- [Announcer] This program is brought to you in part by a grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, dedicated to the advancement of public knowledge and preservation of New Jersey history.

- It's a story of a community of people that came together to create a cultural institution that has affected the lives of millions of people.

What to me is the most gratifying is the success of the station has been made possible because of thousands of people playing some role, big and small, in making it happen.

This hope at the beginning that we could establish a community, something that's bigger than all of us, a community that's committed to America's art form of jazz, committed to working together, committing to volunteer their activities, to me, that's a very gratifying outcome and a really meaningful way to look back at the last four decades.

[lively jazz music] [calm jazz music] - Just like in New Orleans, just like in St. Louis, just like in all the other cities that we hear about that were so-called jazz cities, Newark was one of those with those special kinds of houses and nightclubs that people could go to to find the entertainment they wanted.

Black people were coming more and more from the South to get away from Jim Crow.

Newark had the reputation of being a place where musicians could find a place to stay, get something to eat.

- We had a number of breweries.

We had beer being sold all over the city.

In 1935, we had something like 1,000 taverns.

We had live music all over the place because a bar owner would say, "I can sell more beer if I have a piano player."

If he had a little bigger place, he'd have a trio or a quartet.

And then clubs began emerging.

We had seven major clubs.

- Newark's jazz history is a storied one.

All along Halsey Street were notable jazz clubs that hosted some of the premier jazz artists, and not just Newark.

The Key Club, the Cadillac Club are just a couple of the major venues that hosted jazz artists almost every night during the week.

[lively jazz music] - It was almost like a big carnival.

You'd come out the street, the cars are lined all down the street.

Live entertainment was very big in Newark.

They were dressed to the nines.

Musicians traveling from the South would come in through Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia and then Newark.

The next step is New York.

[calm jazz music] - "Newark remains today a sort of peripheral spread for the Jersey Crescent, which contains the homes and springboards of so many great musicians.

And don't ever forget that Francis Albert Sinatra is from Hoboken!

In fact, I wonder how the greatest metropolis in the world would manage or what it would do without the splendid auto roads and turnpike in New Jersey to serve as a red-carpet entrance way."

Yeah, that's such a wonderful metaphoric vision, you know, the New Jersey Turnpike as the red carpet going into the jazz world.

- He didn't say the Newark Crescent, said the Jersey Crescent, so I guess he's talking about just New Jersey in general, you know?

'Cause everybody thinks of New York as being the big, you know, Big Apple and all that.

But I mean, we got some things to be proud of, too.

[laughs] - Is also the home of quite a number of influential musicians.

For example, Sarah Vaughan, James Moody, Wayne Shorter, Betty Carter used to live in Newark.

- I think that it's been such a wonderful thing for WBGO to be connected with the city of Newark.

- Jazz was viewed as an important cultural dimension to the city of Newark.

Newark's history, insofar as the African American community was concerned, was closely linked to this American art form called jazz.

And we felt that it would be more than appropriate, it would be quite fitting to have the station adopt that as its primary means of communicating with the Newark community.

And because jazz is such an important piece of the American culture, we assumed that it would appeal not only to the Newark residents, not only to Newark residents, but to the broader community, and we were so right in that respect.

- [Staff Member] I heard that a license was gonna be acquired in New Jersey.

- [Staff Member] A bunch of people in Newark wanna put together New Jersey's first public radio station.

- [Rhonda] I really wanted to leave Boston.

I wanted to come back to New York, and that's when I found out about WBGO.

- [Bob] There was a lot of skeptics.

"You'll never be able to succeed there.

Jazz, you're gonna make it into an all jazz format?

That's never been done before in public broadcasting.

It can never happen, and worse than that, You're never gonna get the support of your listeners."

[calm jazz music] - [Dorthaan] When he started this, everybody said, "It can't be done.

It can't happen with a jazz station."

But Bob proved them wrong.

You're listening to WBGO 88.3 FM and WBGO.org.

[calm jazz music] - My connection with jazz really began with Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

A friend of mine said, "Well, why don't you come down to the Jazz Workshop?

There's an interesting guy playing there."

I said, "All right," Roland Kirk.

So I went down to hear Rahsaan at the Jazz Workshop on Boylston Street and was blown away by the power and the force and the creativity and the beauty of his music.

And my friend knew him a little bit, so we went back to the green room, and I was introduced to him.

