The Jazz Loft Project and the future of books?

I love absolutely everything about this audio slide show, posted on the New York Times page, featuring photos by W. Eugene Smith from the Jazz Loft Project, a bit of history for which we might thank writer Sam Stephenson of Duke's Center for Documentary Studies.

I try to imagine myself in the midst of so much music making. I love, most, Smith's words, about how, if a composer was composing, the others would "try desperately not to play music to interfere with his composing; otherwise, any noise at any time of the day or night was fine." I love the image of the street taken through the torn black paper, and of Smith's daughter, hovering near the "creak" of stairs.

If we someday must lose books altogether to the web, I hope they turn out like this.