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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Archives for May 22, 2006

The Threat To Jazz Radio, Midwest Branch

The distinguished audio expert Jim Brown saw the Rifftides piece on the possible demise of the last jazz radio station in Los Angeles and sent this reminder that the music is threatened at stations across the nation.

Although I’ve just completed a move to Santa Cruz, I did learn during a recent visit to Chicago that WBEZ, the NPR station there, has announced discontinuance of all music programs in favor of the magazine format that has dominated an increasing portion of their airtime over the past ten years or so.
While that magazine format has been mostly done well, the jazz programming segment has both shrunk and suffered a serious decline in quality. I blame both the president and general manager (Torey Malatia) and Chris Heim, his appointed music director for those ten or so years. I got out to hear jazz at least once a week. I never saw Ms. Heim in a jazz venue, nor have I talked to anyone who has. Prior to her tenure, all the jazz jocks “lived it and loved it,” in the words of the legendary Chicago DJ Daddio Daylie, and it showed in their on-air work. Under Malatia/Heim, there were tight playlists (white bread), jocks are not allowed to say much of value, and good jocks were either fired or quit. In the same time frame, a low power suburban station, WDCB, has only musicians on the air as jocks and gives them plenty of running room. As a result, the real jazz fans deserted WBEZ in droves. This undoubtedly was reflected during pledge drives. Although I love NPR and their news programming, I withdrew my support years ago in protest of the mess they were making of jazz (and told them so), and supported WDCB generously. Now that we’re here, we’ll support KCSM.
Which brings up another threat to both jazz and NPR—we can’t hear KCSM on the air here, although they’re only 50 miles away, because there’s a 10 watt translator (for an Idaho religious broadcaster) on their frequency two miles away! If you travel across the country, you’ll find this is a common problem, as religious broacasters have gobbled up both high- and low-power licenses on the fringes of the major NPR stations. This mess, for example, caused WBEZ to need to add three translators to fill in the newly created “dead zones” that they previously covered quite well. In much of the United States, it is now far easier to get saved (and be fed the political agenda of the saviors) than it is to get the news.
WBEZ is run by a board composed of the same sort of large donors that fund PBS stalwart WTTW Channel 11 (whose upper crust-focused programming earned them the moniker “Wilmette Talks To Winnetka.” That, I suspect, has a lot to do with the Legends of Jazz debacle).
Jim Brown

Hawkins Revisited

A Rifftides reader writes

I just came across Rifftides, as I was searching for Coleman Hawkins’ Centennial CD/DVD package. I was at a loss in identifying some of the players on the DVD, and your post from 2005 helped a great deal. Especially in introducing me to Harry Sheppard and Dickie Thompson, neither of whom I’d known previously. I’m still wondering who the piano, bass and second tenor players are, however. Any help there? Anything would be appreciated.

The pianist is Willie “The Lion” Smith. The bassist is Vinnie Burke. The other tenor saxophonist on “Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid” is Lester Young.

Thanks, as well, for your excellent blog; I’m now a reader. I especially liked your pieces on New York in spring and on the Garage (a nice place to play) and Virginia Mayhew. I know her, and agree with your comment on the
jump in her playing.
E. J. Decker
New York, NY

Oh, no, thank YOU. Just for fun, here’s a reprise of that July 7, 2005, Doug’s Pick:

Coleman Hawkins:The Centennial Collection.This two-disc CD/DVD package was part of Bluebird’s observance of RCA Victor’s 100th anniversary. The CD has twenty of the tenor saxophone patriarch’s recordings made over several decades. All of them have been reissued repeatedly. The news here is the DVD showing Hawkins in 1950s television programs with peers like Charlie Shavers, Pee Wee Russell and J.C. Higginbotham, and younger musicians, too; bassist Vinnie Burke and a very good unidentified vibraharpist among them. In fact, none of the musicians is identified, a drastic production failure. Still, the music is terrific. The piece de resistance is a jam session performance in which Hawkins and Lester Young–the most revered tenor men of their era–trade four-bar phrases on “Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid.” Seeing and hearing them together is a joy.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, … [MORE]

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