Loft Jazz: Improvising New York in the 1970s

Synopsis

The New York Loft Jazz Scene Of The 1970s Was A Pivotal Period For Uncompromising, Artist-produced Work. Faced With A Flagging Jazz Economy, A Group Of Young Avant-garde Improvisers Chose To Eschew The Commercial Sphere And Develop Alternative Venues In The Abandoned Factories And Warehouses Of Lower Manhattan. Loft Jazz Provides The First Book-length Study Of This Period, Tracing Its History Amid A Series Of Overlapping Discourses Surrounding Collectivism, Urban Renewal, Experimentalist Aesthetics, Underground Archives, And The Radical Politics Of Self-determination--provided By Publisher. Fragmented Memories And Activist Archives -- Influences, Antecedents, Early Engagements -- The Jazz Loft Era -- Freedom -- Community -- Space -- Archive -- Aftermaths And Legacies. Michael C. Heller. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.