Of his many feats of daring, Harry Smith is likely most well known for his Anthology of American Folk Music, an act of assemblage that threw back the gray flannel curtain of the fifties and offered a glimpse into a weirder America, inspiring a generation of songwriters and listeners. Here’s Charley Patton’s growl like the plea of a ravaged crop on ‘Mississippi Boweavil Blues.’ Uncle Dave Macon is unhinged if not ingenuous, pledging, “Won’t get drunk no more…” on ‘Way Down the Old Plank Road.’ The Alabama Sacred Harp Singers are ethereal, like ghosts trapped in wax. Here’s the fatalism and syncretic religion of an America where strange spirits roamed the land from the Dockery Plantation to Appalachia. This isn’t an America you can straitjacket into the fifties forever, not when conjurer Mister Smith reincarnates the armies of what we were. Upon accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammies, he said “I’m glad to say my dreams came true. I saw America changed by music.” And so he did. Because he changed America with music. We’re celebrating the life of Harry Smith — a one-time resident of the building that has now become Ace Hotel New York — later this month on his ninetieth birthday, with music and readings by people who knew him and people he changed.

The songbook picture was lovingly defaced by Harry Smith.

If you’re in New York before November 12, consider making the trip to Gowanus to see Cabinet Magazine’s exhibition of Harry Smith’s string figures at their studio gallery space. Harry was a legendary artist, filmmaker and ethnomusicologist who resided at length at The Hotel Breslin where Ace now makes its home, and he holds a special place in our hearts as well as our lobby at Ace New York.

An avid student of the metaphysical aspects of geometric shapes and patterns, whose mysteries have entranced mystics and polymaths from the Pythagoreans to Kabbalists to the Five Percent Nation, Harry created intricate webs in which you can see a connection to other works in his vast oeuvre, from his animated films — timed precisely to bebop scores — to his mandala-like Tree of Life collotypes. 

The exhibit is accompanied by a video program of some of his seminal films, including his masterpiece, “Heaven and Earth Magic,” and a handful of short films about Smith and the string figure art form. In a short survey of Navajo String Games, the narrator weaves elaborate mazes resemblant of animals, spirits and constellations, then dissolves them with flicks of the wrist. In another, a young boy didactically, adorably walks you through the creation of Jacob’s Ladder, stopping to illustrate the swift proximity between Jacob’s Ladder and Anansi, just a couple of manipulations away from each other in either direction. We can only hope the video heralds a new generation of Harry Smiths.

From Stringing Along: Harry Smith Figures