The passing of Eric Jackson on September 17, after years of health issues, marked the end of his
more than half-century as a presence on Boston radio, a presence who was scheduled to be honored as one of 2022’s inductees into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Jackson, born in Providence, Rhode Island and raised in Camden, New Jersey, began his career at Boston University’s WBUR-FM while an undergraduate at the college. After a brief stint at the local African-American AM station WILD, he became the overnight deejay at Boston’s innovative “alternative” giant WBCN-FM, where he alone included examples of jazz releases both contemporary and historical in his musical mix. In 1978, he moved to PBS affiliate WGBH-FM, where he soon launched “Eric in the Evening,” a program that he hosted until his death.
Originally heard Sunday through Thursday nights, “Eric in the Evening” became a reliable resource for listeners who sought a mix of classic and new jazz, as well as the most popular stop for both visiting stars and aspiring local musicians. During Boston’s jazz radio heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, he joined station mates Ron Della Chiesa (a true “crossover” announcer, whose similarly lengthy career as the voice of Boston Symphony broadcasts ended last month) and the late Steve Schwartz (who was heard on weekends in Jackson’s time slot), WBUR’s James Isaacs, Jose Masso, Steve Elman and the late Tony Cennamo, plus a number of longtime announcers at MIT’s WMBR-FM and student announcers at Harvard’s WHRB-FM and Emerson College’s WERS-FM to obviate the need for a single all-jazz station.
Those glory days ended abruptly over the last decade-plus, as both WGBH and WBUR shifted to almost exclusive news formats and Emerson dropped its jazz programming. When WGBH announced the proposed cuts, there was a substantial outcry that, together with the support of the station’s president (and former jazz deejay while a Columbia undergraduate) Jon Abbott, found “Eric in the Evening” as the sole remaining music program, although its schedule was scaled back to weekends only. (A similar situation occurred at WBUR, where “Con Salsa” remains the station’s sole music program and host Masso approaches his own golden anniversary as an announcer.)
While fans will have various favorite episodes of “Eric in the Evening,” for this listener none topped the appearance, every Father’s Day and on several Duke Ellington birthday programs, of his father Samuel Jackson, a jazz lover who is thought to be the first African American deejay in New England during his years in Providence. It was Samuel who cultivated Eric’s taste in jazz, and their shared love of the music’s “ancient to the future” lineage made for exceptional radio.
Eric was one of my oldest jazz compadres. When we met (at the Jazz Workshop during an appearance by Miles Davis, as Eric recalled), we were two guys from out of state who came to the Boston area and found a home on college radio. My career as a deejay ended upon graduation. Eric had the far superior radio voice to go with the necessary knowledge; you not only wanted to hear what he had to say, but you wanted to hear him say it. He stayed on it, throughout a most distinguished career, and in the process became the voice of the Boston jazz community.
The Jazz Journalists Association honored Eric Jackson with the Marian McPartland-Willis Conover Award for Broadcasting in 2006, and Steve Schwartz previously. Jose Masso was named JJA Boston Jazz Hero in 2021.
