By the looks of it, about 500 Boston jazz radio listeners gathered in front of the offices of WGBH yesterday (July 6) to raise appropriate noise about grievious wounds the station is instituting by cutting back the hours of jazz broadcasts. Video below thanks to Tom Hall, saxophonist and educator at Brandeis University.
(Update: a 45-minute video with people talking about how WGBH can fulfill the mission of PBS/NPR stationsto “serve the community” and more music, too, shows virtually the entire event)
Local (and national) jazz radio hero’s Eric Jackson’s “Eric in the Evening” program is being relegated to late evening weekends (from prime time, week-nightly) and Steve Schwartz’s once-a-week jazz show has been eliminated. Cuts also affect syndicated jazz programs WGBH has featured for a long time: Jazz Set, hosted by Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Jazz with Bob Palocha. Jackson and Schwartz are both JJA Awards winners; JJA president Howard Mandel blogged about the cutbacks here and here.
The YouTube clip below is not accredited. Boston-area saxophonist/composer Russ Gershon, leader of Either/Orchestra, is prominent in both videos, playing soprano sax on “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
