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Thoughts on the 32nd annual Chicago Jazz Festival
 Posted 9/7/2010 7:53:00 AM
An event like this always brings out listeners I’m getting to meet for the first time, even after all these years on the air. There’s definitely a special joy to that.
At various times over the weekend at our booth I also met visitors from Germany, France, Canada, Mexico and Great Britain. Most had been in town all week, most on vacation. They raved about how beautiful the city was and how much fun it was to attend a festival that offered so much free music. A fresh pair of eyes are just what I need to remind me of how great a city I live in.
Even though the main stage (Petrillo) had more people both nights, the crowd at the Jazz and Heritage Stage was every bit as passionate about the performers they got to hear. (The size of our crowd was nothing to sneeze at, either. I’m ...
The S and U in SUV
Posted 7/28/2010 2:14:00 PM
Saturday morning I found
myself on the road minutes after the area had taken the brunt of the weekend
storms. An SUV was directly in front of me, headed northbound as I was,
and in the far right lane of four-lane Crawford Avenue.
The lane the SUV was
driving in had several large puddles but nothing that looked too deep.
Along the unflooded stretches of the road were clumps of mud. I watched as the
driver of the SUV charted a zigzag course right in front of me, trying to avoid
the puddles and mud for the length of the entire block. I wasn’t about to
try and pass them as they swerved periodically into my lane.
Then it occurred to
me. Isn’t one reason why you get an SUV so you can glide right
through--and over--obstacles without so much as a second thought? Hey,
I’ve seen the commercials and ...
"Nobody Wants Huet"
Posted 6/23/2010 7:08:00 AM
Over the weekend I went
shopping for Blackhawks souvenirs and came away with a lesson on human
nature. It happened at the Field of
Dreams memorabilia shop at Woodfield Shopping Center in Schaumburg.
The store has an impressive
selection of Blackhawks memorabilia, from pucks and plaques to framed
photos. Going through a stack of
gorgeous pre-matted 8x10s, I noticed one player was conspicuous by his
absence: Antti Niemi. I asked a store employee if I might have been
looking in the wrong place for the Hawks’ netminder. “No,” he quickly replied, “we’re all out of
Niemis.” He shouted to another gentleman
behind the counter, “Do we have anymore Niemis?” The other guy just shook his head.
“But,” I chuckled, “I see you
still have lots of Cristobal Huet.” They
had at least a half dozen photos of the other Hawks’ goalie....
My Kind of Sports Town
Posted 6/14/2010 7:42:00 AM
Call it a championship that was perfectly earned, acknowledged
and celebrated. You can say it was old school or a refreshing change of
pace. Either way, the Blackhawks’
victory in the Stanley Cup and the city’s reaction to it couldn’t have been
scripted any better.
As for the Hawks themselves,
how could you not root for them? The
Hawks were an exciting, energetic team that appealed to everyone. They went 16-and-6 over their last 22 games against premiere competition. They methodically overcame everything that
could have been used as an excuse for failure:
losing home ice advantage, questionable officiating, their opponents’
physical play against their speed and finesse game. They rose to every challenge and won with dignity,
class and old-fashioned hard work.
Then came all the
celebrations which followed Wednesday’s clincher. There were so many high points we don't have enough space here ...
At Least Armando Gallaraga Got an Apology
Posted 6/8/2010 10:47:00 AM
“What if…” is never a happy question, and seeing defeat
snatched from the jaws of victory isn’t fun, especially here in Chicago where
we’ve been witness to that scenario a few too many times over the years with our
sports teams.
I can only wonder how long it will take Julianna
Canabal-Rodriquez to get over the sting of being unfairly bounced from the
finals of the recently concluded 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Unlike Armando Gallaraga, the Tigers pitcher
who received an apology from umpire Jim Joyce, who denied him a perfect game
with a badly blown call—Julianna, to my knowledge, hasn’t heard a word from
Jacques Bailly, the official of the Scripps Spelling Bee whose careless
pronunciation caused her to misspell her word in that fateful 6th
round last Friday.
Julianna’s word was “gyokuro,” (correctly pronounced
“gyOH-ku-roh”) which we were told was a type of high-grade ...