And I said, "Mr. Kirk, I enjoyed your music very much."

And he was happy to hear that, and he asked me what I did.

And I said, "Oh, I work in radio."

He said, "Oh, really?"

He said, "You know, I've always wanted to do a radio show."

"You have?

Is there anything I can do to help?"

He said, "Well, I need to do a demo.

I have a concept."

I said, "Well, you can come up to our radio station.

I can't put you on the air, Mr. Kirk, but you can use the studio if you'd like."

So we wound up late at night, 2:00 am the next night at WCRB in the studio.

And he asked me, you know, I got a hold of some jazz records for him, and he picked out some, and he took 'em up, and he said to me, "Do you happen to have a recording of train sounds, like steam engine?"

[train horn tooting] - [Announcer] "Radio Free Rahsaan."

[train engine chugging] [bells dinging] - [Rahsaan] This is Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

I invite you to make a trip with us.

All aboard that's going aboard.

Those that's not going aboard, get a plane and miss out.

And I told the man that you don't know how it is to be free.

This is Rahsaan.

- That was his concept of taking you on a ride, and that's how we met.

Dorthaan was there.

I was going to my first public radio conference.

They used to have these annual conferences.

And so I, you know, we landed at O'Hare, and I got on the bus, and I'm sitting next to a guy who turned out was going to the same conference, and his name was Bob Ottenhoff.

So we got into a discussion and a talk, and he asked me what I did, and I said I worked for a classical radio station in Vermont.

"Oh, what do you do, Bob?"

"Oh, well, I'm thinking of starting a jazz station in Newark."

And I thought, "Wow, that's pretty exciting."

And he's starting it from scratch.

It wasn't on the air yet, and we kept in touch.

- Steve introduced me to Dorthaan, and the rest is history.

- Steve came down here from Boston, where he was living at the time, that's where he's from.

And Bob was living on Mount Prospect Street in Newark.

And we all met at the old Sparky J's, and Steve introduced me to Bob.

We ended up getting in the car, going to the Village Vanguard, I remember that.

We saw the Heath Brothers, and Bob told me the story.

And even though I knew absolutely nothing about public radio, how it worked, I didn't understand the magnitude of what Bob had done, which was getting the license transferred from the Board of Ed to Newark Public Radio, Inc. And so I just kind of trusted them, and my attitude was, "Well, if it works, fine, and if it doesn't, maybe something else will happen."

- When I think of WBGO, and I think of Dorthaan, and I think of Rahsaan, it's all a whole thing.

[calm jazz music] - [Walter] Your announcer, Walter L. Santner, this is WBGO Newark.

♪ If I had a hammer ♪ ♪ I'd hammer in the morning ♪ ♪ I'd hammer in the evening ♪ ♪ All over this land ♪ - WBGO was originally licensed to the Newark Board of Education, and the board was responsible for using it as a tool to train young people about how a radio station operates.

It was regarded as an unbelievable resource, but it wasn't being maximized.

- It was only on the air school days and then the rest of the time was off the air.

This seemed like a tragic waste of a resource for the city of Newark.

- It was determined that something needed to be done.

The Office of Newark Study was given the charge by the mayor to investigate possible alternative uses of the station.

And as a result of that, a study conducted by Bob Ottenhoff undertook a multi-year study to determine just what might be done to make it a much more effective and useful source of service to the Newark and the regional community.

- [STEVE] Leaders in Newark were afraid that this would be another asset that would move out to the suburbs.

- [Richard] The reason that fear existed was be cause WNET, the public TV station licensed to Newark, had been transferred to New York City several years earlier, and there was some concern that a similar situation might evolve in the instance of the radio station.

So the board had a legitimate concern.

- People were up in arms.

I understood it later.

And I remember being at this fish market and this guy, he came up to me, I had no idea what he was talking about, and said to me, "You all took WBGO away from us."

And I was just like stunned.

- Once the study was completed, it was my responsibility as the director of the office at that time to engage in a conversation with the mayor about the recommendation contained in the report, which was to establish something called Newark Public Radio, Inc., a nonprofit corporation that would serve as a parent, if you will, and the license holder for WBGO FM.

The board voted after extensive deliberations to do just that, and in 1977, the license was transferred, and the FCC awarded it to Newark Public Radio, Inc. Had he not been willing to encourage the board to agree to transferring the license, WBGO FM as we know it today would not exist.

