The Headset Jazz Reunion, (con’d)

I drove to Richmond with a couple of hours worth of jazz LPs to choose from, even knowing that Guy Spiller had his records chosen too. We’d worry about narrowing down the playlist sometime before the show’s Saturday night broadcast.

On the day before the show, we met at WCVE to check out the studio where we’d go on the air for the first time since the mid-70s — or was it the late 70s when Guy had left the show? (Amiably, I have to add; he didn’t leave in a huff or anything.) Steve Clark, whom I had known from the old days at WRVA radio, and Sam Straus, whom I’d known from, well, here’s a partial list —  WRGM, WRFK, WBBL, WRNL, and PSCE-Video — were there that afternoon. (Even Greta Dollitz was there; I had helped her produce her first “Hour with the Guitar” programs at WRFK in 1970 or so!)

Sam made sure the turntables were ready for our vinyl jazz albums, and also briefed Guy on the “board,” while I just looked around and thought, “Well, this is really going to happen.”

On October 30, I met Guy at the studio about an hour ahead of air time, and found that he had already rigged the studio with four HD video cameras to chronicle the event. We went over the music list, made some refinements (since we had to report the details of the playlist for some mysterious station bookkeeping), and clarified how one live studio would shift over to ours at exactly 10 p.m.

At 10 o’clock, Guy played the first of only two CD cuts that night. It was the original opening theme of “Headset Jazz,” the “Swinging Shepherd Blues,” Herbie Mann’s reggae version. (Not able to locate the old album, I had downloaded the MP3 and loaded it onto a CD, much to Mr. Spiller’s chagrin. He really was committed to the vinyl purity of the two-hour show, but I was just as committed to using the first theme music, no matter how I could swing it.)

[The other CD cut that night was the last piece we played. It was good of Guy to allow me to break format in order to mention my friendship with Bill Carter of the Presbybop Quartet, and to play a cut from the group’s recent jazz CD set: “Psalms Without Words.” I guess I wanted listeners to know that I have a “present” as well as a well-documented past.]

Over the opening theme then, Guy opened the mikes, and with absolutely nothing written down, we winged it for two hours. Any worries about whether we could pull it off evaporated early on. The conversation was easy, the rapport right-on, and we had a ball. Between the sets of two recordings, we talked about the music, the history of the show, paid tribute to Alice Riegel (who had died in 2008), and shared some stories.

While the music played, Guy cued records and I hastily wrote down the exact time that records started and ended, rearranged some music choices to keep things balanced, and —  we took phone calls from listeners, off-air.

In fact, the phone calls started before we went on the air. The first call prior to air time was from a couple whose wedding ceremony I had performed 31 years ago. They had both been in Richmond radio at the time and as the unofficial “chaplain” to several stations, I had done pre-marital counseling with them, and led the worship service during which they said their vows. The caller assured me that they were still very, very content after all these years, and that they were happy to hear me and Guy back on the radio.

And then, during the show, another call came in from another radio couple I had married, and they too were reporting that after 31 years (!) they were still happily married. That must have been a good year for my wedding folk! Those calls were the proverbial icing on the cake.

And there were other calls, mostly from former listeners who remembered Guy or me or us from those days of yesteryear. Several friends called in, including a beloved colleague from PSCE, my current next door neighbor here in New York, and friend who told me he was recording the show for us off the radio station’s internet “streaming audio.” (Turns out, that was a very good move; other attempts at saving the show had failed, so Eddie had the only copy!)

Two other notable callers: my brother from North Carolina and my son from Pennsylvania. It was very good night indeed.

Looking back on the show, or rather listening to the playback, I realize how different I sound without a spiffy script to read. Um. Uh. And I sure affirmed what Guy was saying as I uttered “Yes,” and “Yeah” to begin almost every response. Still, and here’s the main thing, we didn’t do or say anything embarrassing… and we didn’t break anything.

And we could do this all over again tomorrow night! We both wish we could. (That said, no one called from the Virginia Association of Broadcasters to invite us to the radio Hall of Fame. Sigh.)

Some More Radio Ramblings, FWIW

As I look at the stats for the Celebration Rock blog, I note that there are two very popular entries that continue to draw readers in response to “searches.” And they are as different as night and day. One is “The Animals’ Christmas,” a topic that is certainly popular this time of year. Yet, I’ve noticed that that Christmas-themed legend has drawn some attention year-round.

The other very popular CR blog entry is the one I wrote on so-called satanic lyrics or back-masking. How odd that the interest in that topic persists, especially since, as my college professor son noted last week, CDs and MP3s can’t exactly be played backward as easily as old vinyl records. (The curiosity factor surely tore up some vinyl grooves as consumers manually turned their turntables backward to try to pick up the devil’s music!)

So, warm winter legends and nasty hidden lyrics still top the Celebration Rock blog charts. Odd.

Entirely unrelated (as far as I can tell) is my most recent foray into radio: the “one-time only Headset Jazz Reunion Show,” aired live on WCVE Public Radio in Richmond on October 30, 2010. Except for a live interview (about Habitat For Humanity) in September  on our little store front  station in quaint Owego, NY, that jazz reunion was the first time I’d been on air in years!

As noted very early on in this CR blog, my first jazz show in Richmond was entitled “Headset Jazz,” a bow to the fact that it was the area’s only jazz show in stereo in 1973, and listening with headphones was highly recommended. After some months of hosting the show on the old WRFK, I asked Guy Spiller to co-host so that I could have a few Saturday nights off…plus it was fun to share the production/hosting duties with a friend.

Guy and I had different tastes in jazz. He was (is) more into funkier, fusion-oriented jazz, and I remain a fan of swing and “straight ahead” jazz. But we also shared a strong interest in jazz classics and contemporary artists. Our give-and-take when we shared the show was unscripted, natural, laid back. We did have a good time together. We did many shows solo, spelling one another so each could enjoy a week off. It was a fine arrangement.

Eventually Guy went on to other things, and I then shared the program for several years with a listener who showed some interest in co-hosting, Alice Riegel. When I finally “retired” from “Headest Jazz,” Alice added Ty Bailey as co-host and Ty carried the show into the 21st century. So Guy and I helped create a weekly gift of jazz for Richmond that ran for almost 30 years.

And last summer we thought it would be fun to recreate the program, if the public radio affiliate would give us a couple of hours some Saturday night. Guy pulled it off, thanks to WCVE’s willingness. It wasn’t exactly a piece of  cake; I had to drive from upstate NY to Richmond to do the show. But it was worth it!

We decided early on that we would play the same vinyl jazz records we had played when the show first hit the air. Literally. So Guy and I went through our collections of LPs, blended our individual playlists, checked to be sure the station still had two turntables, and recorded some promo spots the station could use to let listeners know (warn ’em) what we were up to.

[A side bar: Guy said we could do some conversational spots, in the same unscripted style we used in the 70s. I was thinking a tight scripted approach might be easier. He won. And since he was stuck with all the editing, that was fine with me! Here’s the thing that amazes me in this new electronic, digital age — Guy recorded his end of the conversation in his home studio, and I sat at my computer in upstate New York and fed the files to Guy via the Internet. He edited the audio into several finished spots and delivered them to the station.]

Of course, the real question for me wasn’t whether our old records would sound OK. We’d both kept our collections in “broadcast quality” condition. The question was: given my many, many years off-air, would I sound OK? Would doing this show be like, say, riding a bike? Would I sound out of practice? Would I be able to put a couple of sentences together and make sense? Could we actually pull this off without embarrassment?

I’ll write about how things went that night in my next entry. Betcha can’t wait!