Plenty of Room on this Bandwagon
Posted 6/1/2010 10:27:00 AM
It’s a curious
phenomenon. Something gets a sudden
burst of popularity, and immediately a backlash begins to develop. Those who were there in the beginning, during
the best-kept-secret phase, begin voicing their resentment toward the
Johnny-come-latelies. That’s what’s been
happening lately with the Chicago Blackhawks, and I don’t understand it.
I’ve been a Blackhawks fan
for 40 years, and it all started when I became a bandwagon jumper. The Hawks were undergoing
a mighty resurgence back in the early ‘70s, and that combined with the presence
of Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Tony Esposito and announcer Lloyd Pettit saw to it
that my allegiance to the Blackhawks would become deeply ingrained. It would even endure through the team’s lean
years of the ‘90s and early ‘00s. I
hopped on the Blackhawks bandwagon in 1970, and I’ve never left.
Whenever a team contends for
a championship ...
Thank Goodness We Have the Blackhawks . . .
Posted 5/14/2010 12:53:00 PM
. . . or what else would we have to talk about in Chicago sports these days?
Quick: do you remember the last time a Stanley Cup Finals
featured two Original Six teams?
We’re a
couple of major steps from having that happen, but wouldn’t it be neat if it
did this season? To wit:
- The Bruins would have to
beat Philadelphia tonight to insure an Original Six team would represent
the Eastern Conference. If the
Flyers win, then the Canadiens would have to beat them in the conference
finals.
- The Blackhawks would have
to beat San Jose.
As for the latter, the Hawks
are a better team than the Sharks. But
who's to say which Hawks team will show up on any given afternoon/night—the one
that manhandled the Canucks all three games in Vancouver or played totally uninspired hockey in both home losses during the ...
The Cardinal Rule of Broadcasting
Posted 4/28/2010 12:25:00 PM
Like any business, radio has its share of unwritten
rules. If you’re an on-air talent, however,
your unwritten rules basically boil down to just one, and it’s inviolate: your shift has to be covered. Short of a fatal or near-fatal accident, you are
expected be seated in front of the microphone at your appointed time (or have
made arrangements for a suitable replacement). Even most of what would be classified as an
act of God (i.e., tornado, hurricane, flood) wouldn’t qualify as a valid reason
for you to miss your shift at the assigned time without a replacement. I can hear my boss now . . . “If you had enough time to flee, you had
enough time to call in a sub!”
In my nearly 20 years at WNUA I can recall only two
instances where an on-air host didn’t show up for their ...
The Final Days of Penmanship
Posted 4/26/2010 12:38:00 PM
Zaner-Bloser. Now there’s a name I hadn’t heard in almost
40 years. It all came back to me,
reading the front page article in Saturday’s Tribune about young Jancarlo Perez
of Chicago, who became a two-time winner of a national handwriting
contest—sponsored by Zaner-Bloser.
When I was learning
penmanship in the second and third grade, it was the Zaner-Bloser method
that my grammar school taught. The
handwriting textbooks which we used every day and the light green lined writing
paper—they all came with the name “Zaner-Bloser” on them.
My teachers were sticklers
for precision, and I recall my seven-year old left hand was ultra steady and
obedient. My tall letters went up to
the top line and stopped right there; my small letters hugged the dotted center
line of the page without ever going past.
When it came to cursive, my loops were nearly ...
Shall We Dine?
Posted 4/15/2010 12:29:00 PM
When I announced this morning
that the Smooth Jazz Sunday Brunch was coming back, a listener sent over an
email with a question: is the Brunch the
longest-running show in Smooth Jazz history?
Immediately I thought the answer was no. In the back of my mind I suspected that a disc jockey on the
west coast, Art Good, had been on the air with his show, JazzTrax, longer than
the Brunch. Sure enough, JazzTrax first hit the air in 1985, two years
earlier than our “Sunday Lite Brunch,” which debuted in Chicago on WCLR (101.9FM) on February 15,
1987. Our Sunday Brunch had been on the air a long time, but Art's show beat us by two years. No problem--Art's a good guy.
With only the interruption
between the time WNUA changed formats (May 22, 2009) and April 18, 2010, when
the show returned to the ...
