Archive

This chapter looks at the various challenges—both conceptual and methodological—that private archives pose to historical research. This observation is no mere esoteric exercise; many musician archivists explicitly situate their work as an intervention into historiographical processes—an intervention that mirrors the musician-run ethos of the lofts themselves. The chapter is divided into three sections that correspond to different storage media in the collection: audio tape, paper, and human memory. Each of these media carries particular affordances and limitations, and they converse with each other in interesting ways. Drawing from literature of the recent “archival turn” in the humanities, the chapter argues that engaging with these affordances is essential to understanding the role of the archive as a generative force in the writing of history.

Aftermaths and Legacies

This concluding chapter assesses the ongoing resonance of the loft era by examining multiple musical legacies that emerged in the aftermath of the loft era. So much of the New York jazz avant garde continues to revolve around musician-organized practices, which often share many of the concerns noted throughout this book. These include: an ongoing concern with ideals of freedom, both as a musical value and a political program for self-determination; a community-oriented focus, aimed at bringing together artists and listeners; efforts to build and/or repurpose spaces for cultivating artistic practices; and relying on a combination of cooperative DIY practices and funding through grants and city arts programs. Through the efforts of artist-organizers, New York has continually managed to maintain an active and intergenerational community of improvisers, many of whom hold direct ties to the loft era.

Community

This chapter examines discourses of community as well as contradictory discourses of isolation that arose within the lofts. While references to community involvement were quite common, the symbolic boundaries that defined and demarcated loft communities were often described in highly divergent ways. The chapter begins with a survey of several scholarly models for conceptualizing collectivity before proceeding to outline four boundary discourses that were referenced most frequently by loft artists—discourses of pay, play, place, and race. Although conceiving of the lofts as a community provides certain beliefs, it concludes by attempting to reframe the period in terms of network- and scene-based theoretical approaches, arguing that each model offers potential insights.

Fragmented Memories and Activist Archives

This introductory chapter provides an overview of New York's so-called “loft jazz era,” one of the least-understood periods in jazz history. Spanning from the mid-1960s until about 1980, the jazz lofts were a dense network of musician-run performance venues established in and around the former industrial buildings of lower Manhattan. The majority of these spaces were also musicians' homes, a factor that allowed them to operate with minimal overhead costs. In various contexts, lofts acted as rehearsal halls, classrooms, art galleries, living quarters, and meeting spaces. Their most visible role, however, was as public performance venues, especially for younger members of the jazz avant garde. At a time when few commercial nightclubs were interested in experimental styles, the lofts became a bustling base of operations for a growing community of young improvisers.

The Jazz Loft Era

This chapter outlines the loft scene itself, starting with an in-depth look at the 1972 New York Musicians' Jazz Festival—an event cited by many musicians as a germinal moment for the scene. The movement is traced through its peak around mid-decade, and into its subsequent decline amidst a string of new financial and structural challenges. These final years also saw a growing number of critiques leveled by musicians who disputed the efficacy of the lofts. Whereas the movement had begun as a campaign against industry exploitation, its failure to develop viable alternatives ultimately made it vulnerable to the criticism that lofts merely repackaged the inadequate conditions of nightclub performance.

Space

This chapter discusses the physical spaces of the lofts, exploring how the surrounding environment afforded certain types of performer and listener experience. In contrast to architectural accounts of loft conversions for high-end housing—which often romanticize the industrial history of old factories—musicians' accounts tended to be largely devoid of nostalgia for a bygone era. Instead, descriptions of loft jazz venues generally focused on the creative possibilities enabled by the presence of large, raw spaces. By emphasizing the liberatory potential of blank space, rather than the nostalgic echoes of industrial place, organizers stressed underlying values of reclamation and community-building. The chapter goes on to consider descriptions that referenced markers of domesticity in loft venues, a factor that carried additional resonances in regard to gender politics.

Freedom

This chapter looks at the multifaceted ways that loft artists envisioned freedom as an inspiration for their work. Rather than hewing to a single definition, however, artists employed the term to connote a wide variety of different meanings. The chapter examines several in succession, including definitions that foreground: collectivist or communalist practices, rooted in civil rights and 1960s counterculture movements; self-creation and identity politics; off-the-grid living strategies; transgression and transcendence, and “energy music” aesthetics that feature minimal pre-composed elements. Ultimately, the term “freedom” emerges as powerfully overdetermined, as it is used to reference a number of interrelated goals and values.

Influences, Antecedents, Early Engagements

This chapter discusses the early motivations for the lofts, arguing that the movement emerged at a unique intersection between national discourses on musician empowerment and local urban ecologies specific to late 1960s New York. In 1960s New York, several initiatives began striving toward broader collectivist ideals. These initiatives include the short-lived Jazz Artists' Guild (JAG), the Jazz Composers' Guild (JCG), and the Triumvirate formed by John Coltrane, Babatunde Olatunji, and Yusef Lateef. These examples of 1960s New York collectivism were all rooted in guild and/or trade union strategies. In all three cases, artists envisioned temporarily removing themselves from the commercial market in order to enhance their negotiating leverage as members of a larger movement. Unfortunately, despite their success in generating attention for particular events, none of these groups managed to build an alliance large enough or long-lived enough to realized their principal goals.