- Newark was really a media desert.

It had lost a newspaper in 1970.

It had no radio stations.

There was not even cable television at that point.

So were we looking for ways to get homegrown media that could help to build a sense of community.

And we wanted to have a station that had a format that reflected the diversity of Newark and the diversity of the full metropolitan area, and there's no format that does that better than jazz.

Jazz is America's art form.

So not only did we wanna have a music form that reflected the diversity of the metropolitan area, we wanted to have a staff that reflected the diversity.

- New Jersey as a state and the community really needed broadcast outlets and media outlets that paid attention to the issues of the citizens of New Jersey.

- And then we also wanted to have a very strong news and public affairs element to it as well.

- You know, it was a transitional time.

It was 10 years since the racial strife that had gripped Newark and many other cities around the country.

There was still a recovery going on, and we really had a job to do to bring the issues to the people, to let the politicians say what they wanted to say or needed to say and let the community people have a chance to have their voices heard.

- It was a wonderful source, a vehicle that you communicate with people, and it helped the politicians.

- When I look at WBGO hosting a talk show, see, more than jazz, the four mayors in Newark, it made me almost come to tears.

- But building the station from the beginning, and it was important, I felt, and I know Bob felt and everybody else that we do news right.

We couldn't have it tainted.

We wanted to be a serious news operation that could contribute to the community and also contribute at the same time to National Public Radio.

I was very proud at being able to do stories for "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition," which I did on quite a regular basis.

- There were those who were skeptical about Newark.

"What, you're starting a radio station in Newark, only a decade after the riots?"

You know, good things can happen from Newark.

"I don't think this is gonna work."

Oh, I remember going in to talk to corporations and foundations, and they would go, "What, you're gonna start a radio station?

We don't need another radio station.

We already have a hundred radio stations.

And besides, you're a brand-new nonprofit running up against some of the media conglomerates of the world, so like, this is a crazy idea."

And then there were skeptics within public radio about jazz.

So Newark was looking for indications, for signs that it was rebuilding, that there were things that were positive, things that they could be proud about, and that's what we wanted to do with WBGO.

We made a decision early on with the station that we were not going to affiliated with another institution.

So in many public radio stations, they're owned by the public television station.

And we had the opportunity to merge with one of the local public television stations, and we chose not to.

We wanted the station to succeed or fail on our ability to provide programming that people think is so valuable they're willing to pay for it.

But ultimately, this decision to remain independent has made us stronger, has made us more responsive to our listeners.

[upbeat jazz music] I never doubted that we wouldn't do it.

We set goals for ourselves, and we had hurdles along the way, but I always saw them as temporary hurdles, temporary impediments on the long road to success.

So how do you go about starting a station from scratch in probably the media capital of the world?

So that was the challenge we had before us.

I began to look for a facility for the new WBGO headquarters, and I wanted it to be a place that was visible, that was accessible to the public, that became part of the heart of the downtown area.

Then we found a vacant building in Downtown Newark.

We said, "Look, we're starting this radio station.

We're not on the air yet.

We don't have any money.

We don't have listeners, but we'd like to buy your building."

And that's kind of, I guess, symbolic of how we did things at WBGO is we just knew it could happen, and we just broadcast.

And we kind of said, "Is there anybody out there?

Is there anybody who wants to listen to jazz?"

And people started to call.

It was really amazing.

And I'm convinced that jazz has the ability to go through the airwaves and find people wherever they are and draw them into our community, that there's a power behind jazz.

[lively jazz music] When the license was first transferred, we were still operating on the fourth floor of Central High School.

This was before we built our facilities on 54 Park Place.

And we also had a very limited staff.

So one of the things we did in an effort to fill some time and also to build some visibility was to broadcast Rutgers University basketball games.

Anybody can have great ideas, but it takes, it's a whole nother step to put it into reality.

In the case of WBGO, we had a small group of people who were charged with taking that great concept and actually implementing it, making it into a station that could work.

We're starting from scratch here.

We had no relationships with the record industry or the musicians for that matter.

We needed listener support since we were, had made the decision to rely primarily on listener support.

Steve Robinson came on board because he was an experienced development director and knew what we needed to do in terms of building and processes and procedures.

We needed to have someone who articulated the philosophy of our station and in particular the philosophy that we wanted to portray as a station that supported America's classical music.

