OnAir August 2023

WKCR 89.9 FM

Station Manager

Ale Díaz-Pizarro stationmanager@wkcr.org

Program Director

Maria Shaughnessy programming@wkcr.org

Director of Operations

Zachary Vanderslice operations@wkcr.org

Student Life Director

Ted Schmiedeler studentlife@wkcr.org

Publicity Director Georgia Dillane publicity@wkcr.org

Jazz Heads

Tanvi Krishnamurthy & Satch Peterson jazz@wkcr.org

New Music Head Razvan Matei newmusic@wkcr.org

Classical Head

Melisa Nehrozoglu classical@wkcr.org

American Head McKenna Roberts american@wkcr.org

In All Languages Head

Ann Vettikkal ial@wkcr.org

Latin Head

Leni Bryan latin@wkcr.org

News & Arts Head

Josh Kazali news@wkcr.org

Sports Head August Phillips sports@wkcr.org

Dear Listeners,

It's the last month of summer, and at WKCR, that means it's time to pull out all of the showstoppers. This August, we are bringing you some of our longest-standing and most beloved special broadcasts, including another 24 hours of Louis Armstrong and the three-day marathon celebration of Charlie "Bird" Parker (smirking at you from our cover) and Lester "Prez" Young. Of course, this issue would be incomplete without some words from the one and only Phil Schaap, whose 1987 profile on the early life of Lester Young is revived into a (very large) portion of this issue. And if there's anything we're good at, it's balancing the old with the new, and so we hope that aside from enjoying the traditional you'll also tune into some of the innovative profiles lined up this month. If you want a sneak peek, this issue offers a glimpse of two of them: in a fascinating article, Ted Schmiedeler traces the connections between jazz and hip hop, embodied by A Tribe Called Quest. In a smaller feature, I hope to interest you in the life and work of a country-soul pioneer one of America's most unjustly forgotten songwriters, Arthur Alexander.

Three-quarters of the way through 2023, I also want to take this chance to thank everyone who has supported WKCR over the past year: this has been a strong year for us, and it is thanks to you that we are able to continue being the home of jazz and all things alternative on the New York airwaves, as well as continuing the great legacy that this month especially boasts.

Happy Listening—and Bird Lives!

Alejandra Díaz-Pizarro

Station Manager

Mailing Address 2920 Broadway New York, NY 10027 USA

CONTACT US

General Inquiries: board@wkcr.org

Listener Line: 212-854-9920 ©Copyright 2023 WKCR FM NYC

Cover photo taken by William P. Gottlieb.

Young Lester Young

by Phil Schaap

The following article was originally published in the November 1987 OnAir Guide, as the first of two parts described by Phil Schaap as "an attempt to salvage details about the most distant and least documented period of [Prez's] life." It has been transcribed and re-edited for clarity.

Lester Willis Young was born in Woodville, Mississippi on Friday, August 27th, 1909. Many Jazz reference works list New Orleans as Lester’s birthplace. He did spend an important chunk of his childhood there and frequently referred to it as his hometown, so the mistake is understandable.

There has also been confusion concerning the birth year. Eddie Barefield— who was born December 12, 1909 and began his lifelong musical and personal friendship with Young in 1927—has always felt Lester was younger than he. Buddy Tate, another lifelong friend and sax section mate in the Basie band stresses that Lester Young was a year older than listed, and that the birthday party for Lester held at Birdland on August 27, 1958 was a celebration of Young’s 50th birthday; furthermore, Tate states that an ailing Lester Young told him that he had made fifty and that was as far as he would go, that he didn’t want to be old and feeble. But the firmest evidence is in Lester Young’s own words. In the legendary interview with François Postif (February 6,

1959) Lester Young announces that he was born in Woodville, Mississippi and that the year was 1909. (Note: Lester Young died at age 49 on March 15, 1959 in NYC.)

The date of Lester’s father’s birth is much vaguer. Willid Handy Young was born in Thibodaux, Louisiana, probably in the early 1870s. He was called Billy, and sometimes his name crops up as Willis, but apparently he had a brother William (as well as another, Jacob, and two sisters, Mary and Martha). Mr. Young was a product of a broad period of Black opportunity: Reconstruction. He majored in music at the Tuskegee Institute. He could play all the instruments, achieving notable proficiency on cornet and violin. Some family and friends believed Willis Young planned to become a music teacher, perhaps running a high school music program. Lee Young, Lester’s younger brother, asserts that his father was actually a high school principal in Thibodaux, but no local records exist to back this up. In any case, Plessy v. Ferguson, the infamous 1896 “separate-butequal” Supreme Court decision, eliminated most opportunities for a music teacher who was Black. So Billy Young spent his life as a performer. He persevered as a teacher, however, training countless musicians and working as a choir master in various towns, schools, and churches.

Cover of the OnAir guide in which this article originally appeared.

The Young family was apparently from Louisiana. Lester’s paternal grandmother ran a general store in Natalbany, Louisiana and is remembered as being quite religious. The grandfather was a blacksmith and Billy Young and his sister, Mary Young Hunter, owned land in Hammond, Louisiana less than 10 miles south of Natalbany, although the purchase(s) may not have been made until the early 1920s.

Lester’s father’s early career is particularly hard to trace. He played in the traveling circus of Heck & Beck & Wallis. Other Youngs played there with him. Eventually Billy Young organized a family band which backed minstrel shows, played carnivals and fairs, and toured the Black theatre circuit, known as T.O.B.A. Occasionally, the band would pull down a residency at a hotel or bathroom. Frequently, the ensemble contained a few non-family players to fill essential charts. Often, especially in winter, the Billy Young family would base itself in one town and work out of there.

Dates and sequences remain unclear. Lester’s father may not have become a bandleader until 1920, after years on the road and a relatively settled prior living near New Orleans in Algiers, Louisiana. The family arrangements are equally hard to establish. Apparently, Billy Young married Lizetta (maybe Lyzetta) Johnson around 1907. There’s no way to know how Lizetta and Billy came to meet and marry, though it’s tempting to speculate on a Louisiana connection.

Lizetta Johnson’s family also came from Louisiana; Lizetta’s sister and parents were born there. Mr. Johnson, Lester’s maternal grandfather, was a farmer who moved to Woodville, Mississippi (Woodville is in the southwest corner of Mississippi, less than 6 miles from the Louisiana border) where he worked or owned a farm. Lizetta, according to Lester, worked as a seamstress and schoolteacher, though it’s hard to determine where or when.

