Jazz Funeral March Planned at WGBH in Boston Thursday, July 5, 8 PM

July 3, 2012 - PRLog -- Boston, MA--It's no secret that Boston has one of the largest music communities in the world and is host to many professionals in the music industry.  The outcry on Facebook about the recent cuts to jazz programming on WGBH is not just from "jazz fans" but from the entire industry in Boston that lives and works here due to the major educational institutions and cultural centers in the city.  Jazz artists, educators, attorneys, activists, college personnel, writers, journalists, concert promoters, jazz club staffers and others have all united on social media in a massive protest.  

Jazz is a vital part of Boston.  Two major jazz clubs that present internationally respected jazz artists exist here [The Regattabar and Scullers], the famous annual Newport Jazz Festival is just 90 minutes south and colleges such as Berklee College of Music employ huge numbers of jazz faculty instructing thousands of eager young musicians.  New England Conservatory has a prestigious jazz department; there are jazz programs also at MIT, Harvard, Northeastern, Wellesley College and elsewhere.

Thousands of professionals from Boston and other parts of the globe have come together with jazz listeners on two Facebook websites to confer, protest and join hands in an all-out effort to Save Jazz on WGBH FM.  Last week, WGBH Managing Director Phil Redo broke the news to respected jazz on-air hosts Steve Schwartz and Eric Jackson that jazz programming was being sliced and diced for the foreseeable future on the public radio station.  

Schwartz's Friday evening show is being discontinued entirely while Jackson's show will disappear from weeknights and re-appear for just 3 hours from 9 pm - 12 midnight on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.   Schwartz's last program is July 6 and Jackson's last weeknight program is Thursday, July 5.

An enormous outcry has flooded Facebook.  Two websites were established:

Save Eric In the Evening [https://www.facebook.com/groups/122003261274426/] has more than 2500 members

Save Jazz on WGBH [https://www.facebook.com/groups/JazzFlashMobatWGBH/] today has 1453 members.

In addition, as of Sunday, July 1, musician, composer and radio host Ken Field of WMBR FM at MIT posted an event:  

Jazz Funeral for Jazz on WGBH Radio, to take place Thursday, July 5 at 8:00 PM:  https://www.facebook.com/events/261700243935668/  

Musicians and activists are lining up to perform and videotape the New Orleans style event.  Media coverage is invited.

In addition, word has it that the syndicated feed of the program Jazz with Bob Parlocha which has aired from midnight to 5:30 AM weekdays and from midnight to 6:00 AM on weekends, will be discontinued on weeknights as well.  

So it seems that in all, WGBH will now go from 21 hours of locally produced and hosted jazz to just 9 hours on weekends and with the Parlocha show going down except on weekends, it appears that 39.5 hours of the syndicated jazz programming of Jazz with Bob Parlocha is slashed to 15 hours on weekends.

Howard Mandel, President of The Jazz Journalists Association, which was holding its annual awards event at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York when the news broke on June 20, wrote to Redo:

"We were celebrating the 16th annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards at the Blue Note in New York City yesterday at cocktail hour when the word came that WGBH has cut Steve Schwartz and cut back on Eric Jackson's programming. A groan went up from the entire crowd (quite the prominent jazz attendees, including representatives from BMI, WBGO, Jazz at Lincoln Center, many musicians, writers, broadcasters, photographers, videographers). Eric and Steve are both honorees of the JJA, recognized for their extraordinary work on the air, sustaining interest in jazz in Boston and beyond. 

I'm sure you had a difficult time deciding about your programming direction, but from the point of view of the 300-some JJA members and our unaffiliated colleagues, reducing the amount of air time devoted to jazz in Boston is a very bad thing which has ramifications far beyond the city itself. The enormous population of students who come to Boston, and who may be exposed to jazz via WGBH, at least in part settles elsewhere after their college years, and likely take their memories of the music they loved with them, hoping to hear jazz wherever they land. Throughout New England, WGBH has been a standard bearer of jazz and Eric especially has been a key figure, renowned throughout the region. I know you're hearing from many fans and station supporters who are shocked at their imminent loss.

To cut both Steve and Eric is to lose more than voices on the air, it actually damages the great American art form in one of the hubs of its current growth (due to Berklee, New England Conservatory, and the jazz programs at Brandeis, Wellesley, etc.). Already Boston has lost its summer Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and I understand newspaper coverage of jazz has diminished, too. It would be one thing if this was because the audience has lost interest, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Indeed, from what I can tell (and I visited Boston's jazz world most recently last fall) jazz throughout the area is flourishing. 

I hope you will reconsider, and end up restoring Eric Jackson's hours and Steve Schwartz to his position or something like it. These men are Jazz Heroes, Boston celebs, educators as well as entertainers, and attractions that WGBH should not take for granted, much less devalue. Doing so, you are hurting your station as well as your community. On the other hand, restoring jazz to its recent prominence on WGBH will turn YOU into a jazz hero, and I bet will improve donations from the vast jazz community you serve."