
up on stands with just

thousands of photographs.

He took over the whole house.

We had moved in there in '53.

It was an interesting
house and it...

I don't know what
it was before.

People kept saying it was
some kind of sanatorium.

All the doors had big
locks on them

and there were
servants' quarters,

multiple wings and areas.

We liked it because it was big

and, you know,
I had three sisters,

and we had the live-in
housekeeper and her daughter

so basically there was
five kids living there.

We had fun, we had
a big place to run around in.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

He had row after row
after row of shelves of
record albums at home,

from 78s to 45s, you know,
that's all we heard.

My bedroom was above
the darkroom area

so I heard music just
about 24 hours a day.

We had a huge dining room

with a Ping-Pong table
with it and it was just

covered with photographs
at all times.

HAROLD FEINSTEIN:
He was taking some
amphetamines,

probably Dexedrine,

which at that time even my
sister who's very conservative

was taking to lose weight.

I worked in the darkroom
with him, making what
he called proof prints

which were 5x7 copies of

things that he wanted to see
and then he'd lay those out.

Then he'd make final prints
and then he'd lay those out.

He had racks on the wall
so mounted pictures could be

stuck there temporarily
so he could study a layout.

He would pull one and then
he would pull another one.

And so he was continuously
seeing different nuances
of his Pittsburgh essay.

He was a bit of an obsessive.
He got carried away.

I remember being informed
that he was leaving.

So, all of a sudden, we were
moving all of his stuff out.

My mother was upset but she
didn't mention anything

and really didn't know
what was going on.

Basically, we had to sell
the house for taxes.

He hadn't paid taxes
on it for years.

So, we had to move out.

HARBUTT: He said
to me once that he had left
his wife and children

because he couldn't be
that totally committed

to his work and
stay with them.

You know, he wouldn't earn
enough money, necessarily,

or he wouldn't even
have the time,

you know, the intellectual
space to deal with them.

MORRIS: This is the dark
aspect of Gene.

He loved his children

but he wasn't able
to sustain them.

The official photography
world, I believe, thought
he'd lost his mind.

The arbiters of photography,

not so much the creators
but the facilitators,

the editors and go-betweens,

and gallery owners
and whatnot,

they all thought
he really lost it

when he moved into this loft.

STEPHENSON:
He gave up a beautiful home
in suburban, floral Croton

and moved into this
cave of a building.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

He set up his studio there,

a darkroom and
he had a lot of space,

wall space, the hallways,
everything.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Smith certainly preferred
the loft to his Croton home.

The loft musicians
were right up his alley.

You know, they were
used to staying up all night

and playing gigs until
3:00 in the morning

and he was used
to blasting music

until dawn,
working in his darkroom.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
Temperature is 74.

WCBS AM and FM, New York.

It's 9:00.

PAUL NEVEN: This is CBS News
in Washington,
Paul Neven reporting.

Vice President Nixon charged
tonight that Nikita Khruschev

is pulling the rug up from
under the peace campaign

being waged by his
deputy Frol Koslov.

"At the very time Koslov
is talking peace," Nixon said,

"Mr. Khruschev is talking
blackmail and threats
of force."

[MAN SPEAKING]

[SMITH SPEAKING]

[MAN SPEAKING]

[SMITH SPEAKING]

[MAN SPEAKING]

[LAUGHS]

SMITH: Aw...

[MAN SPEAKING]

[SMITH SPEAKING]

[MAN SPEAKING]

[SMITH SPEAKING]

[CAT MEOWING]

[MAN SPEAKING]

[SMITH SPEAKING]

[MAN SPEAKING]

One, two, three, four...

STEPHENSON: He was alway
upgrading his equipment.

He would come
into some money

and then he would go out
and buy $500 of new
recording equipment,

new mics, new cords,
new recorder.

Always testing mics in
various corners of the loft,

including the stairwell.

He had the whole stairwell
mic'd from sidewalk up
to the fifth floor.

MAN 1: A lot of people
talk and don't know what
they're talking about.

You're going to mess with
what they're talking about

you might as well
lie down and die.

[MAN 2 SPEAKING]

[MAN 1 SPEAKING]

[MAN 3 SPEAKING]

[MAN 1 SPEAKING]

[MAN 3 SPEAKING]

[MAN 1 SPEAKING]

SY JOHNSON: He was
taping the atmosphere,

the air in there.

Musicians would come
and go and sit in and play

and Gene Smith was
so amazed at that

dedication, that obsession.

The fact that they just
kept playing and playing
and playing and playing.

And he found that
he identified with
that spirit very much.

There wasn't a medium
to hold what he was creating.

He wires that place
for sound, why?

He is photographing out
the window, he's
photographing the players.

He's sort of a happening,
before there were happenings.

SWALLOW:
He had his favorites.