Lester Young was their first child and Lizetta was staying with her family in Woodville at the time of Lester’s birth. That birth may have been a difficult one for her—possibly alluded to by Lester in the 2/6/59 interview with Postif. If so, it

might explain why the infant Lester Young was in Shreveport, Louisiana with his Aunt Martha (Billy Young’s sister) when the 1910 census was taken. The next child was Lester’s sister Irma, who steadfastly refuses to divulge her exact birthdate, but who states that it took place in her father’s hometown of Thibodaux. Irma Young is thought to have been born around 1912.

The next mystery is the move to Hammond, Louisiana. In 1913, it seems Lizetta Young took Lester (and presumably Irma) to this town, where the Young family may already have been landowners. Whether, when, and how much Billy Young or any other family members were with Lizetta and/or the children can’t be verified. Billy Young may have spent a great deal of time on the road. Shortly after his period in Hammond, the family resettled in Algiers, Louisiana, just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, in what may have been an attempt to stabilize family life. But even during this stretch it is questionable whether Lizetta, Billy, and the children were always together.

During the Algiers-New Orleans stay, Billy Young worked in several prominent New Orleans bands. His best documented gig is in Algiers with Henry Allen’s Brass Band—Henry Sr., that is, Red’s father. Also notable was the birth of Lizetta and Billy’s third and last child, Lee Young, who was born in New Orleans, or possibly Algiers, on March 7, 1917. Despite these developments, things did not work out for Billy and Lizetta Young and they were divorced around 1919. Billy Young took the three children into his family band which included a new musician: Billy’s second wife, Sara. He maintained his musical organization until at least the early 1930s, when the family finally settled down in Los Angeles. Willis Handy Young was slowed by a stroke in late September 1936, but continued to make music at his church. He died on February 6, 1942.

After the divorce, not much is known of Lester’s mother, Lizetta Johnson Young. She is known to have been living in Woodville in the early 1930s; in fact, Lester visited her there. At some point she remarried and became Lizetta Gray. She also moved to Los Angeles around

1944. Leonard Feather spoke to her shortly after Lester’s death: at that time, Lizetta Gray made some perceptive comments about her son’s shyness and how it contributed to his early death. She also spoke of a little Lester, dutifully attending church but being a bit frightened by organized religion.

While there is no record of her death (or birth, for that matter), she’s undoubtedly deceased by now. As late as the early 1970s, Jo Jones used to speak of her in the present tense, though he always mistook her name for Mary.

As long as Lizetta and Willis Young’s family was still relatively intact and living in Algiers, Lester got his elementary school education in the New Orleans area. His formal schooling came to an end when his father took him and his siblings on the road circa 1919. Lester was probably in the 4th or 5th grade.

Another New Orleans area student of that time, Shelby Ballott, offers us a fascinating sketch of what a young Black child’s education was like in that time and place. Shelby Ballott was born in New Orleans on February 15, 1910. He went to school variously in New Orleans, Algiers, and near his father’s farm about 180 miles from New Orleans. He doesn’t specifically remember any child or classmate called Lester Young, but he draws a blank at any names of schoolmates. Ballot recalls at least three different schoolrooms, but can only describe one of them. His memories, nevertheless, add important first-hand information on what Young's schooling was like.

A Black person was a second class citizen in New Orleans; a Black child’s education was fifth rate, according to Shelby. The hierarchy of educational opportunity would have run like this: White private, 1st; White parochial, 2nd; White public, 3rd; Black parochial, 4th; Black public at the bottom.

Ballott describes a three-room schoolhouse, which had one room for all students in the 1st through 6th grades (7th and 8th graders would be high school-bound). The non-high schoolbound group would be small, he remarks, since if you weren’t going to high school, then you probably would already have dropped out before

7th grade. Good students and ambitious parents set their sights on entering one of the Catholic schools for Blacks or of hooking in one of the white parochial schools which offered Black students instruction. Shelby Ballott himself was so dissatisfied with his own public school education that he made sure to save money for his daughter’s tuition to a Catholic school.

Mr. Ballott remembers three teachers: one was a Cora whose last name escapes him, one was a Jenkins whose first name eludes, and one was a popular and curvaceous person known as Miss Crookshank, though that name might have been playful description of her shapeliness, not her actual name. One thing Ballott points out favorably is that the teachers used to routinely keep in contact with pupils’ parents. He also notes that classroom disruptions were rare, that discipline was high.

Of course we don’t know that Lester ever had the lovely Miss Crookshank talking to his mother, telling tales on him or praising some pedagogical process. Yet Ballott’s strokes are broad enough to give us a good picture of what Lester was getting—or missing—from his early schooling.

Whatever the appeals and disappointments of his regular school, the key aspect of Lester Young’s New Orleans childhood is the fortuitous placement of a musical genius in the birthplace of Jazz while that music was in its most creative period. Lester fell in love with hot music. Swinging rhythm thrilled him. The drums held a special attraction. Lester followed the New Orleans Black brass ensembles as they marched and played through the streets of the city. When a New Orleans band had a nighttime gig, they’d advertise it during the day: the band would play in a horse-drawn wagon going through the town while announcements concerning the evening work were passed out. Lester had the job of handing out flyers: he did this for the Henry Allen Brass Band and almost certainly for quite a few others, given the probability that his father played for more than one ensemble during the Algiers years. In this way, Lester doubtless heard every significant New Orleans Jazzman, including Baby Dodds, Paul Barbarin,

Freddie Keppard, King Oliver, Kid Cry, and the teenaged Louis Armstrong.

In this musical environment, Lester began to play the drums. When he left the Algiers-New Orleans area around 1920, he held the drum chair in his father’s band. In the early 1930s, Lester Young spoke of ongoing New Orleans contacts, among them Joe Robinchaux and Sidney Desdunes.

Given the difficulty of following Lester’s father’s career, no events can be fixed with certainty, but it is quite possible that the Billy Young family band was forged just around the time Lester became a musician. The Young band was aided in no small way by Willis’ second wife, Sara. Sara was from San Antonio, Texas, and she played many instruments, specializing in saxophones and the banjo. The Billy Young band and the family appear to have made Memphis their headquarters during the early 20s. The unit consisted of: Lester Young, drums; Irma Young, sax; Sara Young, sax and banjo; cousin Isaiah “Sport” Young, sax; his brother Austin “Boots” Young, sax, trombone, and other instruments; and Billy Young, cornet and violin. Everybody sang and danced as part of the show. During these years, the father continued music lessons for the children. Lester said his father taught him trumpet and violin in addition to drums, but since he concentrated on drums, for a time he got away without learning to read music.

According to Jo Jones, among others, Lester Young was an exceptional drummer for all musical styles, but especially for Blues and Jazz. Even so, when he reached adolescence he soured on drums because the time it took to pack them up was interfering with his postgig socializing— particularly with the ladies. He switched to the saxophone, garnering some rudiments with significant help from his sister, Irma. Soon he was featuring hot choruses as a part of the Billy Young band presentation.

