![]() ![]() “WGBH had a four-hour time slot but the tape never ran the full four hours,” says Schwartz, “so I started in filling in the extra time by playing jazz. Schwartz’s job was to run the tape and monitor it to make sure it ran smoothly. and the next four hours would be classical music supplied on tape from Minnesota Public Radio. The late Mai Cramer’s blues show would end at 2 a.m. Finally, in 1985 Schwartz was hired by WGBH as an overnight board operator. Those stand-in experiences became more frequent and continued for a number of years. Liebowitz, still on the air at KCRW in Santa Monica, eventually published The Record Collector’s Handbook. ![]() So he asked me if I’d take over some of his shows for him.” “He wanted to cut back on his radio gigs so he’d have time to write a book. “I got to know a guy named Bo Liebowitz, who ran a record store in Cambridge and had jazz shows on WBUR and on MIT’s radio station, which at the time was WTBS,” Schwartz recalls. Schwartz absorbed it all.Īfter three years, the family moved back to Boston, where Schwartz worked in his father’s locksmith shop in Codman Square. “It was there that I first heard jazz on the radio, and I was hooked.”Īt that time, the mid to late 1950s, West Coast jazz was coming into its own with such distinctive and innovative players as Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, and Art Pepper. “My father wanted to make a change, so when I was 15 we moved to Los Angeles,” says Schwartz. The distance from Blue Hill Avenue near G&G Delicatessen, where Schwartz grew up, to WGBH’s studios in Brighton (and before that, Allston) is not so great, but his journey was much less direct. Both Jackson and Schwartz played their respective theme songs in their final shows last week.)įrom Blue Hill Avenue to Blue Note Records Schwartz’s show, Jazz From Studio Four, would open with “Wadin’” by pianist Horace Parlan. About a year and a half ago, our shows were cut by an hour before that, we were told we could no longer use the names of our shows or our theme songs.” ( Eric in the Evening, by one name or another, has run for more than 30 years on WGBH its theme song was “Peace” by pianist Horace Silver as performed by Tommy Flanagan. Schwartz’s final show aired on Friday, July 6 he has also been terminated by the station from his dual roles of radio host and producer.Īccording to Schwartz, a Dorchester native who turned 70 last April, “In retrospect, the writing was on the wall. Having shelved its folk and blues shows over the last few years, WGBH has now downsized Eric Jackson’s popular weeknight show to a cumulative nine hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights and canceled outright the weekly show hosted by Steve Schwartz. Jazz DJ Steve Schwartz - an encore in the offing?Īs part of a gradual shift in its programming philosophy from music and news to primarily news and talk, local public radio station WGBH last week reduced or eliminated its two marquee jazz programs. ![]()
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