More Fun Than a Barrel of Basset Hounds
Posted 4/12/2010 7:23:00 AM
I love my Smooth Jazz, but I
truly am a sucker for dogs. That’s why
I’d like to invite you to join me at an event that’s an incredible amount of
fun for a worthwhile cause: Bark in the
Park, the Anti-Cruelty Society’s annual walk for the animals.
This year’s event will take
place at 9:00 am on Saturday, May 1, at Montrose Harbor. Last year’s Bark drew nearly 3,500 two-legged
participants, most of whom did the 5K walk with their four-legged family
members.
Joining me at Bark will be
ABC-7’s Hosea Sanders and Roz Varon and longtime Chicago
radio traffic voice Bart
Shore. For those of you who might be wondering about
him, our beloved bulldog Mike will not be part of the festivities this year,
however. He’s no longer the
rambunctious pup who had the boundless energy and exuberance (and pain-free
hips) ...
Dressing for Smooth Jazz Success
Posted 4/7/2010 12:32:00 PM
The April issue of JazzTimes
magazine features a lively discussion on how jazz artists ought to dress when
they’re up on stage. It got me thinking, and then it occurred
to me: over the past 23 years that Smooth Jazz has
been around, a transformation has taken place in the way performers in our
genre dress.
When it comes to earning
style points, Smooth Jazz artists have taken a quantum leap in two
decades. I don't know how many of you remember this, but in the early days nearly
everyone had the same look: garage-band-but-sadly-lacking-the-hipness-of-grunge. Worn-out denims and a jazz festival t-shirt
were a common ensemble. At the time it didn’t
seem particularly inappropriate because artists were being booked into places such as the
Cubby Bear, Jazz Bulls and China Club in those days—venues that were bars or
converted industrial space.
As Smooth ...
Mike, Saul and Winnie
Posted 4/1/2010 10:14:00 AM
I’m always
curious about how an instrumental tune gets its name, so I’m never shy about
asking musicians that question. Quite
often, the answer I get makes for an interesting tidbit I can share with
listeners. Take my
vintage-track-of-the-day for today, “Saul Steps Out,” for example, by J.
Michael Verta.
I’ll let Mr.
Verta pick it up from here: “Saul was
this little old Jewish man who lived in an apartment down the hall from me,
back in the days when I was struggling to get by as a musician, looking for my
first break. [Those] were lean times;
things were tough and I was living in this tiny little apartment, and yet
whenever I would see Saul—through the open door to his apartment or on his way
to get the mail, laundry, etc.—he’d be doing this little half dance, half
shuffle as he walked, with ...
Few Jewels in This Crown
Posted 3/29/2010 7:32:00 AM
According to Sunday’s
Tribune, the Arie Crown Theater will be going dark starting in September. I won’t miss it.
There was a time when the
place was the hottest concert venue in town.
Back in high school seeing a group such as Chicago playing the Arie
Crown was the ultimate downtown thrill for a group of teenagers from the
western suburbs. The Arie Crown still had the sheen of newness back then,
having reopened in 1972. For my friends
and me, it was exciting seeing performers who played our music at a venue
frequented by our parents.
As a grown-up, however, I
came to see the Arie Crown in a much different light. For openers, I never felt the sound was very
good there. Seated in the center of the
theater halfway back, I thought it was acceptable. Anywhere else—especially in the wings—and it
was ...
Good Night, Mr. Phelps
Posted 3/15/2010 10:42:00 AM
I imagine
over the next few days you’ll be hearing a few snippets of the Mission:
Impossible theme at various times.
Peter Graves, the actor who played the leader of the Impossible Missions
Force, Jim Phelps, died yesterday at the age of 83.
Off the top
of my head, I can’t think of another TV series that received a bigger boost
from a change in its lead actor than Mission did in the late 1960s. Steven Hill brought considerable chops along
with distinguished acting credentials to the role of Dan Briggs, leader of the
IMF when the show debuted in 1966. But
Mission truly blossomed when producer Bruce Geller added Peter Graves to the ensemble
at the start of season two after a falling out with Hill. Graves embodied all the qualities of a
leading man in an action series. He was
strong and athletic—and ...