I remember whenever
Zoot Simms showed up
at the loft,

[SAXOPHONE PLAYING]

Gene would emerge
from his hole,

and he always knew
when Zoot arrived,

which is further
evidence that

the tape recorders
were running.

[JIMMY LAUGHS]

JIMMY STEVENSON:
We'd be talking one minute,

and the next thing you know
we'd all grab our instruments,
and that would be it.

STEVENSON: Yeah, it's time.

[MUSIC PLAYS]

STEVENSON: We might play for,
you know, three or four
hours without stopping.

It would be almost like,
like entering into a trance.

DAVID AMRAM:
Zoot was fabulous.

And he had that ability
where he played like
Laurence Olivier,

or Marlon Brando.

As soon as Zoot made
a musical entrance,

he'd play like two notes,
and suddenly... "Ah."

[MUSIC PLAYS]

He just had a way

of knowing how to
begin and create
something on the spot.

From the time, you know,
he would just pick up the
horn and boom, he would go.

[MUSIC PLAYS]

It just poured out of him.

He just had
a wonderful imagination.

He just really loved to play.

And he would swing.

I mean, he was
a natural swinger.

I think Gene understood
when something special
was happening.

And Zoot was really
at the core of that.

WOODS: I remember
when Zoot had been on
the road, and he came home.

And he missed New York
so he went to the loft,
and he wanted to jam.

And Gene, Quill and myself,

we went down to the
loft to welcome
Zoot home.

So all the saxophone
players, "Hey, Zoot's back,
Zoot's back, let's all go."

And I never saw
so many saxes, man.

And we played, we sat in,

and we jammed,
you know we were there
about 10, 12 hours,

and then we had to
take a break, and we left.

We went and had a bite
to eat, went to bed, and
we went back the next day.

And there was Zoot,
and he was sitting
behind the drums.

He had the hi-hat,
and the bass drum,
and his horn.

And all around were all
these saxophone players,

and they were all... [LAUGHS]

He wiped out every
sax player in New York,
and he was still playing.

He wiped out
the rhythm sections.

He was a one-man band,
and he was still sitting
there playing two days later.

I mean, I never forgot that.

When you talk about soldiers,
Zoot was the best.

STEVENSON:
There were a few other lofts.

As far as I know there
was nothing like the loft
that was on Sixth Avenue.

NANCY OVERTON: Since it was
a commercial district,

you could play till
all crazy hours

and it wouldn't
bother anybody.

And that's exactly
what they did.

[MUSIC PLAYS]

And all kinds of
people came by...

Salvador Dali was having
a presentation there,

and the guy who used
to play the Lone Ranger
on the radio

was a jazz buff, he was there.

So I thought, "Wow, how
more diverse can you
get than this."[LAUGHS]

STEVENSON: It was lik
a little nirvana up there.

But Gene was in there
with his camera,
all over the place.

He was literally
the fly on the wall.

SWALLOW: There was a
wonderful camaraderie
among all of these people.

I think, in part, because
nobody had any money,

nobody had much
in the way of money or
respect or anything else.

At one point I remember
him telling me... [CHUCKLES]

That they absolutely
had no money, no credit,
nothing to eat.

They did have a Macy's card,

charge card, so they
went to the gourmet
department in Macy's,

and that's what they ate
for a couple of days.

Chocolate covered ants
and whatever else they
had there.

There was a substance that we
called Old Philadelphia.

I don't know whether
you got it at a hardware
store, or a liquor store,

but you could both drink it
and thin paint with it.

He was constantly borrowing.
He was constantly pawning.

SMITH: 'Cause that one thing
you kept so long was the
announcement

that the bank was pulling
in a $1,200 loan of mine.

And I didn't know anything
about it, and they came down
here, you know, and...

STEPHENSON: At some point,
Overton was paying
Smith's rent

so Smith owed
Overton money,

and he was late
in paying it back,

and there's this one
story where Overton
took a hammer and nails,

and nailed Smith
into his loft,

and said, "I'm not gonna
let you out until you
pay your bill."

[PIANO PLAYING]

I really believe if you
had to name one person

that was responsible
for this jazz scene
in this dilapidated,

decrepit, obscure building
in the middle of Manhattan,

for 10 years,
it would be Hall Overton.

TEDDY CHARLES: Many musicians
started gravitating
towards that place

because he was not only
a serious classical composer

on the faculty at Juilliard,
but had taught many, many
jazz musicians.

There was like a pilgrimage
to come down there and learn
from Hall.

CHUCK ISRAELS: It was easy
to be attracted to him,
because he was

a broad-minded,
interesting, well...

Musically educated guy.

[MUSIC PRACTICE PLAYS]

[HALL OVERTON SPEAKING]

REICH: I was studying
music and philosophy,

and my primary music
teacher said, "Well,

"I think the person that
you really should study

"composition with
is Hall Overton."

