I served on a program selection panel with Dr. Billy Taylor, where we discovered we had some personal connections. The station officially went on the air in February 1977not with the traditional Star-Spangled Banner, but with Duke Ellingtons Take the A-Train.. Find fun, interesting, informative things to do Or post your upcoming event on our website! He is currently a professor at American University. At home later, youre cooking dinnerbut there isnt just one station that fits however you identify. Theater A number of my friends did get volunteer shows on the station. var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; WPFW no longer has the reputation as Radio Farrakhan that it gained in the late 1980s; the speeches by the Nation of Islam leader and by radical black-nationalist thinkers like Frances Cress Welsing that sometimes appeared on the defunct program Freedom of Speech are gone. Museums/Galleries Regards, The program was hosted, as it has been for the past 36 years, by longtime D.C. resident Miyuki Williams. I had had a good run at the station, interviewing my heroes and even being honored by the proclamation of Rusty Hassan Day in 1984 by Mayor Marion Barry on the fifteenth anniversary of my show. He spoke of his early years in West Virginia, playing piano in houses of prostitution as a teenager; hopping a freight train to Washington, DC, where he played professionally on U Street; meeting his wife, Mary, at a Hot Shoppe; his friendship with John Malachi and what a thrill it was to have Billy Eckstines band perform at the army camp in Louisiana where he was stationed in 1944; service in the Pacific. But in February 1977 when Von Martin played Take the A Train to open the WPFW-FM signal to the Washington airwaves, I opted to keep The New Thing Root Music Show on WAMU. It is open to the public and. But his solutionto professionalize the sound of WPFWs broadcast by bringing in more outside content, most of which he says would have been relatively cheapis tantamount to a resource-starved newspaper filling its pages with wire content: The quality will be high; the opportunity cost is the local charisma. Its the thigh bone connected to the hip bone, Hughes says. Openings But in the final analysis our visions about radio are different. Spirits Known and Unknown continued with its workshop concept for young African American announcers, and in 1980 Hot Jazz Saturday Night, with Rob Bamberger, premiered and is still on the air today. Bambergers scholarly and entertaining approach examines the recordings of a particular artist such as Bix Beiderbecke or Teddy Wilson, focusing on the recorded output of a few years. What a tremendously delicious jazz anthology. //--> WGTB evolved into a free-form underground rock station while maintaining much of its jazz programming. document.getElementById('cloak9275').innerHTML += '' + addy9275+'<\/a>'; While a lot of programming is worthwhile, even essentialand just about all of it unique in an increasingly homogenous radio landscapesome of it falls somewhere between charmingly scrappy and borderline-unprofessional. var addy_text25885 = 'membership' + '@' + 'wpfw' + '.' + 'org'; I call it the gentrification of WPFW, says Tony Regusters, a former general manager whose Sounds of Brasil program was axed, of the new changes. Cease and desist right now.. Its a seasonal thing that happens with us.. I dont remember the exact date of my first broadcast. I want to show some hope that its not all bleakness. www.press.georgetown.edu. I was soon asked to become a substitute host on WPFW, filling in for such programmers as Rick Bolling and Guy Middleton. On Nov. 30, a few hours after General Manager John Hughes used a previously scheduled appearance on the air to defend the changeshe also apologized for the impolitic rolloutthat discontent spilled into the streets, with about a dozen programmers and listeners gathering outside to find out what, exactly, was happening to their station. Greg Sashi Kearse (former jazz columnist at Howard University, Afro-American Newspaper), Hi Greg, sorry that we didnt previously provide a link. Hopefully well meet again, but that may not be the case. The general manager quickly realized hed been making the wrong argumentthat he was talking like a gentrifier. She remembers listening for the first time to vibraphonist-band leader Lionel Hampton and singers Dinah Washington, Roy Hamilton and Frank Sinatra, among others. licenses, a crash course in interview technique and expanded my appreciation of constructive criticism. To the dissenting programmers, the schedule changes represent a betrayal of the stations mission as a progressive, even radical, alternative to