In that beautiful dexter gordon shot the photographer is using what is im assuming powerful theatre spotlights to model the musician during rehearsals. To my eye its not an adhoc shot but posed with powerful floods.
Adhoc night street shooting from hip, no finder, etc doesnt allow that. You take what you get. Something like invisible city or night walk by ken schles are very tricky to do even if they may offend the eye of someone who holds the "classical negative" above all others. Even in those filmdev shots id assume photographer is just some random dude in crowd. His photo of girl is lovely tho.