--- ---  # The Biggest Names in Jazz Came to Jam. One Photographer Captured It All by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/) and [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) Oct 6, 2016 3:00 PM UTC  Thelonious Monk and his band, 1959. Thelonious Monk and his band, 1959.W. Eugene Smith—2009, 2015 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/) and [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) Oct 6, 2016 3:00 PM UTC When W. Eugene Smith first received notice for his work with LIFE Magazine, he was a [war photographer](http://time.com/vault/issue/1945-07-02/page/13/) during World War II. But, wounded on assignment in Okinawa in 1945, he soon turned to more personal stories. “He didn’t invent the photo essay,” TIME’s Richard Lacayo noted while including Smith in a [list](http://time.com/vault/issue/1998-06-08/page/92/) of the century’s most influential photographers. “But more than any earlier photographer, Smith saw how it could offer a profound reckoning with the world. His grave narratives proceeded deeply into the lives of his subjects and the memory of his audience.” He had a way of getting into people’s lives. But nowhere was that more literal than at 821 6th Avenue in New York City, the building he lived in for a time—and where, next door, some of the most prominent jazz musicians and artists of the 1950s would come to jam. Zoned for a commercial space, disguised as an office, it was a legendary jazz locale. Smith began constantly recording the world around him in the building, including audio and photographic records of what went on in that loft. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) A whopping 4,000 hours of that audio and hundreds of those photographs, just a few of which are seen here, are the building blocks of the new documentary [_The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith_](http://www.wnyc.org/jazzloftthemovie/), directed by public radio’s Sara Fishko and [available](http://apple.co/2dFaeCk) on demand on Friday. “We’re still not sure exactly what Gene Smith was trying to create in the loft,” said Fishko in a statement about the film. “But he did remarkable work there, and his pictures by the tens of thousands and stacks and stacks of audio tape reels tell us things about community, music-making, obsession and art that we couldn’t learn in any other way.”  Pie-man, shot from 4th floor window, New York, New York. W. Eugene Smith—2009, 2015 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith  Thelonious Monk and his band, 1959. W. Eugene Smith—2009, 2015 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith  Freddie Redd, piano, with Ron Free, drums and Bill Takas, bass, c. 1950s. W. Eugene Smith—2009, 2015 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith  Salvador Dali and Ultra Violet at a loft party, c. 1960s. W. Eugene Smith—2009, 2015 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith  Painter David X. Young, who first inhabited the dingy building. W. Eugene Smith—The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith  The Loft window, c. 1957-1964. W. Eugene Smith—2009, 2015 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith  Portrait of musician Zoot Sims. W. Eugene Smith—2009, 2015 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith  An experimental loft photo with added cut-out silhouettes in the windows. W. Eugene Smith—1969, 2015 The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith: See the Photos ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4499615/jazz-loft-eugene-smith/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4499615/jazz-loft-eugene-smith/"},"headline":"The Biggest Names in Jazz Came to Jam. One Photographer Captured It All","datePublished":"2016-10-06T15:00:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:39:42.518Z","description":"A new film tells the story","url":"https://time.com/4499615/jazz-loft-eugene-smith/","keywords":["photography","Music","Jazz","LightBox","W. 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