Still, Lester couldn’t read music much. On that score, his father put him out of the band until he made himself a proficient reading musician. In the interim, the hot element became even more vital to the Young family’s music. That

meant that when the prodigal son did return to the fold with his lessons learned, he got to reap a bit of revenge by outdoing the rest of them in technique and swing on the Jazz-dance feature numbers.

In late 1923, a show which featured the Billy Young troupe closed in Warren, Arkansas. The family decided to winter in Warren, and put on two shows each week in the town’s auditorium. Billy Young discovered several young musicians in that town whom he coached during that season’s stay. The family band left Warren in March 1924, and four of the young Arkansas musicians soon were part of the gang. They were: a trombonist named Otto “Pete” Jones, who later married Irma; Jesse “Ham” Hamilton, who played E-flat alto horn and peck horn; and two brothers, Clarence Philips on brass bass and Leonard “Phil” Philips, a cornettist who Mr. Young switched to trumpet, and who earned the second nickname, “Deak” during this tour.

Leonard “Phil” Phillips, born in Warren on September 4, 1907, was initially a clarinetist. Philips gave an extensive and extraordinary interview on the topic of Lester Young (conducted by Bryant Dupré for the Jazz Oral History Project housed at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers; the interview took place over the span of January 26-April 8, 1983). His recollections when cross-referenced always speak the truth and he is to be trusted and thanked as he is the only surviving witness to the developing genius of Lester Young.

Mr. Philips joined the Billy Young outfit on April 15, 1924. He described their gigging in carnivals, at fairs, and in theaters, which seems to be the kind of work the Young family had across the early 20s. When Philips arrived, the Youngs were working a carnival tour. They played the Kentucky State Fair in Lexington, got as far north as Indianapolis, as far east as Roanoke, and ended this carnival tour in Palate, Florida in November 1924. A harrowing racial incident, dimly recalled by Lee Young, is more clearly remembered by Phil Philips. The Young carnival show arrived in Harlan, Kentucky. Apparently many were not expecting the performers to be Black, and coupled with a perennial local violent

racist element, a lynch-like attack on the Young group sent them scurrying. Lee Young claims it scarred his brother.

In Palatka, Willis Young began rehearsing the unit for a T.O.B.A theatre tour (T.O.B.A stood for Theatre Owners Booking Association, and they were very tough on Black artists). In late November or December 1925, Young took his band to the legendary 81 Theatre in Atlanta, and weeklong engagements followed in theaters in Greenville, South Carolina; Pensacola, Florida; Columbus, Georgia; Tampa, and then Lakeland, Florida. Next, Mr. Young formed a minstrel show that toured from Lakeland, Florida to Mobile, Alabama, where it folded. At this time (February 1925), Mr. Philips took a better offer with Sidney DeParis, Sr. and was replaced in the Young family orchestra by none other than Cootie Williams.

Performances by Billy Young’s ensemble were already highly charged with Jazz, and Lester Young was already the standout practitioner. It should be noted that everyone, including Lester, remembers the elder Young as being quite with it, someone who could swing on trumpet.

During Phil Phillips’ first tour with the band in 1924 and 1925, Lester played alto saxophone. His bandmate asserts that he could double on other reeds, but that he only did so infrequently. Phillips can hear Lester in his mind’s ear soloing on “How Come You Do Me Like You Do?,” “Margie,” “Bugle Blues,” and “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans.” On “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” Lester employed the then in vogue slap-tongue technique. A march tune, “Shouting Liza,” was converted by the Young group into a Jazz vehicle, which was also a vehicle for younger Young to really “get off.” Phillips recalls Lester taking a lengthy alto solo, displaying his technique on this tune. From time to time, after the band completed a performance of “Shouting Liza,” Lester’s father would comment on the showingoff by threatening to slow his son down by putting him on tenor. But the enforced switch didn’t happen.

The Young show as a whole also takes shape through Phil Philips's memories. Lester, Irma, and Lee approved in a singing and dancing trio.

Lee was already playing some drums in the band, although he had not yet reached the age of 8. Little by little, Lee inherited Lester’s percussion chair and ultimately had a successful career as a jazz drummer. A final point on the band of this period from Mr. Philips: Willis Young kept his charges well supplied with good instruments. Silver plated ones were used on the carnival tours and gold plated in the theaters.

During the years of 1923-26, Lester Young made sure he got to check out all sorts of bands and musicians in live performance. He caught the name bands of Paul Whiteman, Vincent Lopez, Ted Lewis, Fletcher Henderson (perhaps during the summer of 1925 when Satchmo was in the brass), and Coon-Sanders, all in person.

During 1925 or 1926, Billy Young was able to expand his music productions. Two units now existed, one playing under Sara Young’s leadership and the other under Mr. Young’s. In the fall of ’26, Willis Young changed his operations. He gave up the band he was leading and consolidated the two bands into one unit, which worked the shows booked for Sara’s band. They played from Carbondale, Illinois to El Reno, Oklahoma, where the tour ended in November 1926.

Then a most important development occurred. Willis Young reforged his ensemble into an 11-piece Jazz-dance band. They rehearsed extensively while working in El Reno and perhaps in Texas too. Mr. Young had arranged for this new unit to move to Minneapolis, Minnesota. The family may have been or lived up there before (or was it Minneapolis, Kansas? Or both?) A big house was rented and all band members would be living in it. The band was billed as the Billy Young Jazz Band and also the New Orleans Strutters. It was a major break away from the march band repertoire and the minstrel-carnival network (not to mention the racist South).

Lester Young was to be the new band’s essential ‘hot man,’ but he almost blew the gig. Then 17, he had taken up with a woman named Clara. His father was determinedly against this union and, in anger, slapped his son. Lester reacted by running off with Clara, if not far, as he was found

to be still in El Reno. Mr. Young apologized for hitting his son and Lester rejoined the band on its last gig in El Reno on the eve of departure for Minneapolis.

The Billy Young Jazz Band, a.k.a the New Orleans Strutters, worked in Minneapolis, Minnesota from December 1926 to January 1928. Their first gig was a dance, apparently on December 1, 1926. They worked residencies at the Radisson and St. Paul Hotels. There were many engagements at the South Side ballroom. The personnel included: Arthur Williams, Phil Philips, trumpet; Otto “Pete” Jones, trombone; Lester Young, alto sax, some X-melody and clarinet, occasional solos on soprano sax; Clyde Turrentine (it is most unlikely that he is related to the famous Jazz Turrentine family), tenor sax & soprano sax; Ben Wilkerson, reeds; Gurus Oliver, piano; Billy Young, tuba; Ray Jones (?), bass; and another Ben, who might have also been named Wilkerson but who definitely was not related to the reed man, was on drums. The 11th piece might have been a second trombone.