I called up Hall, and he
said "Sure, come on over."

And "come on over"
was, basically,

Sixth Avenue in the flower
market district, in the 20s,

which was basically
nothing.[LAUGHS]

I guess there were some
flower stores door to door,

but usually when you go down
there it was just very,
very quiet, and very empty.

MOORE: I just
climbed up to the fourth
floor, you know,

every Saturday at
4:00 and took a lesson.

I remember a dingy place,

and a messed-up upright piano

with cigarette burns
all over the place.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MOORE: He was a teacher.

He was a genius as a teacher.

And a genius at
helping people

become more of themselves
than they realized they were.

He'd look at your piece,
whatever you brought him,

and he'd just start
thinking with you...

[PIANO PLAYS]

Hall would teach you
for four hours, you know,

you'd pay him for one
hour and he'd teach for four.

Oh, I remember the lessons.

One time he wrote down

what composers do
for development,

and here's a list of maybe
10 or 15 things,

and all composers,
that's all they ever do.

He said, "Here, you have
a beautiful phrase.
You have...

"This little two measures,
or the little four measures,

"and now you got on to
something else, don't... No."

He said, develop
what you have.

Long lines.

Develop, develop, develop.

They make it bigger
this way, or they make
it bigger this way,

or they make it smaller
this way, or smaller
this way,

or they turn it upside down,
or they turn it backwards,

or they turn it upside down
and backwards,

or they stick in
a little piece,
or they remove a little piece.

He said, "Look,
I'm gonna draw some shapes."

He said, "Here's one shape.

"It goes up,
and it goes down.

"Here's another shape.

"It goes down,
and it goes up.
Here's another shape.

"It goes straight up,
and then it went, goes
straight down.

"I want you to write
a melody that more or
less follows those shapes."

Okay.

So you learn a lot.

You learn it's very
easy to go like this.

[CHUCKLES]

COLOMBY: He was
a natural guy. He smoked.

He always had a cigarette,
defying physics.

And everybody talks
about Hall, and the...

COLOMBY: Ashes. Ash.

The ash never fell off
of his cigarette. [LAUGHS]

Constantly smoking.
He always had a cigarette.

To say he was a
chain smoker was to way
understate the case.

I don't think he ever
inhaled, you know.

Just a wonderful,
wonderful, special person.

MOORE: I just thought
of a story that
Hall told me about

where he had come from,

not only, like,
the Michigan farm thing,

but about having been
in the Second World War.

It just came up, you know,
we were having a lesson,

you know, we were talking
about Haydn or something
like that.

Out of the blue comes
this story about

finding a piano
in the countryside.

They had just chased the
Germans out of a house,

or something like that,
and there was a piano there.

And Hall said
that he sat down

for the first time in,
like, a couple years,

and put his fingers
on the piano.

You know, he's virtually
on the point of tears
about that,

just remembering that.

STEPHENSON:
It's a complicated
relationship

between Hall Overton
and Gene Smith.

They shared a lot.

They were both from the
Midwest, Smith from Kansas,

Overton from Michigan.

Lower and Upper
Midwest. And...

They both...

Were involved in a very

poignant way in World War II.

Hall Overton carried
stretchers, and Smith
was a photographer.

So they both were on
the front lines seeing
the worst of the war,

but they weren't fighting.

[BOMBS EXPLODING]

[NAVAL GUNS
AND EXPLOSIONS SOUNDING]

MORRIS: Gene was
sent out by Ziff Davis,

the publishing company
forPopular Photography.

MORRIS: And he was
assigned to cover
the carrier war,

which was the big war
in the Pacific.

But it was too cold,
and too impersonal for Gene.

He wanted to get
closer to combat.

AndLife fulfilled his wish
by sending him
to cover the ground action.

His war reportage
was very strong,

and, in fact, he was very
badly wounded in the war.

PIERCE: You're looking a
a photographer who got close.

This is not that long
a lens shot.

He got this picture by
getting up close to this guy.

Believe you me,
in situations like this,

there has to be
an emotional closeness

for this guy to even allow it.

Gene was almost killed.

They practically blew
his face off in the war.

Because he was who he was,
he stood up when everyone
had been ordered to lie down,

and he thought he could get
a better picture standing up,

and he may well have done so,
but he also got himself
severely injured

and couldn't even
photograph for two years.

He was hit
by fragments of...

From shell fire in Okinawa,

in the spring of 1945,

and I think he suffered
from a great deal of pain

in his mouth, and the jaw,
and lower head area.

Essentially, the gory details
are, there was no roof
to Gene's mouth.

I mean it just went up,
and the...

When my dad had come home
from the hospital,
from the war injuries,

he was bedridden
at that point.

He had fingers sewn back on.

