In the early mornings, as each all-night jam session at the loft came to a close, musicians stumbled out into the fragrant air of the surrounding flower shops. For W. Eugene Smith, the Flower District was more than a neighborhood -- it was an obsession, and a subject crucial to his evolution as a photographer and an artist. This episode explores the peculiar harmony of a neighborhood that bustled with flower merchants by day and cleared out by night, giving jazz musicians the place all to themselves.

This is a slightly updated version of The Jazz Loft Radio Series, which first aired on WNYC in November in 2009, in conjunction with Sam Stephenson’s book “The Jazz Loft Project." We are re-distributing the entire series now on the occasion of the release of Sara Fishko's documentary, "The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith," which debuted at the New Orleans Film Festival in October of 2015.  

Thanks to the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, our original partner in the production of The Jazz Loft Radio Series. 

The Jazz Loft Radio Series was supported in part by a grant from The National Endowment for the Humanities; and by an award from The National Endowment for the Arts.