The Fredösphere

At last! Alan Young reappears as a celebrity guest contestant at the Fredösphere. You can read part I here.

WOBEGON BOY, PART II

My radio days started in the spring of 1980 in Fargo North Dakota when I took a part-time job at KDSU FM.  One of the programs we carried was Jazz Revisited-hosted by Hazen Schumacher and produced in the studios of WUOM in Ann Arbor.  Jazz Revisted was a 30-minute program devoted to jazz recordings from 1918-1948 (give or take a few years.)  Little did I know then that some day I’d be the vehicle for some of Hazen’s antics.  More about the show but first a bit of background information.

In the spring of 1982 after 5 years happy clueless years as an undergraduate I found out I had exhausted the available classes from NDSU and as such was forced to graduate and leave the comforts of the small but well-focused and established school with a Music Education Degree. Teaching in Two-Dot Montana or Pisek North Dakota seemed unattractive options so I followed up on a list of job openings in Public Radio that was displayed on the walls of the KDSU studio. I ended up taking a job at Blue Lake Public Radio, which had just started a new station.  After 2 years at WBLV-FM I moved on to the big time and a world of opportunities at WUOM.

One of my first assignments at WUOM was to run the board during the Jazz Revisited Request Night Program. This was an extended version of the weekly 30 minute program and aired only on WUOM/WVGR. The request night was a live show the second Saturday of the month. It ran from 7pm till 10:00pm and I never sweated so much in my life as those three hours. Well OK My over 30 Monday Night Basketball sessions don’t count…

I haven’t been in radio studio for nearly ten years but I can assume the that there is a great difference between an up to date digital studio with all the music on CD or better yet – hard drive and a fully documented data base at you fingertips. Compare that to the 1948 Collins Console Board I ran for this show.  These pictures are very similar to the set-up I ran. (I felt like the pilot of a B-17 in Twelve O’clock High.)

Every piece played required the operator to make several quick decisions:

The toggle switch controlled the spin direction of the turntable

Left for counter clockwise
Right for clockwise (I guess this was to see if there were any hidden messages when you played the recordings backward. We are taking WW II equipment and technology.)

The volume knob
The turntable speed (located on the turntable)

33 1/3 rpm
45 rpm
78 rpm

The microphones

The on-air mic of the host(Hazen)
The ambient studio mic
The inter-studio mic where I could say something off air to the host.

Studio Volume which carried The on-air volume

In my studio (Studio C)
Hosts Studio (Studio B)

All of these volumes, or components could also operate  “in cue”. This is an off-air signal that allows the operator to set needle to the right track on the recording. The operator would drop the volume switch to the cue position and set the needle on the appropriate “band”.  (Band being the line on the record Not the featured ensemble).

The beginning of the piece could be heard as the turntable was manually oscillated back and forth. A tight operator would “back off” the start by as small amount of rotation as possible. If the needle was left too close to the beginning, a slow wind up to the opening would be heard.  If the needle was too far- then a gap in sound ie “dead air” was heard. Actually a lot of snap crackle and pop, as many of these were very worn recordings. (Incidentally this whole cueing process is a major percussive and rhythmic device used by many DJ’s in today’s Rap, Hip Hop and other popular music forms.)

Now here’s how the show worked. I sat in “Studio C” with the Collins Board in front of me.  I had a turntable on each side of me. Each one had a switch that set the table to one of three speeds.

In a separate room a few feet lower and in front of me to the right was the Jazz Library, which I could see through a window.  And to the left in a like wise manner was Studio B where Hazen would announce the show, based on requests that came in from listeners.  Hazen also had a group of friends he’s bring in for this show and they’d sit around the table and chat with each other and with him as part of the show. He could have anywhere from 4 to 10 guests on a given program. As the calls would come in the request was taken –down the given to “the runner” who would take the written requests and head of to the Jazz Library to search the Card Catalogues for their location on the shelves. This was pretty much the Dewey Decimal System for the library. After collecting as many as a half dozen records, the runner would bring the records to me where I would set them up and play them in the order Hazen called them out.  The recordings played on the program were probably 60% 45 rpm, 30% -33 1/3 rpm and maybe 10% were 78 rpm.  These variations had to be accommodated by the operator when the music was cued up on the turntable. If the previous piece was a 33 1/3 and the next was a 45 then the speed switch had to be changed. Another factor on the 33 1/3 was choosing the right band.  The 78’ s and most all the 45’s were single cuts only, but the 33 1/3’s could have as many as 6 pieces on a side.

The cuts were short. Most of them were just over two minutes in length. So many decisions had to be quickly and accurately executed. Left Turn table or Right?  Which cut or band? What speed?   Is Hazen taking to the group or to me? Is the on air cut skipping?

Hazen enjoyed pulling jokes on the operator. One was the “group record bash” He would usually have many old recordings that were unplayable for a variety of reasons, scratched, half broken etc. On more than one episode Hazen would pass these out guests at the table.  Then over the air he’s say something like

Our friend Art over in Kalamazoo was cleaning out his grandfather’s attic when he came across a box of recordings of Bix Beiderbecke. It turns out these recordings were made in 1924 and are the first he made with his band The Wolverines.  These recordings launched his career and enabled him to become a sought-after musician in Chicago, Illinois and New York City. These are truly valuable recordings for which collectors would pay top dollar.  We are very fortunate because Art has generously donated these recordings to the Jazz Revisited library.   Now Alan Young our Ace Operator is bringing them in to us right now…oops careful there Alan… Hey!  Watch OUT!

Then one at a time but in close succession  the people around the table would smash their records over the table making Alan the fool…

Sigh….I survived.