He had shrapnel
still in his spine.

He had, you know,
he had severe back aches

where he would just,
he couldn't move.

He'd just lie on the floor
and absolutely
could not move,

because something had shifted.

Sometimes he'd look at
some of the war photographs,

and he'd just get tears
in his eyes, or start crying.

FRIEND: This is in
World War II, the baby's
discovered alive.

Um...

Just...

You get those moments
during wartime when there's

humanity in
the midst of it all,

you know, not that this is
just about the tenderness
of a warrior,

but there's moments
when everything stops.

PATRICK: That's my sister
Juanita and myself.

And this was taken in
Tuckahoe, New York,
behind our house there.

He embellished the story a bit

by saying that he had dreamed
about taking this picture

as he had been laid up
with injuries after the war,

and he used to see us playing
in the backyard,

and he'd looked out
of his bedroom window,

and composed this picture.

And decided that
he had to have

a masterpiece that
represented peace.

He decided he was gonna get
out of bed and go photograph.

That's what he did.

He just, all of a sudden,
walked out of the house

and started directing us,
telling us what to do.

"You go on the left,
you go on the right.

"All right now,
you go on the right,
you go on the left.

"Hold hands.
Don't hold hands."

There were many exposures.

He was using a twin lens
reflex at that time, camera,

and you had to
look down into it.

So every time he'd look down,
liquid would run

between his nasal cavity,
and his throat, and his mouth.

It's the first picture he took

after he came out of
the recovery from
his war wounds.

And it's called
the Walk to Paradise Garden,

'cause there was a place
in his compound that was
called Paradise Garden.

But even the title is...
We're talking about Eden here,

and young people
going into the light.

I've always thought
it was a rather horribly
sentimental picture.

I don't really
want to look at it.

It's very sweet,
but it should be on

every Valentine ever printed,
as far as I'm concerned.

But I think it was, for him,
a coming to life again,

and it has meant
a lot to many people.

Oh. that's great.
That one of...

You know everybody,
everybody looks at this,
"Oh, it's so trite."

You know, this is,
this is youth going into...

That's all of us going
into our future. Beautiful.

SMITH: Here, you want
to try this again?

CHILD: Yeah. SMITH: Throw it way up.

PATRICK: We used to go down
to the loft building,
approximately once a week.

Mainly, my two sisters
wanted to go down,
Shana and Juanita.

[CHILD CHATTERING
INDISTINCTLY]

My dad was always puttering
around doing something

and then he'd go
in the darkroom and I'd go
in the darkroom with him.

He used to like sitting
in the window taking pictures,

I'd be sitting
in the window too.

And he was like,
"Look at that, look at that."

PATRICK: There was a drummer
there practicing one day,
I have no idea who it was.

There were always,
always people there,

twenty-four hours a day,
there was somebody there.

CROW: Ronnie Free was
a wonderful example of,
you know, very good drummer

that started hanging
out there and he
ended up living there.

RON FREE: I had
my drums there and
sleeping in the recliner.

I was on call 24/7.

But other drummers came by
and played.

Roy Haynes and Elvin...
Don't remember who all,

but I was a mainstay.

[CHUCKLES] You went up there
with three or four guys.

It was like,
"Go wake up Ronnie,
we want to play."

FREE: I think I was 18
and I started meeting people
that I had idolized

and I started getting
gigs pretty quick.

I was there when he got
the job with Lena Horne.

I had only known him
a couple months

but I was having
such a great time
hanging out at that loft.

I worshiped him as a drummer.

I was so eager
to play with him.

I was happy to be
anywhere that
I could pursue

my mission. [CHUCKLES]

And it was like a mission.
It was like a search
for the Holy Grail.

When I was about 12 years old,

a friend of the family
took me to New York

and we went to Birdland.

It was such a legendary place.

I'd read about it,
and heard about it,
and dreamed about it.

The Erroll Garner Trio
was playing there

and he had a drummer
named Shadow Wilson.

He knocked me out
playing mostly brushes,

catching all the licks
and so forth,
just right on the money.

[STAMMERING] That... It was...
I just was totally enthralled.

Fast forward,
I moved to New York,

and I go to a place
called the Cafe Bohemia
down in the Village,

and Shadow Wilson
was playing there.

So somebody introduced us
and the first words
out of his mouth was

"Ronnie, you get high?"

And I thought he was
talking about grass

so I said
"Yeah, sure, man."

And he said
"Come on downstairs."

So we did.

And he pulled out a little
packet of white powder

and he had a matchbook cover

and he scooped out
a little bit on the tip of
the matchbook cover

and held it out to me.
And I didn't even know what
I was supposed to do with it.

That introduced me to smack.

When I found out that
he was going with Lena Horne,

I was kinda sad 'cause
they're taking him away,
you know?