I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for an On-Air Stream
Posted 3/10/2010 9:56:00 AM
“When are you guys going to
stream?” Everybody’s been asking the
question on our Facebook page and in the “In Box” on our home page. We hear you.
I can tell you this: we want to
resolve the issue as quickly as possible and to everyone’s satisfaction.
At the risk of being too technical,
this, in a nutshell, is why it’s been taking so long. The talent (the voices) you hear doing the
commercials we play, especially when it comes to national ads, are compensated
according to where their commercials run.
They receive a specific amount when their work runs on an over-the-air
radio station. When their work runs on
an additional media platform—in this case, the internet—they are entitled to receive
additional compensation. We have no
quarrel with this arrangement. However,
operating on a narrow margin and wanting to keep ...
Reflecting on the Olympics
Posted 3/1/2010 1:41:00 PM
Among people I know, it seems everybody settled in with
their favorite event (figure skating, ice dancing or snowboarding, generally,
and in my case, ice hockey) and made the coverage on NBC or MSNBC part of their
evening routine the past couple weeks. Then
again, I realize there is a dissenting viewpoint out there that couldn't care less (e.g., my father-in-law called
my wife after the first weekend to say, “Tired of the Olympics yet?”).
Ryan Miller was a deserving MVP in men’s hockey. And imagine, Blackhawk fans, how easily he
could have been OUR #1 goalie right now. In the
1999 NHL draft, he was available until the 5th round, when he was
taken by Buffalo. With Miller still on
the board, the Hawks chose the eminently forgettable Steve McCarthy, Dmitri
Levinski, Stepan Mokhov, and Michael Jacobsen instead. True, the Hawks weren't the only ...
Smooth Jazz Marks the Passage of Time
Posted 2/19/2010 11:26:00 AM
I definitely
did a double take when Loni Taylor told me her son, Garrett, was eighteen. Eighteen. I remember the days when he was a little
tike, quietly sitting on the other side of the broadcast console while his
mother did her radio show. Loni would
bring Garrett into the station with her quite a bit, and we all looked forward
to those times. He was four or five
then, a friendly little boy who’d greet all of us with a bashful smile and a “Hi!”
and then quickly go off to the studio or conference room to read or work on his
coloring book.
That was in
the late ‘90s. By then, Loni Taylor was
an afternoon fixture on WNUA. Brought in
by station managers John Gehron and Lee Hansen in the fall of 1994, she proved
to be an instant hit ...
Since I Haven't Done a Sports Blog in Awhile . . .
Posted 2/8/2010 10:37:00 AM
Watching the Caribbean World
Series in Venezuela
this weekend gave me an appreciation for Major League Baseball’s regulations on
what’s permissible on big league uniforms, caps and helmets. The players down there are all walking billboards, covered from head to toe with a jumble of advertising logos. Worst of all, it looks like every player has the same name. On the
backs of all their jersey tops, above the number, it said “Coca-Cola” on
Saturday, “Orange” on Sunday.
Sure, the Blackhawks won
Saturday night. But they should’ve had a
shutout. Campbell’s stupid penalty,
taken behind the play, combined with Sopel’s bonehead unsportsmanlike conduct
call 26 seconds later, gave the Blues a two-man advantage, which led to the
goal which ended Niemi’s bid for his fifth shutout.
Richard Dent didn’t make it
this time around. But, unlike MLB, at
least the NFL’s Board of Selectors ...
At Least It Doesn’t Waste Paper
Posted 2/2/2010 10:02:00 AM
On
my list of life’s daily annoyances, spam should rank very low. Thanks to the delete key, it should be
nothing more than an inconsequential blip in my day. Yet, annoy is what it does, because in some
strange way it gets into my head and forces me to expend more energy thinking
about it than it I should. I’ll explain.
One
of the emailboxes I check each day is connected to an old AOL email address
from my years at WNUA. I haven’t found a
personal message there for awhile now, but since it’s still an active address,
I check it compulsively every day. One
hundred percent of the messages I find there is junk email—it’s all spam, in
other words. Yet, less than half of it
gets automatically sent to the spam folder, and that bothers me. It’s obvious that ...
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