At this juncture came the first major influences on Lester Young since drums and hot New Orleans music had first enamored him: the sound of Frank Trumbauer’s C-melody saxophone, the lines of Big Beiderbecke’s cornet improvisations, and the music of those two men in tandem, especially the creation of the Jazz ballad. All these revelations came to Lester from the ultimate Jazz teaching tool: the phonograph record. Earlier in the ‘20s, records had inspired Lester with profound indifference. There wasn’t much he found on them that impressed him in terms of Jazz: not much Jazz was on record in the early ‘20s. Young found much more out by checking out the musicians and bands in the towns the Willis Young troupe visited. By December 1926, that record gap was closing.

Lester began his disc acquisitions after the move to Minneapolis. Once there with a firm base, there was less traveling, which also meant less bands to hear. Records had become a more important resource. Moreover, by that time, the winter of 26-27, a lot more Jazz was making it onto 78 RPM discs which were newly outlying microphones, rendering a better sound. At

home in Minneapolis, the trio of Pete Jones, Phil Phillips, and Lester Young would make their way to the record shop almost daily; in those days, you could preview a disc in store before purchasing. The three would buy a few records each time, so they built up quite a collection, which in early 1927 included many Armstrong Hot Fives (Lester learned Louis’ solos and played them on his alto), various Red Nichols issues, Ben Burnie (Lester would hear Jack Pettit solos), and Jean Goldkette Victors. These last offered a glimpse of Bix and Tram, but their names were not on the label.

Later in 1927, the Billy Young Jazz Band moved on to North Dakota, making their headquarters in Bismarck and staying at the Spencer hotel. The Spencer had a music policy and the house unit was a five piece group led by Clarence Johnson.

The ‘hot’ man in this band was a seventeen year old saxophonist named Eddie Barefield. Barefield, from the Des Moines, Iowa region, had turned to mail order records as early as 1923 to find out about saxophone and hot music, and he already knew about Big and Tram. In his collection was a red-label Okeh 78 #40772, which featured two sides from Frank Trumbauer’s first record date as a leader, February 4, 1927, with Bix as featured soloist. The coupling was “Clarinet Marmalade” with “Singin’ The Blues,” the first true ballad recording in Jazz by virtue of Bix and Tram’s solos.

Eddie Barefield (and presumably the trio of Phil Phillips, Pete Jones, and Lester Young) whiled away much of their time listening to Jazz records in their rooms at the Spencer Hotel. One day, Eddie was listening to “Singin’ the Blues” when a knock came at his door. Barefield opened it and came face-to-face with a fellow his own age. He introduced himself as Lester Young, son of the bandleader Billy Young and alto saxophonist in that band. Lester said that he didn’t mean to bother him but he had to know who the saxophonist was on the disc. Eddie Barefield called out Frankie Trumbauer and played the whole side for Lester Young. The next three minutes were the most important in Lester Young’s stylistic development.

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY

Jazz ‘til Dawn (cont’d)

Field Trip

Amazing Grace

Monday Morningside

The Moonshine Show

The Tennessee Border Show

Sunday Profiles

Afternoon New Music

Raag Aur Taal

SoundStage

Live Constructions

Back in the USSR

The Celtic Show

Coordinated Universal Time

Phil Lives

PopTalk

Caribe Latino Honky Tonkin’

Urbano Latinx

Tuesday’s Just as Bad

Transfigured Night Night Train

Traditions

Notes

Special Broadcasts

BIRTHDAY BROADCASTS

Louis Armstrong

Friday August 4th, all day

For his (legal) birthday, WKCR will celebrate Louis Armstrong with 24 hours of his music on air! You may have tuned in last month for our first Satchmo birthday broadcast, but one day is never enough—so get ready to enjoy some of the classics, deep cuts, obscure live recordings, and (of course) special archival deep dives from Phil Schaap.

Lester Young

Sunday, August 27th, all day

Born on August 27, 1909, Lester Young was a groundbreaking jazz saxophonist and a true icon of the swing era. As a key member of the Count Basie Orchestra, Young’s lyrical and relaxed approach earned him the nickname “Prez” and inspired countless musicians. With timeless recordings like “Lester Leaps In” and “Ghost of a Chance,” he remains an enduring influence in jazz. Join us in celebrating the legacy of this jazz giant during our 24-hour birthday broadcast dedicated to Lester Young.

Bird/Prez

Monday, August 28th, all day

As is WKCR tradition, August 28th combines the birthdays of Prez (Lester Young, born August 27th) and Bird (Charlie Parker, born August 29th). These two saxophonists, who played together on occasion, will be heard interweaving melodies all day long. Expect to hear archival Phil Schaap as well as new voices on the air, classic records and rare finds, and live and studio recordings.

Charlie Parker

Tuesday, August 29th, all day

No introduction is necessary for a giant such as Charlie Parker. Some may consider him the patron saint of WKCR, and in many ways, he is. Even 1 and a half days is not enough to honor the legacy and music of Charlie Parker and the impact he has had on WKCR’s history. With this broadcast, Bird, we thank you.

SUNDAY PROFILES

Sundays 2:00-7:00 PM

Arthur Alexander

August 6th, 2:00 - 7:00 PM

Host: Ale Díaz-Pizarro

A Tribe Called Quest

August 13th, 2:00 - 7:00 PM

Host: Ted Schmiedeler

Labeled: Contemporary Records

August 20th, 2:00 - 7:00 PM

Hosts: Steve Mandel and J Cohn

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Saturdays 9:00 PM-12:30 AM

Samson et Dalila (Saint-Saëns)

August 5, 9:00pm-12:30am

Host: Ale Díaz-Pizarro

Ariadne auf Naxos (Strauss)

August 12, 9:00pm-12:30am

Host: Ale Díaz-Pizarro

Le temple de la Gloire (Rameau)

August 19, 9:00pm-12:30am

Host: Ale Díaz-Pizarro

The Abduction from the Seraglio/Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Mozart)

August 26, 9:00pm-12:30am

Host: Ale Díaz-Pizarro

Show Listings

JAZZ

Daybreak Express, weekdays 5-8:20am

Out to Lunch, weekdays 3-6pm

Jazz Alternatives, weekdays 6-9pm

These three programs comprise the core of our jazz offerings. Programming consists of everything from New Orleans jazz, jazz age, swing era, bebop, hard-bop, modal, free, and avant-garde. In short, you’ll encounter the entire range of recorded jazz on these programs. Hosts rotate from day-to-day, offering an exciting variety of approaches, some of which include thematic presentation, artist interviews, or artist profiles

Birdflight, Tues.-Fri. 8:20-9:30am

Archival programs from the late Phil Schaap, one of the world’s leading jazz historians, who hosted this daily forum for the music of Charlie Parker for about 40 years.