And as I remember,
he was back in a couple weeks.

He didn't... He couldn't
stay with that band, he was...

I think his drug habit
made him too unstable
to do a job like that.

Gene Smith and I were
kind of...

Sharing goodies.

He was taking all kind of
psychic energizers and things,

so I would give him
some of my Desoxyns or
whatever the drug du jour...

And sometimes I'd hole up
in there for days

and never go outside.

HOWARD WILLIAMS: One day,
I'm sitting in my loft

and I heard this
"clunk clunk" piano.

"Wait a minute, what's that?"

And, somebody's
playing the piano, I said,
"That sounds like Monk!"

The voicing,
the way he voiced chords...

So I go and stick my head out,
"That is Monk!"

[PIANO PLAYING]

MOORE: One day,
at the end of the lesson,

I actually was about to leave

and this big old guy is there

and turned out to be
Thelonious Monk.

Hall says, "Oh, Thelonious,
I'd like you to meet
my student, Carman Moore."

And he said "Uh!"
and we shook hands.

They were working on the
Town Hall big band session

that became part
of jazz history.

So I just, sort of,
I don't know if I pretended
to leave,

but I didn't leave.
I just hung at the door there

just to watch
this thing unfold.

I was Thelonious Monk's
manager at the time,

Hall Overton
was a friend of mine.

My brother, Jules,
had this idea

of producing Thelonious Monk
in a big band setting.

Thelonious with
a big orchestra.

And Hall was like
a natural to do it

because he was
also an arranger,
he could score music.

And it became
quite a project.

[PIANO PLAYING]

KELLEY: Monk made Overto
learn the music by ear.

And he'll play something and
he'll have Hall play it back.

[PIANO PLAYING]

MOORE: They talke
through the piano.

Their pianos talked.

That was amazing to see them
speak the language of music.

[OVERTON SPEAKING]

And Hall was writing away.

Well, Hall had the training to
really note take accurately.

So when Monk and he
were together,

Monk would sit down
and say "Blam!"

And he would
hold down his fingers
on the piano for that chord

until Hall could write down
every single note
that Monk was playing.

[OVERTON SPEAKING]

[MONK SPEAKING]

[OVERTON SPEAKING]

[OVERTON HUMMING NOTES]

KELLEY: Here's Monk teaching
him how to play his music
like an exacting teacher.

For Monk, this was
a kind of comeback.

In the early 1950s,
he had lost his cabaret card.

He couldn't work
in New York City clubs.

Cabaret cards were invented
in World War II.

It was a way of knowing
who it is that works

in a place
where alcohol is sold

to prevent spies
from overhearing soldiers

or sailors or marines
that come into bars

and say things like
"Well, my wife gave me

"a big fat sweater,

"you know, because
I'm going to need it."

Oh, they're going to Alaska.

To prevent that, but after
the war, they kept that.

You could do concerts,
it didn't affect concerts but
you couldn't work in clubs.

But Monk was affected by that.

KELLEY: He was making
a living by performing in
the outer boroughs.

Places like Brooklyn
and the Bronx.

So this is going to be
a big deal for Monk.
It was huge.

[OVERTON SPEAKING]

JASON MORAN: Just for Hall to
even get comfortable with just
what the sounds are

is going to take a long time.

[PIANO PLAYING]

And the fingers are gonna look
like this as you would do it,

instead of like spread out,
they're gonna be kind of
crunched up, sometimes.

[PIANO PLAYING]

KELLEY: His chord voicings
were unlike anyone else's.

They were very sparse.

But he had a way of hitting
the note with such dynamism

that he could fill the room
with two notes.

[OVERTON HUMMING
MELODIC PHRASE]

ROBERT NORTHERN:
They worked very
well together.

I mean, you know they'd stop
and you'd see this conference
between Monk and Hall Overton,

which I observed. I thought
it was beautiful to see.

Two masters like this
working together
and working details out.

[MONK SPEAKING]

...you know, where you just...

OVERTON: Sure.

[PIANO PLAYING]

KELLEY:
They're struggling over
Little Rootie Tootie.

AndLittle Rootie Tootie is
a song Monk had recorded
several years earlier.

[PIANO PLAYING]

[MONK SPEAKING]

[OVERTON SPEAKING]

[MONK SPEAKING]

[OVERTON SPEAKING]

[MONK SPEAKING]

[OVERTON SPEAKING]

[MONK SPEAKING]

MORAN:
I think, maybe, one of
the quintessential moments

is when Monk says
"Oh, well, let's just
listen to the record."

[JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING]

DAN MORGENSTERN:
The piano solo
onLittle Rootie Tootie,

which is
this train piece of Monk's,

was a fairly long solo,

and it also was
very characteristic
of Monk's touch.

