Sound has long been a vital part of Jack Loeffler’s life. At the age of twenty-one, he was drafted into the army and stationed in Nevada. He joined the army band as a jazz musician.
“Jazz actually got me into sound," he recalls. "In 1957, when I was in the army and a major who was a wannabe songwriter asked me if I would put my quintet together to perform a song he'd just written. And that was the first time I turned on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and I had on the headphones and I thought, 'Wow, this is powerful.'
"And subsequently, I started recording.”
After his military service ended, Loeffler stayed in the Southwest, where he recorded and produced hundreds of hours of radio documentaries.
Elaine Thatcher is a folklorist who worked with Loeffler on some of his programs. When they first met, she was working for the Western States Arts Federation (now known as Creative West).
"I had access to, you know, funding and programs throughout the West," she says. "He had all that experience as an audio producer and environmentalist and so forth. And just through conversations, we decided it would be really great to be able to do something about traditional knowledge of the environment in the Western states. "
From Loeffler’s perspective as an environmentalist, his documentary subjects are inseparable from the land that they inhabit. “I would record the habitats wherever I recorded an interview. And when I would mix up the radio program, the stereo bed would be the habitat. And then you could hear the voice of the person being interviewed. And my idea was to try to imply that the human voice is but one of many in the biotic community.”
Environmentalist William deBuys is a frequent voice on Loeffler’s radio programs. He recalls the first time he met Loeffler: "One day at an auto repair shop, we [found] ourselves in line next to each other. And I said to Jack something about making my first trip down the Chama river, my first raft trip down the Chama. Now I was looking forward to that. And he said—"
"'boy, that's like listening to a Mozart flute concerto running that river,'" is how Loeffler puts it. "And we became friends and thus remained.”
deBuys notes that sound is a uniquely profound way to convey meaning.
“I think sound carries emotion better than cold words on the page, even better than images on the movie screen. If you notice, when you cry at the movies, it's often because of something the soundtrack the movie did. The tears actually well up in your eyes because of a chord change, because of a swell of sound, because of something aural.”
Loeffler recorded interviews with people from a variety of communities across the West. He was able to engage with people using what Elaine Thatcher says is not the traditional style of interviewing. "The way I had been trained to, to interview was to be semi invisible in the, in the process, you know, to not insert myself much into it," she explains. "Jack inserted himself in. It became a conversation. He was great at establishing rapport and conversing with people in a very real and relatable way."
Through his interviews, Loeffler developed strong bonds with his documentary subjects—which proved especially helpful as he recorded the stories of indigenous communities. "People with any sensitivity at all can recognize other honest people," he says.
"And I never misused any of the information. I got signed releases from everybody. And if there was something too sacred to be spoken over the radio or anywhere else, that was identified and was never revealed to anybody; including the Tewa English dictionary that I recorded Tessie [Naranjo] reading, that's not to be heard by anybody but Tewa people. I think ultimately I got a reputation for being an honest man. And that to me is absolutely vital. If you're an honest person and seeking the truth, people understand that intuitively."
Loeffler's programs often aired on KUNM radio in Albuquerque, but his ultimate goal has been to share them with everybody who lives on the land. "We wanted to distribute those CDs for free throughout the West," says Thatcher. "And Jack was very determined about that. He did not want people having to buy them."
Loeffler's radio documentaries include Lore of the Land, Spirit of Place, La Música de los Viejitos, Southwest Sound Collage, and Watersheds as Commons. His other interviews and soundscapes are currently housed in the Angélico Chavez Library at the New Mexico History Museum.