Traditions in Swing, Sat. 6-9pm

Archival programs hosted by the late Phil Schaap, this award-winning Saturday night staple presents focused thematic programs dealing with jazz up until about World War II. Schaap presents the music, much of it incredibly rare, from the best sound source, which is often the original 78 issue.

Phil Lives*, Mon. 3-5am

This overnight show features archival broadcasts of longform programs from late NEA Jazz Master Phil Schaap.

CLASSICAL

Cereal Music, Mon.-Thurs. 9:30am-12pm

An entirely open-ended classical show to start your weekdays. Tune in to hear the most eclectic mix of classical music on the New York airwaves!

The Early Music Show, Fri. 9:30am-12pm

Dedicated primarily to European medieval, Renaissance, and baroque music, all from before 1800 (plus or minus 50 years).

Extended Technique*, Wed. & Thurs. 3-6pm

WKCR’s first interdepartmental show (in the New Music and Classical departments) dedicated to contemporary classical music. You’ll hear everything from 12-tone and minimalist compositions to film and video game scores, and all things in between.

* Indicates show was created after January 2022

Afternoon Classical, Fri. 3-6pm.

Similar to cereal music, most of afternoon classical has no restrictions on what type of classical music to play. The last hour of the show, however, is dedicated fully to the music of JS Bach.

Saturday Night at the Opera, Sat. 9pm-12:30am.

One of NYC’s longest running opera shows, Saturday Night at the Opera is a 3.5 hour show that allows operas to be played in their entirety, with room for commentary, descriptions, and some history.

NEW MUSIC

Afternoon New Music, Mon. & Tues. 3-6pm

Our daytime new music program features a wide variety of music that challenges boundaries and subverts categorizations. Shows include everything from seminal new music compositions to the most challenging of obscure deep cuts and new releases.

Transfigured Night, Tues./Thurs./Sat. 1-5am

Our overnight explorations into the world of new music, Transfigured Night rewards our late night listeners with a wide range of sounds and experimental music.

Workaround*, Fri. 9-10pm

WKCR presents Live DJ sets from Columbia students and local artists.

Live Constructions, Sun. 10-11pm

This weekly program features a live in-studio performance or a performance pre-recorded specially for the show.

AMERICAN

Honky Tonkin’, Tues. 10-11pm

One of WKCR’s longest-running American music programs, Honky Tonkin’ lands in the harder side of Country music. Emphasizing the greatest voices in the genre, Honky Tonkin’ is a country music dance party every Tuesday night.

Tuesday’s Just as Bad, Tues. 11pm - Wed. 1am

Tuesday’s Just as bad explores the world of blues prior to World War II. Shows weave their way through the first decades of recorded music history and turn to the postwar years in the final half hour.

LISTINGS FOR LISTENERS

Night Train, Wed. 1-5am

All aboard! One of our two overnight programs in the American department, Night Train rolls through the post-war R&B and soul tradition, from the genre’s emergence in the 1940’s and 50’s through the funk revolution in the 1970’s. Shows often feature extended live recordings and concerts.

Offbeat, Fri. 1-5am

Offbeat is committed to broadcasting undiscovered new hip hop music. Shows typically focus on exposing underplayed or up-and-coming new artists, including experimental instrumental artists not typically played on mainstream hip hop radio.

Across 110th Street, Sat. 12-2pm

Kicking off our Saturday afternoon American music run, Across 110th Street airs soul, funk, and dance music from the 1960’s through the 1980’s and 90’s.

Something Inside of Me, Sat. 2-4pm

Something Inside of Me is WKCR’s Saturday afternoon blues show, focusing mostly on the electric and post-war styles.

Hobo’s Lullaby, Sat. 4-6pm

Rooted in the folk revival of the 1950s and 60s, Hobo’s Lullaby airs American folk and traditional music styles from the early 20th century through the present day. From old staples like Leadbelly, Elizabeth Cotton, and Woody Guthrie to contemporary stalwarts like the Carolina Chocolate Drops and lesser known artists, domestic traditions are alive and well on Hobo’s Lullaby.

Notes from the Underground, Sun. 12:30-2am

Notes from the Underground showcases contemporary hip hop and rap music with an emphasis on emerging and experimental artists. The program also hosts local and visiting artists for interviews, freestyles, and guestcuration.

Amazing Grace, Sun. 8-10am

Greeting listeners on Sunday morning, Amazing Grace shares with listeners the world of the African-American gospel tradition.

The Moonshine Show, Sun. 10am-12pm

On the air for nearly 60 years, The Moonshine Show showcases the American Bluegrass tradition, from the earliest roots in vernacular string-band music, through

the genre’s pioneers in the 1940s and 50s and advancements in the 60s and 70s, through the leading innovators and stars of today.

The Tennessee Border Show, Sun. 12-2pm

One third of WKCR’s country music programming, along with Honky Tonkin’ and the Bluegrass Moonshine Show, Tennessee Border highlights the singer-songwriter tradition, from Hank Williams and Townes Van Zandt to Lucinda Williams.

LATIN

Caribe Latino, Mon. 10pm-12am

Caribe Latino is a music program that features the diverse, upbeat music from numerous Latin communities in the Caribbean. Popular Latin rhythms such as Salsa, Merengue, Bachata and Latin Jazz take center stage throughout the program.

Urbano Latinx, Tues. 12-1am

A weekly Latin show airing contemporary sounds from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the diaspora, Urbano Latinx features mixes of salsa, merengue, Latin punk rock, and more.

Sin Fronteras*, Wed. 12-3pm

Falling in the space of Out to Lunch on Wednesday afternoons, Sin Fronteras explores the tremendous Latin Jazz tradition.

Nueva Canción, Wed. 10-11pm

Nueva Canción is an exploration of protest music created throughout Latin America during the 60s and 70s and its numerous other manifestations throughout other countries and time periods.

Som do Brasil, Wed. 11pm - Thurs. 1am

From samba and bossa nova to MPB, hear the numerous and enchanting sounds and rhythms of Brazil.

Sonidos Colombianos, Fri. 10-11pm

Sonidos Colombianos presents music from one of the most culturally diverse countries of Latin America: Colombia! Our bilingual musical tour is guaranteed to include not only cumbia, but also the guitar-based bambuco from the Andean region, the harp llanero music from the Eastern Plains, the marimba-infused currulao from the Pacific Region, and the accordiondriven vallenato of the North Atlantic Coast.

* indicates show was created after January 2022

LISTINGS FOR LISTENERS

The Mambo Machine, Fri. 11pm - Sat. 2am

The Mambo Machine is the longest running salsa show in New York City. The program presently plays a wide spectrum of Afro-Latin rhythms, combining new and old into an exciting, danceable mix.

