Jazz Loft and Treasure Trove

In recent years some great live Jazz performances, dust-ridden and forgotten, have been discovered in the back of some warehouse. The most famous of these is a live performance of John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk playing together at Carnegie Hall. Perhaps even more exciting is the new discovery of 3,000 hours of tapes from a New York City loft where Thelonious Monk and other Jazz musicians hung out and practiced. While perhaps Monk preparing for his ground breaking Town Hall Concert is the most newsworthy aspect of these tapes, the mikes also spontaneously captured other moments that give a unique glimpse into Jazz’s past, including a drug overdose by Sonny Clark (another of my favorite Jazz pianists).