Al Pryor, educated as a lawyer but with a deep sense of history and knowledge about music, became the excellent first music director and later program director for us.

We needed skilled announcers.

We were fortunate enough to attract people like Rhonda Hamilton, has a beautiful voice, has encyclopedic knowledge of jazz, has rapport with musicians, she's got it all.

We were fortunate enough to attract part of our initial team of announcers, people who not only had great radio voices but also had deep knowledge about the music.

We needed people who could provide the underlying productions techniques, 'cause we also wanted to be known as a station with quality in both the sound of our air but also out of our productions.

So people like George Achaves and Duke Markos played key roles for us in having that technical expertise and that knowledge about how to make good radio.

Maxing Biggs was one of our first employees as well.

Maxine played a critical role in helping us function properly as a productive and efficient organization.

Gil Abbey was the first engineer of WBGO, another key person behind the scenes.

He has to keep that transmitter going, has to keep all that equipment within the studio functioning properly.

When I talk about why WBGO succeeded, I say, "Well, it's really because of the volunteer work of thousands of people."

We had tens of thousands of people who made pledges, who took some of their hard-earned money and contributed it to WBGO even though they could listen to us for free.

- We couldn't have done it without the volunteers, 'cause it was just a handful of us.

And already we were stretched thin.

- When we do on-air fundraisers, we could not do it without our volunteers.

And many of the people who have volunteered to help us over the years have been with this for a long time, so they're part of the WBGO family as well.

- The call letters are WBGO originally, and Bob's name is Robert George Ottenhoff.

Go figure, somewhere we all know he was meant to do this because there are some coincidences, and sometimes there aren't.

- Bob Ottenhoff was the first general manager at WBGO.

He's the man more so than anyone else who got the station off the ground.

I loved the man because of what he did and the way he was able to hang in and survive all kinds of potential disasters in the early days.

He was wonderful.

- I quickly learned that his vision was the type of vision that would lead to something transformational, and it did.

- Bob taught me so much about just unbridled optimism.

People said, "You are out of your mind if you think you can start a jazz radio station with this little outlet that you have here."

You know, "It'll never work."

And he just had the determination and the tenacity, and it was infectious, so we all, we signed on.

I mean, I think a lot of it was, you know, had to do with his spirit.

- He threw caution to the wind.

You know, Bob's thing, he was a jazz fan, but Bob's professional background was in urban planning.

And so he approached the artistic from an urban planning perspective, and that's how you become deeply entrenched in the soul of a community.

- He was the force behind WBGO.

Were it not for Bob, we wouldn't exist.

I believe that it was his vision that led to the creation of WBGO as now the country's and the world's greatest jazz radio station.

- When Bob Ottenhoff first founded WBGO, being Bob, he had ideas that probably nobody knew but him.

So when Steve Robinson said to me the station was starting and he was recommending me, I was stunned because I knew nothing about radio.

- "You know, Bob, I'll give you another reason why Dorthaan would be a good person to hire.

You don't really have any standing in the jazz community, and there's nothing negative about that.

You're just, it's just not part of your scene.

You're not part of that scene.

You love jazz, but you're not in the scene.

Nobody knows you.

On the other hand, Dorthaan is a beloved figure in the whole jazz world because of her relationship with Rahsaan.

She traveled the world with him.

The musicians adored her and Rahsaan.

So if you hire her, you're gonna have instant credibility."

- So Dorthaan was one of the first people we brought into WBGO, and she was absolutely essential to our success.

She didn't know me.

She didn't know whether I could pull this off or not.

So we both had to take a leap of faith together.

I think we instantly hit it off.

We instantly trusted each other.

We instantly admired the other person's skills and commitment to what we were trying to do.

It was a partnership that turned out better and bigger than we either one of us ever could've imagined.

- I was married to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and he died in December of 1977.

And so that left me having no idea where my life was going.

WBGO gave me a whole new life when I had no idea where my life would be.

- And so Dorthaan became our chief diplomat, our chief ambassador to the music industry that she knew so well because of her husband Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

So Dorthaan also helped us with live concerts.

From the beginning, we did a lot of live concerts, first in our unbuilt studios and in the park across the street from WBGO.

We also did a lot of live concerts in New York City.

So we were, again, building up a library of exciting live music that Dorthaan really acted as the producer.

- I started there when the station was still physically located on the fourth floor of Central High School.

So Bob, he had hired Maxine Biggs.