And then he says,
"No, let's listen
to it again." [CHUCKLES]

MONK: Yeah, play it again.

[MUSIC STARTS OVER]

Let's have
the whole band play...

Just play it,
just like the record.

[MONK SPEAKING]

[OVERTON SPEAKING]

[MONK SPEAKING]

[OVERTON SPEAKING]

[MONK SPEAKING]

[MUFFLED TALKING
WITH MUSIC PLAYING]

MORAN: So, Hall kind of
arranges the solo,

and they transcribe it
and it becomes like,

one of the standout moments

of the Monk at Town Hall
recordings.

OVERTON: One, two.

MORAN: Them playing
Little Rootie Tootie.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NORTHERN: I got the call
a typical New York musician.

When I got there,
man, I was excited.

The adrenaline was flowing,
the excitement was going.

We showed up at the loft,

and the first thing
Monk would do...

"All right, everybody
downstairs for your drink."

There used to be a lovely
little bar down there.

[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]

One! You know, just to get...

He would just
want to check out

who the cats were and what
they were doing there.

And he'd have a taste and then
back up to rehearsal.

You got Phil Woods
and these guys, man.

Everybody just running
up the steps, man,

taking out their stuff,
getting ready, man.

You know, I mean,
we were happy.

[PEOPLE LAUGHING]

KELLEY: Rehearsals
for musicians of
that caliber

were rare. [CHUCKLES]

[CHUCKLES] They were
in the morning,

at 2:00 or 3:00
in the morning.

KELLEY: That's why
the loft space
was so important.

I mean, imagine what it meant

for working musicians

to arrive at the rehearsals
at 3:00 in the morning,
and work until 7:00.

[SAXOPHONE PLAYING]

T.S. MONK: It wasn'
your normal big band ensemble.

It had a tuba in it.

It had a French horn in it.

These are not
swing era instruments.

NORTHERN:
This wasn't orchestrated
in the usual way.

We were playing piano music

on our instruments,
which made it a challenge.

And also, you know,
Hall understands like,

the spacing,
that needs to happen,

you know,
for those 10 fingers

to be spread across
those instruments.

T.S. MONK: That's something
that Hall and Thelonious

had to talk a lot about,

"How are we gonna
get the voicings?"

"How are we gonna
get these harmonies?"

You know, translate
what you're playing,

what you're
actually playing,

to the instruments,
and have it sound right.

NORTHERN:
And whoever thought of tuba,

I mean, you know,
the instrumentations...

This is quite different.
Quite different.

WOODS: And I remember
we rehearsed

the tune calle
Little Rootie Tootie,

and it starts with...
[SCATTING]

And then the ensemble...
[SCATTING]

And everyone complained
about the difficulty.

I mean, it was hard.

They complained
about the tempos.

They complained
about the...

The intervals.

Interval is the
distance between

one note to the other
is called an interval,

and Monk plays
very awkward intervals.

Okay, back to the top.
[SCATTING]

And then we get the...
[SCATTING]

Train wreck.

And we're all saying,
"Boy this is gonna be...

"This is gonna be
a hard gig, man." [CHUCKLES]

NORTHERN: I wasn't
accustomed to playing

some of those rhythms
that were written
in front of me.

And Monk, you know,
he respected

that I knew
how to play the horn,

but he knew that I was having
a bit of a difficulty in
swinging the beat.

You know, I was playing it
more academically.

So, he called
the musicians together,

said, "Let's take a,
five-minute break,"

and the guys went out,
and I didn't move.

And he saw that
I was serious enough

to sit there and study
my part, and he
looked at me

and I looked right at him,
and then he got up

from his piano

and went into
a corner of the loft

and danced my entire
French horn part.

[TAP DANCING]

He knew I was observing him,

so, we had eye contact
for a minute,

and he danced the entire
French horn part
in Little Rootie Tootie.

Then called the guys
back together

and I played it exactly
the way he danced it.

That's the kind of
teacher he was.

That was tough,
hard music, man.

You know,
he didn't embarrass me.

He didn't come up and say,
"Man, you know,
you having problems?"

He didn't say
any of those things.

He just danced.

[JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING]

WOODS: It was special.

I mean, it'd never
been done before.

It was not your basic
stage band type of
writing, you know.

WOODS: I mean, we get to
Town Hall to do the concert
and it was magic time.

[UPBEAT JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING]

We played the heck
out of that music, you know.

Monk was in rare form.

I mean he was
even dancing great.

[JAZZ MUSIC CONTINUES]

[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]

[TUBA PLAYING]

WOMAN: [OVER PHONE
What's the name, sir?

SMITH: Uh...
Popular Photography Magazine.

WOMAN: Thank you.

SMITH: Or Ziff Davis
Publishing Company,
either one.

WOMAN: The number is O-R-9.

SMITH: O-R-9.