mainstream radio and a preserver of jazz, one which particularly serves the D.C. areas black residents. Even if the listeners and programmers of WPFW beat back Hughes proposed changes, how long can the magic reasonably last? Williams became a professional sound technician for film and won Academy Awards for Glory and Dances with Wolves. Volunteer Coordinator Vincent Jack vjack@wpfw.org 202-588-0999 ext. Miyuki Williams (pictured left) began her decades-long career as a DJ with a spontaneous phone call. He politely asked me to check to see if the needle had somehow slid off the record onto the the turntable. I still break up with laughter when I think about that comment! Young & Hungry Photo courtesy of Miyuki Williams. Then they can be expected to teach the next generation their expertise, share their craft and preserve the culture. WPFWs founders were five years into their struggle to get on the air when D.C. gained home rule in 1973, and their station shared the eras DNA. After Dr. Taylor became artistic director for the jazz program at the Kennedy Center, he did a show for NPR in which his trio would perform with an artist such as Jackie McLean and discuss the guests career between musical performances. God Favours Me (Timmy Regisford Edit Instrumental/Edit) God Favours Me (Timmy Regisford Edit) Makin Moves. In 1987 WRC dropped his show and shortly thereafter WAMU dropped mine. Porter was offered a shorter once-a-week show that would have also featured a panel; he decided to walk. 12:26 AM. But changes with programmers and talk shows started changing at PFW in a way that was confusing to many listeners. By 1980 Paul Anthony was a veteran broadcaster. Then again, even resolving the problems with Pacificas model wont change this: Consumption habits and media consolidation mean that radio is no longer a medium around which communities gather. It now has a 24-member listener-elected oversight boardall Pacifica stations have since the early 2000sthat is as unruly as just about any experiment in microdemocracy. If I didnt take this time it would mean the Caribbean community would have nothing, Martin says. In the early 1970s college stations on FM attracted young listeners by featuring rock albums by The Doors, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and many others that werent getting played on commercial AM stations. @miyuki_williams . I interviewed Albert Murray. The reshuffled programming grid, the volunteer hosts slowly learned, would largely separate nighttime music shows during the week from daytime talk programmingmuch of it syndicated from other stations around the country. What, no book? This led to a permanent slot. Bowsers Car-Centric Design Changes Have United Advocates Behind K Street Transitway Cuts, MPD Chief Robert Contee to Retire, Take FBI Job. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak39617').innerHTML += ''+addy_text39617+'<\/a>'; His suggestion that WPFW embrace its niche audience and invest in event programming is solid advice and exactly what on-air hosts Miyuki Williams and Robyn Holden have been urging station management to do. 30. Stokes would later edit Jazz Times and publish four books on the music. In 1990 new owners decided Bill Evans did not mix with Beethoven and dropped jazz. For the most part, that meant excising music from rush hour and the workday. His recounting of his times on air and the connections he made in the citys jazz community are the subject of an essay in the book DC Jazz: Stories of Jazz Music in Washington, DC. It sponsored jazz cruises where Jazz90 listeners could hear Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Clark Terry, Jay McShann, Benny Carter, and Phil Woods, and it cosponsored performances by Wynton Marsalis at Lorton and the DC Youth Center to enable the incarcerated to hear great music. The day. Still, tensions between programmers and management and between the station and Pacifica are par for the course, says Muhammad. I dont play the heartbreak stuff so much, she said. var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; What it doesnt do is create a flow, a symmetry, Hughes says of the old schedule, which frequently jumped between public affairs and music. She was an incredible artist who was incited to become an activist because of the killing of four little girls in a Birmingham churchShe sacrificed for the greater good.. Tune in and hear Miles, Aretha, Sinatra, Muddy Waters, or Eddie Palmieri! Jerry Washington and his wife remained together until her passing, and he missed her terribly as a widower. Now doing shows opposite each other, we developed a friendly rivalry. Tom Porter, the host of Jazz and Justice, got the call