I met her, we talked, and I was just kind of in.

One of the things I'm most proud of is the WBGO children's concert series that I produced on behalf of BGO.

It was a free concert series that took place on Saturdays in various venues in New Jersey.

It started out only in Newark.

And the mission was to introduce young people to jazz.

And so that series was great because grandpas, grandmas, parents, aunties, uncles, cousins, what have you, would bring the young people, and I would hire professional musicians.

And over the 25 years, there were young people who had grown up and had kids of their own and brought them to the program.

My role at WBGO with the musicians helped me to help them with more performances.

And in years to come, my hosting the brunches at NJPAC came probably out of that.

And never mind the 20 years that we're celebrating with Jazz Vespers at my church.

One of the other things I'm really proud of is the art galleries that we used to have at WBGO.

Exhibits would consist of artists who were painters as well as photographers.

The public was invited to come and view the artwork.

If they couldn't attend the reception, they could view the artwork during regular business hours.

So that gave a whole lot of artists an opportunity to have somewhere to exhibit the work.

So yep, there are quite a few things I was very proud of.

- She knows the musician's life.

She knows about being a jazz musician.

She knows about being a jazz musician's wife and widow.

So she is in empathy.

The musicians and Ms. Kirk are one.

It's like she is a musician to the musicians.

She's fair to them.

She doesn't try to say, "Okay, well, we know what your going rate is.

Can you do this gig for less than that?"

She knows about the economy.

There's that connection, that trust that a lot of people miss or a lot of promoters miss when interacting with musicians.

She respects the musicians because she knows what it's like.

- She has been our godmother in the jazz community.

She's always been looking out for us, always looking out for the younger musicians, the older musicians.

She's given opportunities to people like myself as a performer.

- Dorthaan has earned the title of Newark's First Lady of Jazz.

She has always been the liaison between the radio station and the broader Newark community, but between the radio station and the artists.

And so, again, she's somebody, you know, without whom WBGO would not be what it is today.

And again, she's somebody that we all love.

- Dorthaan Kirk is the soul of WBGO.

It's as simple as that.

When we were upstairs and we were on the air and you could see your breath, you could see your breath, that's how cold it was in the control room.

Nobody wanted to come by and do an interview, nobody.

But then we got heat, and then all of a sudden everybody wanted to come by.

But we had these, they're called salamanders, which they use 'em on construction sites.

And they look like torpedoes, and they shoot blasts of fire out the front of them.

And that's what heated BGO there in the wintertime for a while.

And then in the summertime, it would not be unusual to walk in the control room and see somebody doing their show in their underwear.

I mean, that's just the way it was.

I mean, it was those kinds of beginnings.

- Un-air conditioned, I don't believe the heating worked either.

I remember back then, we used to hate to do interviews because you couldn't, you know, we had a little table fan, and you couldn't keep that on during the interview, 'cause it would sound like a tornado on the microphones.

So during interviews, you had to sit there and sweat.

- It was tough in those years, you know, making sure the electricity stayed on, making sure our checks were good.

And Bob and the staff, we just believed in the product.

Well, the odds really were against us.

And in those early days as Bob Ottenhoff will be the first to tell you, because he was out on the front line, we were pretty close to the edge.

We would get our paychecks and run to the bank.

Bob always met the payroll, but it was pretty close.

I remember one day we were up on the second floor.

It was very dumpy, the dump actually up on the second floor.

And an electrician came in from the electric company, and he was very polite.

He said, "So where's your," you know, "where's the box with the electricity?"

I said, "Down in the basement.

Why are you asking?"

"Oh, I'm here to shut off the electricity."

[laughs] - It was not glamorous.

The physical space was kind of, you know, just some sheetrock thrown up.

I remember when we would have to do fund drives.

One of the microphones would be in a room that was, shared a wall with the bathroom.

So we were told, "Don't use the bathroom during the fund drive."

And invariably somebody would go and use it, in the bathroom, and flush, and you would hear it on the air.

And I remember once, you know, Steve Robinson in his quick wit said, "Oh, and there is a call from Flushing."

It was not glamorous, but you know, we all loved it.

- When we first started, we had zero records, and so our employees would bring in their personal collections from home.

- They didn't have a library, but they had us.

[laughs] They knew we were up the street.

And so Al Pryor, who was the program director at the time, came up with some others and talked to Dan Morgenstern.