WOMAN: 7-200.

SMITH: 7-200,
thank you very much.

WOMAN: You're welcome.

[DIAL TONE RINGS]

WOMAN: Mr. Kinzer's office.

SMITH: Is Mike there? WOMAN: One minute, please.

WOMAN: Mike.

Mike?

I'm sorry, he's not
around right now,

may I take a message?

SMITH: Uh...

No, it's rather important that
I speak to him if I can,

if he's at all in the vicinityWOMAN: I'm sorry,
I can't find him.

Can I ask who's calling?

SMITH: Well
it's Eugene Smith, I...

I'm trying to find out, one,
who my enemies are there,

and two...

WOMAN: [CHUCKLES
Who your enemies are? SMITH: Yes.

And two, let it be
known very frankly

that although I'm going to
fulfill my present contracts,

they are not going to
get any other books
out of me whatsoever.

WOMAN: Well...

SMITH: I mean, this may not
be important to them, so I...

WOMAN: Well, I'm certainl
sure it is important to them.

Let me look around
the office, Mr. Smith.

Will you hold on
for just a minute? SMITH: Yes.

[PHONE CLATTERS]

STEPHENSON:
He was isolated,

and he needed that isolation
in order to do his work,

but he had to have
a connection with
the outside world.

I mean, he was desperate
to find some kind
of connection,

and he wasn't real good
at it on an intimate level.

[MAN SPEAKING OVER PHONE]

[SMITH SPEAKING]

[MAN SPEAKING]

He required affirmation.

MAN: A very important
telegram, pardon me,

everyone please stop,
from Eugene Smith.

STEPHENSON:
And he would
send telegrams to

the Long John Nebel program,

and then they would
read the telegram

on the air and he would
tape it on his tapes.

MAN: Boy,
he's economizing this morning.

One word, camera.

[LAUGHS]

STEPHENSON: I mean,
some of those telegrams
were very costly.

There's one that
they talk about on the air
that was like $50

in 1960 money,
which is like $300 today.

This is when he's broke,

and he's sending
these expensive telegrams

to the radio
in the middle of the night.

MAN: [OVER RADIO]
Here's another telegram,
just came in.

Long John Nebel
walks New York City...

"Please have panel discuss
my previous telegram,

"signed W. Eugene Smith."

[MEN LAUGHING]

Hey, we should get him
on some night, you know.

JOHNSON: He punishe
himself. He locked himself up.

Took himself out of the world
where he functioned.

He had all that
passion, all that fire,

he just... It just was
all bottled up in that space.

Well into the point
I was married

and had children already,
he would still call up,

and he was gonna
commit suicide...

He was upset about whatever,

and we'd make these runs

in the middle of the night,
down to see him

and comfort him.

And I remember

I had to go
to work, and I said

"I'm not coming down,
I can't come down,

"you know, you're
doing this constantly,

"and I just can't
put up with it.

"I've got my own life now."

And he said, "You don't think
I'll do it?" And I said...

"Whether you do or not,

"I can't sacrifice my family

"to come down and help you
every couple of days."

SWALLOW: It was a dark place.

There was a lot of tragedy
unfolding in that building.

As remarkable as
the artistic output was,

there was also a deep toll
in personal lives

hitting the rocks,
in that place.

I was burned out
by the time I was 25.

I swear, I felt like
I was 100 years old.

I wound up in Bellevue.

I mean, I was
in the booby house,

at the top floor,
which is the real wackos.

And I say that
with all due affection,

because I really got attached
to some of those
people up there.

One day, I was
sitting in the rec room,
I think they called it,

and there was a magazine.

On the cover of it
was Lena Horne.

I'm looking at this picture

and I was reminiscing,
I guess, about the
good old days,

which were just
a few months ago.
[LAUGHS]

And...

Tears started streaming
down my cheeks.

And one of the attendants
saw me there, you know,

said, "What's the matter
with you, man?"

I said, "Oh, just looking
at my old boss here,
you know.

"I used to work with Lena."

"Mmm-hmm, I see,
okay, okay, buddy."

And you could just see
those wheels turning,

you know, and he thought,

I could've said
I'm Napoleon or something

and it would've
made as much sense.

So... [CHUCKLES]

[SOFT PIANO PLAYING]

It wasn't until much later

that I got to
thinking about all this,

and I realized
that Charlie Parker,

and Charlie Mingus,

and any countless

number of jazz players,

"heroes," had been through

the Bellevue experience...

So, I thought, well,

I'm chasing
the bird, you know.

Any respectable
jazz man...[LAUGHS]

Has to pay his dues, I guess.

Eventually, my parents came,

and they took me
back to Charleston

and I never did
make it back to New York.

SWALLOW: This may
or may not have happened,

but the story that was

going around in the wake
of Ronnie Free's departure
from New York,

was that he saw
death in the automat.