El Sonido de la Calle*, Sun. 2-4am

A companion show to Saturday night’s American Notes from Underground, El Sonido de la Calle highlights the diverse world of contemporary Spanish-language hiphop and dance music.

IN ALL LANGUAGES

The Celtic Show, Mon. 12-1am

Music from across the island of Ireland throughout the era of recorded music, particularly focusing on traditional folk and vernacular music forms.

Coordinated Universal Time, Mon. 1-3am

Coordinated Universal Time brings our listeners the latest cut of music from anywhere in the world, especially highlighting music that does not get attention in America. Our programming tries to bring the hottest and the most recent tunes to WKCR’s airwaves.

The African Show, Thurs. 10pm-12am

The longest running African music radio show in the United States, the African Show brings you a variety of music from the entire continent of Africa.

Middle Eastern Influences, Fri. 12-1am

During the hour-long show, Middle Eastern Influences features a wide range of beautiful tracks from regions of the Middle East, North Africa, and even, at times, South Asia.

Sounds of Asia, Sat. 6-8am

Rechristened from Sounds of China, Sounds of Asia explores the recorded musical traditions and innovations of Asia and the Pacific islands.

Eastern Standard Time, Sat. 8am-12pm

One of New York’s most popular Reggae programs, Eastern Standard Time takes listeners through Saturday morning from 8 am to noon with the hypnotic sounds of Reggae and Jamaican dance music.

Field Trip, Sun. 6-8am

Field Trip focuses on the music and practice of field recordings: music recorded outside of a studio. Tune in and you may catch field recordings that were recorded fifty years ago, others that were experimented with by your favorite Afternoon New Music artist, or even those documented in New York City by WKCR itself.

Raag Aur Taal, Sun. 7-9pm

Raag Aur Taal explores the sounds and rich cultural heritage of South Asia. The term “Raag Aur Taal” roughly translates to “melody and rhythm,” indicating the classical nature of this program.

Back in the USSR, Sun. 11pm-12am

Back in the USSR features music from across the former Soviet Union and soviet states across Eastern Europe and East and Central Asia, from the mid-20th century through the present.

NEWS & ARTS

Monday Morningside*, Mon. 8:30-9:30am

Monday Morningside is WKCR’s morning news broadcast to kick off the week, featuring news segments on events around Morningside Heights and upper Manhattan. If you’re not an early bird, all episodes are available as podcasts on Spotify!

PopTalk*, Mon. 9-10pm

PopTalk examines current developments in pop music and the latest top-flight releases.

SoundStage*, Sun. 9-10pm

SoundStage features audio dramas and radio plays from the WKCR archives as well as new compositions by students and contemporary writers. Some shows also feature interviews with dramatists and directors.

SUNDAY PROFILES

Sunday Profile, Sun. 2-7pm*

With the return of the five-hour profiles slot, programmers will showcase longform profiles as they have done for decades. While the primary focus remains on jazz music, we also feature other styles and traditions from across WKCR’s different programming departments.

* indicates show was created after January 2022

Where Have You Been: Remembering Arthur Alexander

by Alejandra Díaz-Pizarro

In my mind, it's organized a little bit like a Jeopardy! category: The only artist whose songs were covered for studio albums by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. / The first single by this artist put FAME Studios on the map and kickstarted the Muscle Shoals music scene. / This artist took a 21-year break in between studio albums, during which time he worked as a bus driver in Cleveland. / This artist was the first to record "Burning Love" before Elvis took it to the top. / Though generally hailed as a countrysoul pioneer, this Alabama songwriter's range also spanned rock'n'roll, R&B, gospel, soul, and pop.

That's five, which puts us at just the right number for the category—except it wouldn't be a very good one, since they all have the same answer: Who was Arthur Alexander?

Aside from a songwriter's credit or a passing liner note here and there, this question goes unanswered in the general scope of American music history. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that the question is seldom asked at all. Nevertheless, to the British teenagers on the Mersey scene and London's fledgling jazz and skiffle club circuit, Alexander's name would've been appended not with a question mark but with an exclamation one.

Early pressings of Alexander's records were imprescindible in the collections of aspiring young British musicians tuned into Radio Luxembourg, the station that turned a whole generation onto American blues & early rock music. Years later, Alexander would still be present in the music library of one of those teens who he so impacted: John Lennon's record collection at the Dakota, which had been pared down significantly, still had all of the worn Arthur Alexander records that he and his bandmates were brought up on as musicians

Paul McCartney would similarly attest to Alexander's influence, identifying him by name when recalling that "if the Beatles wanted a sound, it was R&B. That's what we used to listen to and what we wanted to be like. [...] Arthur Alexander." In fact, there is speculation that Lennon/McCartney's penchant for using "girl" in their songs was something they picked up from Alexander's songwriting. Keith Richards would also make similar endorsements of Alexander's influence on the Stones' music—small wonder, since their cover of Alexander's breakout hit ("You Better Move On") was the centerpiece of their 1964 debut EP and a regular favorite at live performances.

Alexander, however, did not enjoy the same kind of recognition on his native shores. His recording career comprised only three studio albums, with a 21-year hiatus between the second and the third. He never broke the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, and only did one stint abroad on a U.K. tour. Nevertheless, Alexander's songwriting and genre-bending influence undoubtedly shaped the course of music in the latter half of the 20th century. So why did he never attain the recognition he deserved? Why is he so seldom remembered?

Part of it must be attributed to the implications of race in America at the time he was recording. He was born in Florence, AL in 1940; enough has been said about racial segregation and attitudes in the South that he no doubt had to contend with. But more interestingly, Alexander was a Black artist who was not content to fit into one of the boxes so designated by the music industry: though the days of "race records" were becoming more distant, R&B was emerging as a genre (and a category) for Black musicians to record in. A young Arthur Alexander, however,

was just as enchanted by the bottleneck blues his father would sometimes strum out on an old guitar as by the singing cowboys of the silver screen. In his songwriting, Alexander meshed the conventions of blues, soul, and gospel with those of pop and country & Western, a practice that would in hindsight earn him the epithet of "country-soul pioneer" but that at the time made it difficult for his sound to be neatly encased in one of the safe-bet chart categories that could've furthered his career. It did not help that Alexander's management, unsure of how to market a Black artist that refused to be hemmed into "Black music," fumbled the production and marketing of many of his recordings. Songs that should've been surefire hits ended up relegated to obscurity in the backlog bin of some radio DJ or another.