And they made a deal basically to, we would supply them with recordings, even though our policy at the time was not to let our stuff go out.

But, you know, Dan was very forward-thinking about that, and he was willing to bend the rules, and we got something out of it as well.

And so they gave us a program, which we called "Jazz From the Archives."

- And Dan was the head of the institute when I was there.

And he was a well-known figure in the jazz world and an author, a great jazz historian.

And he often would come in to do the programs at WBGO.

- We helped them, they helped us, we helped each other, and I think that's what it's all about, cooperation.

- Yes, in the early days, we were a family because we had so little.

We all did everything, for an example, you know, clean.

We didn't have a cleaning person, clean the restroom, sweep the floor, whatever.

So it was just a handful of us.

So it wasn't about just doing what's your job and not helping somebody else.

So even during the week, we used to all go out to the clubs together, and we all relied on each other.

If we hadn't been, it wouldn't have worked.

- It was just an incredible opportunity, you know, to be a part of that, to have this sense that it was something that was creating itself, you know?

We had no idea what it was gonna be.

We never knew if we, again, never knew if we'd make it to the end of the month.

But now 40 years, I mean, back then, if you had said that to us, I mean, we would've laughed.

You have a group of human beings who come together to produce something, not merely for love of the capitalism, but because it actually means something.

[calm jazz music] We don't see that that often in this society.

- The love of this music kept us all together.

The naivete of radio and of accomplishing things kept us moving forward in an environment that otherwise, had we been a little too smart, we might've said, "Oh, I don't think that'll work."

We didn't know if it would work.

We just pressed ahead.

"Can you guys do 13 weeks live every Saturday night from a different jazz club and put it up on the satellite?

We'll distribute it in National Public Radio."

"Sure."

- We didn't know what a risk, we didn't know, I didn't.

'Cause we were having fun, and it looked like we were doing a good thing.

And a few people were listening to us and calling us, you know?

We had something.

It was meant to be.

When I talked to some of the people that were there early on, now we'll chuckle about some of the stuff we pulled off.

- [Announcer] Thanks, Leo, bye-bye.

- [Steve] We like to welcome everyone to the first annual WBGO Jazzathon.

We're ready to roll 24 hours of live, nonstop jazz at Fat Tuesday's.

- [Announcer] All the staff here at Fat Tuesday, and there's the music.

[lively jazz music] - Wherever there was jazz, we wanted there to be WBGO.

And so one of the ways we tried to do that was an annual 24-hour epic Jazzathon, where we would find a venue where people could hear great music, and at the same time, it would be a fundraiser for WBGO.

And Dorthaan and the on-air announcers were in charge of finding the personnel.

All of the artists volunteered their time.

- And you found an enormous number of people willing to contribute their time for these things.

It's kinda surprising, but that's something that's I think a little bit unique to jazz in the sense that musicians will volunteer their time for an event that seems to benefit the music in general.

- It worked, it worked big time!

We started broadcasting live.

We started the broadcast at midnight, and we had asked all these musicians to perform during certain times.

We did a 24-hour Jazzathon and had a line almost the whole time.

So that stands out in my mind because we wouldn't dare try that today.

- Having 24 hours of a live broadcast, you talk about pressure.

I mean, it is a nightmare because every musician had his own band.

And we're trying to keep this as a radio show as well so that people at home know what we're doing.

It was just crazy.

- [Announcer] Those of you who are listening over the air, but listen, it sounds even better, if you can believe it, live and in person here at the club.

- [Steve] We realize it's late.

It's 2:46, Turk Mauro is setting up.

We're getting the piano tuned up.

We have quite a few people here, and they're all, well, waiting very patiently for that first call.

Can we urge 'em on there?

- [Announcer] Yeah, I suggest that if you're in bed and you're listening to the radio, you get up out of the bed, walk to the telephone, and dial the number.

Steve, tell 'em what the number is.

- [Steve] Now, wait a minute, that could be asking a lot.

[group laughing] I mean.

[group cheering] [group applauding] [group laughing] - The Jazzathon was just an incredible undertaking.

And you know, we're in the jazz capital of the world.

We have access to all these incredible musicians.

They love the station.

They want to support us in any way, and we can do something really unique.

- We did Jazzathons for several years at different places, and they were all very successful.

[lively jazz music] - [Staff Member] The fundraisers were something that everybody was involved in.

- And we had to produce them in a way that was fun.

