REMEMBERING NYC’S LOFT JAZZ SCENE

A 1977 piece takes me back to an avant-garde jazz moment

In 1977 I was a college student interning as a reporter at the Harlem-based black weekly, the Amsterdam News.

My goal was to learn as much as possible about reporting and figure out how to get my byline in the paper. In the pursuit of both, I pitched entertainment editor Mel Tapley on a survey piece about a music scene happening downtown that folks were calling “loft jazz.” That was not a description of the music.

Still, the fact that an enterprising community of players living in what is now New York’s Soho and Noho neighborhoods were having performances in the spaces they lived in, giving voice to the avant-garde and alternative sounds in jazz that established clubs like the Village Vanguard and the Village Gate, just a few blocks away, would not support.

So for several summer weekends in a row, I took my nineteen-year-old body down to locations that are now primarily boutiques, storefronts, or luxury condos.

At the Ladies Fort (2 Bond Street), owned by singer Joe Lee Wilson, I heard the progressive sound of respected tenor sax man Archie Shepp.

At Ali’s Alley (77 Greene St), managed by drummer Rashiah Ali, I heard large bands lead by Don Reid and Frank Foster.

Over at Studio Riv-Bea (24 Bond St), run by saxophonist Sam Rivers and his wife Beatrice, I watched a duo of saxophone giant David Murray and…