a night before his final Monday-afternoon program. The Princeton African-American studies professor and public intellectual may be one of President Barack Obamas most prominent critics on the leftand Hughes plans may only have him on WPFW for one hour a weekbut theres a reason his name, as well as Martins and Smileys, were cited as evidence of WPFWs centerward drift in the days after the new programming was announced. He proceeded to miscue songs, start something then change his mind and play something else, and start a cut from the middle of the song. Great post! var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; To check out how hip he was, I asked to see what he had. Still, even there hes made changes, dropping a couple of niche programs and bringing in a new one focused on go-go and other D.C. sounds, House of Soul, hosted by James Funk of Rare Essence and DJ Adrian Loving. My show was shifted from Monday evening to late Thursday night. About this time Ron Sutton introduced me to his neighbor, Jerry Washington, who had retired from the Air Force and was currently working for the United Planning Organization. 202-588-0999 ext. I miss and reminisce those days. Coronavirus, Carry-out Critic He passed the hipness test and we talked about the music. As the staffer responsible for enforcing programming standards, Daughtry reported his own infraction. Yorkes profile of Grant focused on his Saturday afternoon show on WRC-AM, mentioning his earlier thirty-year tenure as WMALs nightly jazz authority. Hughes, who had been chief operating officer of Howard Universitys TV station WHUT, came on in 2011. Freelancers Guide Beer BACK TO ME (ABICAH SOUL REHASH) Back To Me. I was now on the air with my friends Jamal Muhammed, Tom Cole, Miyuki Williams, Larry Appelbaum, Hassan Ali, Nap Turner, and Askia Muhammad. var addy26045 = 'volunteers' + '@'; To Hughes detractors, however, the changes represent a violation of the stations progressive, minority-serving brief: WPFW is supposed to be an alternative to NPR and PRI. Those were my formative years, when I was exposed to Japanese culture, she said. Thanks for sharing the knowledge and keep up the good work. When it returned, small groups of listeners and programmers picketed for several weeks. //--> The music I programmed reflected the times: Ascension, by John Coltrane, and Meditations on Integration, by Charles Mingus. You tune into WAMU, or WTOP, or WOL, or WNEW for news on your morning drive. City Desk The staff that are members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists had seen their pay cut by 50 percent; eventually Hughes restored them to three-quarters pay. Your destination for buying luxury property in Voiron, Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes, France. Other programs that had been cut were offered their old slotspartially quelling the programming outrage. I first met him when he was playing bass with Julie Moore Turner in a club at Fourteenth and Rhode Island Avenue, NW, when it was a rough neighborhood. Miyuki Williams: About 31 years ago on a Monday night I was driving on Minnesota Avenue listening to WPFW 89.3 FM. Thies asked Hughes to respond to Yates article. Miyuki Williams 48. Building a better world one broadcast at a time and in the community. The decade of the nineties was one of friendly rivalry between WDCU and WPFW. Radio is still the best way to discover jazz. It was probably in January 1966, the beginning of second semester of my junior year. Watson didnt last long as general manager; few at WPFW have. The presence of people of color does not necessarily mean the presence of the proper ideological or philosophical perspective. Porters confederates took to the air, opening up the phone lines to supporters. But beyond the substance of the new grid, programmers, members of the Local Station Board, and even Pacificas interim executive director, Summer Reese, say the changes were made without enough input, sensitivity, or notice. We know that Miyuki is single at this point. Much of its aging, analog equipment wont survive the move, Hughes says, but he says that with a stripped down set-up, the station wont need to suspend live programming. The overnight show and Spirits Known and Unknown had been dropped, and most of the musical offerings were bluegrass and folk. Today's top 343 Engineer jobs in Grenoble, Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes, France. I was also working at WRC/NBC TV and sometimes WMAL-AM during those hours so I had many guest hosts sit in the air chair and spin their faves for that diverse listening audience including; Vincent Thomas, Wayne Tucker, Kahlil Wheaton and Sheila Eldridge from WHUR-FM, Art