And we had to convince the listeners that we were having fun doing the pledge drive because we enjoyed talking to the listeners, and we enjoyed getting the phone calls, and I would interview the volunteers, "But what's your name?"

And you know, "Why are you giving your time to WBGO?

We're not getting paid.

Well, you took the train in from New York, why?"

And so these people could give a fresh reason to our listeners for giving, and so we had all kinds of production values, and we had a wild time, and we really let our hair down.

And I remember the day that I found out that the average pledge to WBGO was higher than the classical station in New York, the public radio station in New York.

And that was quite a moment for us because we realized we proved everybody wrong, number one.

We proved that WBGO could make it through listener support, and our listeners were as passionate as any classical station, and that was a big moment for us.

[calm jazz music] - One day I'll never forget is when I got a phone call from an announcer at a commercial jazz station called WRVR.

- [Announcer] WRVR plays some of the best music in town.

- At the time, WRVR had been on the air for several decades and was at one time the only full-time jazz station in the metropolitan area.

But it increasingly, it had gone through a couple of ownership changes and had increasingly become more commercial in its approach so that it was no longer just playing classical jazz.

So we saw a market opportunity for us to be the classical jazz station that would really play fundamentally sound jazz recordings.

And so when I got this phone call, she said, "We're being called into a staff meeting at 12 o'clock today," and at three minutes to 12, the station played the song "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," and at 12 o'clock it played the song- ♪ Are you ready for the country ♪ ♪ Are you ready for me ♪ And boom, just like that, that station went from being a jazz station to being a country and western station.

So we immediately call emergency meetings at WBGO and said, "This is an amazing turn of events."

And so again, we were all only a year-and-a-half old, still kind of struggling financially, but we made a decision that day that from then on, we would be 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we had not been so up until then, and that we would make sure that every story about this WRVR also included some mention of WBGO.

So every time someone says, "Full-time station in New York changing its format," it also said, "But there's another station, WBGO, which is 24-hours-a-day jazz."

[lively jazz music] - BGO was a pioneer in that, in the public broadcasting world, in that we were formatted.

Now, we played a variety of music within the classic jazz art form.

We went all the way from early music to mainstream to bebop, post-bop, even fusion.

- And this is where Al Pryor comes into it.

He brought this to the station, the idea that jazz is classical music.

He had met Max Roach, and Max would say, "This is music that should be given the same respect that we give Mozart, Beethoven.

This is classical music.

This is music that is serious and reflects people and their culture and should be given respect."

- You have to have the history of this music, but you need to know how it was made and from where it came from.

- What it represents is the power and energy of the people who withstood all that madness that gave rise to who we as African Americans are, so that in the end, what we have is music that represents the very finest of what humans are in many ways, because at our core, we are beautiful, expressive, soulful people.

- Jazz listeners and jazz musicians are extremely passionate about the music because it represents high art.

It's really a beautiful thing.

I think that everybody that's an American citizen, it's their birthright to know what jazz is about.

- Well, what I like to do, and it's a signature of what I do, whether it be R&B or blues and jazz, is to try and give a little context to the music, who's playing on it, you know, when was it recorded, where it was recorded.

But anything you can add as a little piece of information about the music may ring true to the listener.

- Commercial radio stations weren't presenting jazz the way that we were doing it, and so it was an experiment, and it was exciting, you know?

And one of the things that was exciting about it was that the musicians, when they discovered the radio station, they were excited that we were there, and they wanted to support us in every way that they possibly could because we were supporting them.

When I reminisce about WBGO and the experiences that I've had at the radio station, a lot of it is connected with the artists that I've had the opportunity to meet and talk with.

Abbey Lincoln is someone that I always think of fondly because I did a number of interviews with Abbey.

Did you always sing?

Was that, did that come very naturally to you?

- [Abbey] I sang the songs that I heard in church, hymns.

It wasn't until I got to high school that I heard songs that Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and people like that were singing.

And in the "Band Follies" in Kalamazoo, I sang "A Sunday Kind of Love" and "Stormy Weather" and "Don't Blame Me" the last year, what's the last one?

I listened to Sarah Vaughan, Ella, Billy, Lena, those are my influences.

- And one of the first interviews that I did with Abbey was when I went to her home, and I had the tape recorder, and we sat down and we had a lovely afternoon.

She was very forthcoming, and she did some of her poetry, and she sang a little bit, and she talked about her life, and it was just wonderful.