Not everything can be blamed on the charts. To Alexander, the music was everything— which, though a noble and easily romanticized sentiment, meant that he paid little attention to the checks that should've come with it. Late in his life, in an interview with Terry Gross, Alexander would talk about how he'd been swindled of royalties by those who represented him or took advantage of his inexperience. Even when artists of the profile of Steve Alaimo, Ike & Tina Turner, George Jones and Johnny Paycheck, and the Bee Gees took Alexander's hit songs high on the charts, Alexander almost never saw a penny from the songwriting credits rightfully due to him, and he spent much of his 21-year hiatus working as a custodian and substitute bus driver in Cleveland, a seasonal job that would cyclically place him on federal unemployment. In the 80s, Alexander also began fighting to regain control of "You Better Move On" and "Anna (Go to Him)," both smash-hit songs that in a well-handled contract should've set Alexander on a path to financial stability but which he died without ever attaining full ownership over.

Yet another reason for Alexander's relative obscurity is his years-long struggle with mental health and drug use. In the late 60s, following his U.K. tour, Alexander's consumption of pills and alcohol came to a head, and he was arrested in Florida for possession and vagrancy. Instead of being imprisoned, Alexander was

institutionalized, and his many true friends in the music industry ensured that he received the necessary psychological care during these difficult years. Nevertheless, Alexander's "lost year" of 1968 came right at a make-or-break point for his career, which represented a serious setback when he came back to Combine Music as a songwriter in the early 70s and prepared to reignite his recording career.

It wasn't until 1993 that these efforts seemed about to pay off: in the late 80s, Alexander was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, and around that time, producer and musician Jon Tiven reached out to reintroduce him to a network of contacts in the music world that were reappraising Alexander's legacy and ready to welcome him back. After 1993's Lonely Just Like Me, Alexander's comeback was all but guaranteed: he kicked off a national tour and was slated to appear at several festivals, including SummerStage in mid-June. His first three shows were a success, and Arthur, who had always loved singing for an audience, felt like his time had finally arrived. But a couple of days after his third show in Nashville, Alexander was rushed to the hospital, where he passed away at the age of 53 on June 9, 1993, just a few days before the festival appearances that would've introduced his music to a new generation hungry for his innovative sound.

It is always tragic for an artist to pass before their time, but more so when they are right on the cusp of a long-overdue comeback. The years, however, have vindicated Alexander's music and introduced it to a score of new converts— ensuring that, though he has moved on, many of us who love him won't be doing so anytime soon.

Bibliographical Note: Richard Younger's biography of Arthur Alexander, Get a Shot of Rhythm and Blues: The Arthur Alexander Story, was an indispensable source in preparing both the program and this article.

Join Ale for a remembrance of Arthur Alexander's legacy on Sunday Profiles, August 6th from 2pm-7pm.

Jazz (We Got): The Union of Jazz and Hip Hop

by Ted Schmiedeler

The Grammy Award-winning Robert Glasper was recently the artist-inresidence at Blue Note Jazz Festival in California, in late July 2023. Being a prominent jazz artist, this selection made sense: what seemed a bit more confusing was the inclusion of Nas and Chance the Rapper alongside him. Hip hop artists joined Glasper and other jazz artists to put on a jazz festival? Yes, and that makes more sense the further one looks into it. Glasper himself is quoted as saying, “Jazz and hip hop belong together. Jazz and hip hop were born out of necessity. They both were born out of the struggle.” Festivals like this highlight the intersection of these two genres and how both hip hop and jazz in the modern era are supported by and build on each other.

First and foremost, in its infancy, hip hop drew influence from jazz. In the early days of hip hop in the 1970s, there were two people responsible for bringing the music to life. First, there was the DJ, who had two turntables with the same record playing and would isolate the percussion breaks on the record and “scratch” them, creating the distinctive record scratching noise common in early hip hop. The two turntable setup would allow this percussion break to be extended and would allow the MC, the second member of the performance, to step in and rap. In the early days of the genre, the MC (or Master of Ceremonies) would often freestyle about people or things around them in order to hype up the DJ, who was the star of the show. In the modern era, when people think of hip hop, the rapper or MC almost always comes to mind first, but in the early days it was the DJ, such as the legendary Grandmaster Flash or DJ Kool Herc, who were the ones people came to

see. Additionally, much of early hip hop was unrecorded and improvised because it was performed at block parties in the South Bronx. DJs would spin funk, soul, disco, and jazz records for the crowd with the MC stepping in from time to time to rap. Like jazz music, improvisation was a key element of hip hop in its early days, and freestyling persists as a mainstay in the genre to this day.

Additionally, many rappers in the 1970s used a style similar to scatting, a vocal style in jazz that uses emotive syllables in place of words to convey a melody. Louis Armstrong popularized scatting with his song “Heebie Jeebies” in 1926 and its influences found their way into early hip hop. Along with influences from James Brown, scatting helped develop a much more popular technique in hip hop: ad libs, or the filling of gaps in songs with syllables, words, or phrases to add extra emphasis or fill a space in the beat. Ad libs rose aboveground in the late 1980s with Flava Flav of Public Enemy’s iconic “Yeah boyyyy” being thrown into the mix when Chuck D was between bars in his rap. It has since been developed by the likes of The Migos, Young Thug, and Playboi Carti to include onomatopoeias such as “wuh,” “bih,” “skrrt skrrt,” “brrrah,” “uh,” and more, alongside words such as 21 Savage’s iconic “21” or “on God.”

Moving past this early influence, hip hop drew heavily from jazz with regard to its beat making, particularly due to sampling. Sampling is the technique of taking an existing piece of music and remixing or altering it in some way to create a new piece of music, often combining it with other elements. The 1970s saw this technique done by scratching the record, but in the 1980s,

entire records of percussion breaks were being produced to allow DJs to create more creative loops. Affordable samplers, such as the E-mu SP-1200 (which was the go-to for many East Coast producers), became available by the mid-1980s, allowing for up to ten seconds of a record to be recorded, remixed, and layered with other elements to create ever more creative beats. In 1996, DJ Shadow produced the first hip hop album composed entirely of samples, pushing this creative technique to its limit. Jazz samples, along with funk and soul, are among the most popular for hip hop artists. Herbie Hancock and his legendary piano skills have been sampled 282 times; Lou Donaldson and his soulful saxophone have been sampled 201 times; Donald Byrd and his trumpet have been sampled 135 times; and Bob James and his keyboard skills have been sampled an incredible 734 times. Even vocals from the likes of the legendary Nina Simone have been sampled 148 different times. In the 90s, artists like Nas, the Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy, Gang Starr, and Lauryn Hill, among many others, introduced a new generation to the jazz legends of the past through their use of sampling. Despite the massive rise in popularity of trap beats, the introduction and popularization of electronic-based beats involving 808s and drum machines, and the general diversification of hip hop as a genre, jazz samples continue to be used by a variety of artists like Kendrick Lamar, Westside Gunn, Mavi, Little Simz, and more.