Cromwell, Tom Porter, Chip Donelson and sometimes Mr Black Fire Jimmy Gray. He says the comments have ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, and that hes even received some threats. For a decade he broadcast a show on Saturday nights on a commercial station where his ratings were good and the advertising book solid. Current. He had just played the recordings on his radio show on the campus station, WGTB-FM, but he had to give up the program to take a class that was scheduled at the same time. 344VolunteersThis email address is being protected from spambots. Then consider the Beacon your resource for trustworthy information on health, money, technology and travel topics, as well as entertaining features, arts and events. 202-588-0999 ext. It certainly gave me a music education, a path to the F.C.C. Theyre not the peoples station, said another. Williams, 64, chooses mostly timeless jazz for her sessions, with some exceptions. The white left doesnt think they have a black problem, says Muhammad. The assassination of Rev. The charge of gentrification is so off-base, Hughes said, redirecting course. Hosts of all stripes discussed the controversy on their shows. I do think some changes are necessary in the grid at WPFW, Reese says. While even WPFWs homegrown talk tends to focus more on international news than local issues, the station remains a uniquely D.C. institution. The situation at WPFW is but one example of the crisis confronting jazz radio across the country. DC. Pedigreed programs like We Ourselves, Sophies Parlor, and others were either axed outright or canceled because their hosts couldnt switch to a new time. Anthony went on to Sirius satellite radio until the merger with XM. Sandra Y Johnson in WPFW studios live! Neither of these NPR affiliates broadcast jazz offerings from the network such as Piano Jazz or JazzSet. Ken Steiner came over from WGTB. Facebook gives people the power. From 1963 to 1967, when her father was once again based in the Pacific, Williams lived in Japan. WPFW may stumble to a new location. One of the things I appreciate is how the Japanese revere elders and artists. Reprinted with permission. document.getElementById('cloak68494').innerHTML = ''; I had been employed as a union representative for a few years and decided to continue that career rather than jump into broadcasting full time. WPFW has been on a rollercoaster of internal management problems for the past fifteen years that the volunteer announcers have always managed to work around and continue to play music. Just one editorial note; Spirits Known and Unknown preceded S,C&M. Current (https://current.org/2019/02/a-dj-looks-back-on-50-years-on-jazz-radio-in-the-nations-capital/). I think we need to boycott, said one person who called into Community Comment the next morning. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. I was so addicted to PFW that I started listening 24/7, started volunteering phone duty and pledging my financial support. This comprehensive, searchable directory covers WPFW Washington, 89.3 MHz FM blues jazz news Rating: 5.0 Reviews: 7 WPFW is the voice for alternative programming in the Washington metropolitan area. Like most of his listeners, I bought into his stories. My favorite show, however, was with a retired letter carrier, cab driver, and pianist who played only for family and friends, my wife, Sondras, father. Brother Ah, a jazz host and former compatriot of John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, found out the day of his last show. Jazz programming benefited from this shift. wpfw wpfw 89.3fm-pacifica radio "wpfw the kulcha shak wpfw-fm business matters with andy shallal Wpfw Global Presence Search All Employees Key Employees of Wpfw Askia Muhammad News Director Phone Email Ma Minott Contact Us The underground format would become a feature of commercial FM stations such as WHFS. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Martin Luther King Jr. and subsequent riots dramatically changed the city for decades. In became something of a consortium of kindred souls playing that serious American music. In the last four years, a 2011 audit shows, the foundation has lost millions and gone through its own internal putsches. 1888PressRelease) March 01, 2012 Recreating their efforts which led to the Fall 2010 drive being among the most successful in recent memory, 'PFW Programmers Association members Miyuki Williams, Robyn Holden and Katea Stitt again mobilized the more than 150 volunteer DJ's in the intricate 'Buddy System' The objective is to create effective on-air pairings of programmers to 'pitch' together .
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