That he put
his nickel in the slot,

opened the door to get
his piece of cherry pie

and there was death.

He ran screaming
from the automat,

and didn't stop
till he crossed

the Mason-Dixon Line.
[LAUGHS]

FREE: Years later,
I get a manila envelope
in the mail,

and I pull out
this 8x10 glossy.

Of course Prez is right there
with his horn

and his pork pie hat.

And Mary Lou Williams,

of course, I played with her,

and I played with
everybody in there actually.

I recognize
everybody but this guy,

and I'm thinking,
"But, boy, he sure...

"He looks cool."[LAUGHS]

He really looks cool.

And then at some point
I started remembering,

"Wait a minute!

"Oh, yeah."

And I didn't even
recognize myself.

[VEHICLE HORNS HONKING]

JOHN F. KENNEDY: [ON TV]
This sudden
clandestine decision

to station strategic
weapons for the first time
outside of Soviet soil

is a deliberately
provocative and
unjustified change

in the status quo
which cannot be accepted...

STEVENSON: The night of
the Cuban Missile Crisis,

I went downstairs,
and that's where

I really got to know Gene.

"Look Gene," I said,
"We're liable to be toast
here any time."

And he says "Yeah, I know."

And that wasn't
so encouraging,

so I said, "Well,
until then maybe

"we can just rap,"
and he says, "Yeah."

He said, "I've been listening
to this Miles Davis'

"Sketches of Spain,"

and he says,
"The damn this is nothing

"but a rip-off of Rodrigo."

That'll kind of give you
a sense of Gene.[CHUCKLES]

MORAN: So, W. Gene Smit
is, you know,

like "Yeah,
by all means come in,"

you know,
"I'm recording my life,

"and you just happen to

"intersect it
at certain moments.

"I mean, I'm recording
the radio when you leave.

"I'm recording
the stairs, you know."

So, that space becomes
so well documented

in those years that

it's more than
just a snapshot of jazz.

It's like, this real
snapshot of what New York

and American culture was
kinda like moving through,

at, like, a very tense moment.

MAN: [ON RADIO
I listened to the White House

in Washington D.C.,

and President Kennedy
said that

state troopers
were on their way.

[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]

There isn't really
anything quite comparable

to what happened at 821,

because it's such a, you know,
it's a real time capsule.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

STEPHENSON: The term
"free jazz" popped up.

And the music became
more spontaneous,

and free-er, and improvised,

which was exhilarating...

[UPBEAT TRUMPET PLAYING]

But not everybody was
on the same page.

And I'm not sure the scene
was really quite the same.

At least not in this building.

It was fragmenting.

It was kind of breaking down.

Okay, here is Gene Smith

in the loft,

actually in the hallway,

the outside of his floor,
because his place had
gotten so crowded

there was no space.

So, he was literally editing
pictures in the hallway.

He was literally
buried under the weight

of his belongings,

which included
thousands of books,

and 25,000 vinyl records,

and millions of negatives.

So, he became
just weighed down.

SMITH: Before I took over
so much of it,

it used to be
a rather interesting
and exciting place.

There was a strange
painter on the top floor,

and a musician underneath,

and my quiet
and gentlemanly conduct

[CHUCKLES]
to offset all of this.

I don't know, what else
can you say about the loft?

FRIEND: You know
I think every generation

has their romantics.

I mean, he was an idealist,

and a romantic,
and a single-minded

person who thought

something that nobody in their
right mind would think,

but that I believe too,

photography can change
the world!

What?

That's so wrong.

That's so... It's not
gonna happen.

But maybe there's
something in that craziness.

SWALLOW: He had
found such fascination

in this decrepit,

filthy loft building,

and the world
that it contained.

[SLOW JAZZ PLAYING]

He'd somehow gotten the sense,

and I think correctly,
that this was important.

We just thought
we were going up there

to have a good time and play.

STEVENSON:
There were just musicians

up one side
and down the other.

And one of them was
better than the next.

BLEY: It was just normal.

It was below normal.

It was like as subculture
as you could get.

WOODS: It was life.
We didn't think
anything of it.

Now it's a big deal.

"Oh man, you played with..."

Yeah, so? You know,
that's the way New York was.

SWALLOW: Very often
what finally caused

the music to stop was
the encroachment of dawn.

You'd look up and there'd be
light coming in the window.

That, somehow,
signaled that it was

time to go home,
and go to bed.

It was also an experience

I really cherished,
and looked forward to

every time to
leave that building

at dawn, because
it was the flower district.

And by that time
in the morning

the deliveries
were in full swing,

and the sidewalks were jammed

with a forest
of the most exotic
and beautiful flowers,

smelling as sweetly
as you can imagine.

[SLOW PIANO PLAYING]