Tags
Related Posts
Share This
The Phil Schaap Interview
The culture of jazz is clearly built around the music but the culture only exists because of enlightened cats who were reared in the presence of greatness. Artistic greatness and in a humanitarian sense as well.
My guest is one of the cats I speak off. He took advantage of his early childhood connections and used his native gifts to help explain transcendent music.
Music that was played By Bird and Wade Legge John Coltrane and my guests babysitter Papa Jo Jones.
It's was an accessible community of artistic purists like Jaki Byard who could play a tune in all twelve keys and make his students do that on the piano until they fell apart.
My guest has been a bridge to a new age. Conveying messages as a radio host and coming of age during the advent of free form radio, individual sound seekers and being surrounded by the original masters like Dizzy and Louie and The Duke.
There's two types of music - good and bad and my guest has pontificated and promoted jazz. But what does that term really mean? Has a slang term become so intellectualized that it no longer swings?
My guest has channelled that swing feel throughout his career as an impresario. Could have been the Basie band with John Heard or watching the real time fusing of Afro Bop with Machito and Latin music with Tito. The music survives today in part because of contributions of my guest who plays Charlie Parker records every morning on Columbia's WKCR @ Columbia University.
Phil Schaap welcome to the JFS
To become a member of the Jake Feinberg Show...
I was happy to find this interview with Phil, who was on WKCR (45 years as of 3 few ago.) Nice!
Phil held the noon hour on KCR “Out to Lunch” and all working week, noon to 3, New Yorkers and those in the listening area enjoyed our Professor of Jazz. Teaching from “the home of technical difficulties” …
Phil calls for new listeners for traditional jazz, and I hope we get them too. I’m 70 and have shared alot of great music with youngsters. Let’s all do that!
Also, free fine jazz collections are on archive.org… Free and Legal.
check out, for example…
https://archive.org/details/JackTeagardenCollection (stream or download on right)
Then go to https://archive.org/details/@jim_butler
Wishing you the best, Jake. Thanks for interviewing so many fine musical folks. And keeping them on the web for historical value. Consider putting on archive.org perhaps.
hank you for posting this – Phil was a treasure who did more to promote jazz than any of the jazz musicians.
In the pre-internet radio days the radio in my office – in midtown till 1998, then downtown – always played WKCR & particularly “Bird Flight” every day –
Adam Shatz: “Phil was old school; jazz, for him, was a church,”
& Wynton Marsalis: “Phil was steadfast in his belief that the story of real, swinging jazz illustrates a positive, inclusive and successful metaphor for how we Americans could and would do better.” were spot on !
Phil used to call KCR “the home of technical difficulties” as the transmitter often had problems. In 1985 they moved the transmitter to the North Tower of WTC and the signal improved dramatically. After 9/11, broadcasting from the Columbia campus it was hard to get a good signal till they finally got a tower in Times Square a few years later.
Now we have digital radio and a great signal anywhere!!!
I also keep a calendar of Phil’s “birthday broadcasts” where WKCR plays 24 hours of a jazz great’s music on his/her birthday. Priceless radio!!!