And I got ready to leave, and I listened to the tape, and it was nothing on the tape.

This was a learning experience, and she was very gracious, and we did it all over again.

And I'll never, you know, forget Abbey for doing that, for being so gracious.

So you start out, you're young, you don't always know what you're doing, but you know, I learned from that experience, and that certainly never happened again.

I would always, you know, check the tape.

But, you know, being able to speak with Abbey and a lot of the great artists.

I can't even remember all the interviews that I've done over the years, but that has been a wonderful thing to get to know a lot of the artists that I admired and whose music has touched me, who's meant so much to me.

That's been a wonderful experience about being a part of WBGO.

[lively jazz music] - I mean, there's been more than one musician, write a song about WBGO.

Wrote a tune called BGO because he loved the way the station made him feel, not as a musician, but as a listener.

[lively jazz music] - Because of where we are, we really do, I believe, have the bulk of the greatest musicians established, mid-career, and up and coming.

And WBGO has done such a masterful job at balancing the three to make sure all musicians from all across the spectrum get heard.

- I've been fortunate enough through WBGO to give musicians work and expose them to a different audience, and again, expose the audience to them.

- I know from the earliest days, WBGO was important to the musicians because we were a voice for jazz.

Dizzy Gillespie lived in New Jersey, and in his last days, he would call up WBGO and make requests.

And you can just imagine how touched the announcers were and how much they loved fulfilling requests from Dizzy Gillespie to hear music, to make him a little happier as he went out.

- WBGO has a huge impact on many levels.

The first thing is just the fact that it plays 24 hours a day this incredible music in all of its colors.

And that's a big deal because there's all kinds of sounds in jazz.

And it's a hundred, over a hundred years old with hundreds of innovators and thousands of players, thousands upon thousands, and of course, millions audience members.

- The very talented Matthew Whitaker had a special story done on him on "60 Minutes" on CBS.

And when I was watching that with my wife, Susan, I looked at her and I said, "You know something?

That young man has been listening to my radio station all of his life, and what an impact that has had on him.

Isn't that incredible that we can do something like that, not just for him, but for the literally hundreds of thousands of people who listen to this radio station every week?"

Not that those hundreds of thousands of people have the kind of talent Matthew Whitaker has, but WBGO has added something to their lives.

And that is probably the most rewarding aspect of being in public radio.

- The people that helped to start WBGO, they have contributed something to the art form that probably will never, ever happen again in the history of this country and the music again.

- Its impact transcends the region, even the nation.

BGO have always been perceived as a jewel in the cultural civic life of the city of Newark.

It has been a contributor to the re-forming of how Newark is perceived, quite frankly.

It's been an asset.

- That's their biggest contribution, keeping jazz alive 24 hours.

- [Rhonda] It's a global thing, and so we have been able to make that connection through the music with listeners all over the world, and that's a beautiful thing.

It just speaks to the power of jazz, how it can bring people together.

[lively jazz music] - So it's quite amazing that WBGO has been able to survive for 40 years, given all that's happened with the music industry, the media industry, and all the changes going on in society.

I think the next 40 years are going to be equally as challenging.

And the recipe for success, I believe, is on the one hand to cherish the old, to respect our traditions, to understand the history of jazz while at the same time having the flexibility and the creativity and the foresight to deal with the new realities of wherever the music and the media industries are going.

- As long as people continue to come to work in this radio station who love this music, who love jazz, then it will continue to grow, and it'll continue to thrive because that's why we are here, for the music, because of the music and because of the people who listen to it.

- [Dorthaan] They need to find a way to reach a younger audience.

Those young people listen to the upcoming young artists and enjoy them or buy into them.

Perhaps that will make them want to dig further and listen to some of the masters.

It's not going to be easy, but it's not impossible either.

- [Rhonda] I think we have to continue what we have been doing for the first 40 years, and that's to celebrate this great American art form, celebrate its history, those who have been important contributors to this music in the past and in the present and in the future.

People support this radio station because of the music, because they love jazz, and this is a place where they can come to learn about it and hear it whenever they want.

So as long as we continue to be the jazz radio station that we have been, we'll have another 40 years for sure.

- Bright moments to all of you, and it was a pleasure working with you and creating something that we had no idea would turn into what WBGO is today because it's worldwide.

♪ By moment, right now ♪ [calm jazz music]