A shining example of the crossover between jazz samples and hip hop is A Tribe Called Quest’s 1991 release The Low End Theory. Producers Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad used samples from Grover Washington Jr., Brother Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, Gary Bartz, Art Blakey, Lonnie Smith, Joe Farrell, Grant Green, and many more to create the album. The record is bass- and percussionheavy with a lyrical focus on Afrocentrism, a theme aided by using so many jazz samples, combining two distinctly African American genres. Q-Tip recognized this connection

between hip hop and jazz, rapping on the album’s opener “Excursions:” “Back in the days when I was a teenager / Before I had status and before I had a pager / You could find the Abstract listenin' to hip-hop / My pops used to say, it reminded him of Bebop.” (Abstract is another name Q-Tip went by.) He raps that he has been listening to hip hop for a long time, back when the genre was in its early stages and mainly performed live, based on improvisation and freestyling. His father makes a connection between hip hop and bebop, a style of jazz known for its improvisation, drawing a connection from the hip hop of the 90s to the jazz of the 40s and 50s. Q-Tip places this bar at the beginning of the record to recognize and call attention to the stylistic roots that hip hop has in jazz. Using this comparison, hip hop is portrayed as a natural creative progression from jazz. Masterful jazz sampling can be heard on the track “Jazz (We Got)” in which the organ from the 1972 recording of Jimmy McGriff’s “Green Dolphin Street” is looped over the drum line from the soul group Five Stairsteps’ “Don’t Change Your Love.” When Q-Tip and Phife Dawg’s rhymes about “hav[ing] the jazz” are added to the mix, the result is a timeless homage to the jazz of the past, the hip hop of the present, and New York City, the place that made so much of it all happen.

However, jazz also owes much of its modern creative influences to hip hop. One of the most influential figures in modern jazz is hip hop producer J Dilla. Many people’s first introduction to the Detroit native was, indeed, through A Tribe Called Quest. J Dilla produced “Get A Hold” from Tribe’s 1996 release, Beats, Rhymes, and Life, in allegedly just 12 minutes. His prowess as a producer was made clear from this point on and J Dilla pushed the envelope on hip hop beat making until his untimely death in 2006. He is a staple in the world of abstract hip hop for his unique sampling, but what often gets overlooked is his influence on modern jazz. When making his beats, J Dilla chose to play the drums on his beats instead of “quantizing” them. Quantizing is a

technique in which one can subdivide drum sounds from a drum machine perfectly into positions within a measure, eliminating the human error that would come with playing the drum machine without quantizing. This would lead to irregularities in the drum patterns, which to many sounded off but to a visionary like J Dilla brought more life to his beats. This drum style is called “Drunk Funk'' and was adopted by many modern jazz artists. Many jazz artists, such as Karriem Riggins and the aforementioned Robert Glasper, cite J Dilla as a key influential figure in their musical journeys. Instead of jazz strictly influencing hip hop, like in the early days of the genre, there is a sharing of ideas that allows for both genres to blossom. In the modern age more than ever, jazz and hip hop each rely on the other to continue to push the boundaries and innovate within each genre respectively.

Join WKCR and Ted for a Sunday Profile of A Tribe Called Quest and their jazz rap style on August 13th from 2pm-7pm.

Works Cited

Arnold, Eric. “Robert Glasper Carries Black Music Into a Post-Hip-Hop World.” KQED,14 July 1970, www.kqed.org/arts/13931600/ robert-glasper-blue-note-jazz-festival.

“How Jazz and Hip Hop Harmonize: J Dilla, Herbie Hancock, and Nas.” YouTube, 1 Feb. 2021, https://youtu.be/LBKeDBr2M3U.

Accessed 28 July 2023.

Kelley, Frannie. “A Tribe Called Quest: The Rise and Fall of a Legend.” NPR, 21 July 2011, www.npr.org/sections/ therecord/2011/07/26/138584427/a-tribecalled-quest-the-rise-and-fall-of-hip-hopsbeatles.

PQ, Rory. “Hip Hop History: From the Streets to the Mainstream.” ICON Collective Music Production School: LA & Online, 23 May

2023, www.iconcollective.edu/hip-hophistory#:~:text=Hip%20hop%20is%20 a%20subculture,we%20see%20an%20 economic%20collapse.

Russonello, Giovanni. “Why J Dilla May Be Jazz’s Latest Great Innovator.” NPR, 7 Feb. 2013, www.npr.org/sections/ ablogsupreme/2013/02/07/171349007/why-jdilla-may-be-jazzs-latest-great-innovator.

Sorcinelli, Gino. “It Took Dilla 12 Minutes to Make A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Get a Hold.’” Medium, 20 Jan. 2019, medium.com/microchop/it-took-dilla-12-minutes-to-maketribes-get-a-hold-ce1d0e31bf4a.

SUPPORT WKCR

TOP 5 REASONS TO DONATE TO WKCR

1. You’d be helping a student-run, listener-funded, and volunteer-based radio station continue to bring you the absolute best in what radio has to offer. Music, arts, news, and sports— we’ve got the works!

2. You wouldn’t be a free-rider anymore.

3. WKCR donations are tax-deductible (so make sure you donate before tax season). For more info on that, or anything else business-related, email business@wkcr.org

4. Being “the Original FM,” our equipment is getting a bit old. For example, Buzz, the hamster that runs the wheel that powers the station, is getting a little worn-out and arthritic. We need a new hamster. Sorry, Buzz, but it’s gotta be done!

5. Isn’t OnAir cool? Without proper funding, projects like this can’t come to fruition and, if they do, don’t make it very long. Donate to allow the little OnAir minions to stay in the job (we are all OnAir minions).

HOW TO DONATE TO WKCR IN 4 STEPS

BY MAIL

Step 1: Locate your nearest checkbook

Step 2: Indicate “WKCR” as payee and fill out as usual

Step 3: Mail check to CU Gift Systems, 622 West 113th Street, MC 4524, New York, NY 10025

Step 4: ...and VOILÀ! Just like that, you have become a WKCR supporter!

WKCR also accepts checks to our direct address. Just Follow the same steps listed above but mail the check to:

2920 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

ONLINE

Step 1: head to www.wkcr.org

Step 2: Click the yellow “DONATE TO WKCR” banner at the top of the page

Step 3: Fill out the form in the giving portal and enter your information...

Step 4: ...and VOILÀ! Just like that, you have become a WKCR supporter!

Did you know you can make recurring donations to WKCR when you donate online?

Just indicate your frequency preferences on the giving portal when prompted!

Special thanks to Ale Díaz-Pizarro, Maria Shaughnessy, & Ted Schmiedeler.