What blows my mind is the sheer volume of film and audio reels this guy created. I know exactly what his problem is – he’s a capture addict. His personal projects remained unfinished because he is constantly documenting.

What he needed was a team of people that could organize his work into something tangible for the masses, and now this is happening because of these archives and the willingness of Sam Stephenson (and others) to devote YEARS of their lives filtering through all of these materials.

Listen to the podcasts. The sound quality is just phenominal, considering the set-up. There is a complete record of a 3-week rehearsal of Thelonious Monk in 1959, with him pacing back and fourth in the loft and talking to the band about how they can get through it all by just concentrating on one song at a time. This blows away some of the mystique about Monk – the jazz freak who never talked to his band. The Monk you hear on these tapes sounds relaxed and a bit jovial, and apparently that was the deal at The Loft.

Also, the fact that Smith just left the tape rolling for hours on end and captured so many different kinds of sounds – no wonder Stephenson is obsessed. This is the kind of historical record you could only dream of finding.

I hope Stephenson and others devoted to this project are able to package some sort of product that can be made publicly available, so that the music and history can survive and so that they can paid properly for their contribution.

I look forward to hearing more of this as it becomes available.