Blues for M.F.

The LP "Soul Battle" was released on Prestige records in 1961, matrix (7223). It lands on Track 2, Side A. It featured three tenor sax players King Curtis, Oliver Nelson, and Jimmy Forest, Roy Haynes pick up drum duties, Gene Casey and George Duvivier sound out the session on piano and bass respectively. The John Handy Quartet covered it in 1962 for Roulette records with a burning bebop infused solo, which is what first brought it to my attention. For years I had assumed that MF stood for motherfucker, but the original Soul Battle LP spells out in parentheses that the M.F. stands for Mort Fega. The back of the LP spends a mere 26 lines describing the song, So I'll quote a bit of that as it's relevant to our story here.

"Blues for M.F. is a tone poem with a fine set of altered blues changes which lend themselves to distinguished soloing by all three of the reed men. The tune certainly captures the intensity, the sincerity, and the quiet humor which have made Mort Fega one of the nations most popular jazz announcers..."

The song is an exploration of a blues scale replete with flatted thirds, but woth a very steady meter to provide a platform to hold all nine minutes and thirty seconds of soulful sax solos. Each is worldessly singing the praises of Mort Fega who was at the peak of his career at the time. Unusually this wasn't even the first Jazz tune dedicated to Mr. Fega. In 1959 The Red Garland Trio Plus Ray Baretto recorded Manteca for Prestige (7139). Donald Fagen testified in a 2006 obituary for the man that the song was played on Fega's show regularly

"I looked forward to Mort’s between-track commentary as much as to the music itself. With Red Garland’s “Mort’s Report” playing softly in the background, Mort, with the grace and enthusiasm that reveals itself only in the most bona-fide jazz lover, would carefully list every soloist and sideman."

It was the New York jazz scene that brought all these people together. Red Garland moved to New York from Dallas in 1946. Oliver Nelson went to College in St. Louis, but moved to New York in 1958 after graduating. King Curtis was from Ft. Worth and moved to New York to become a session musician in 1952, and both George Duvivier and Ray Barretto were a native New Yorkers. These jazzmen all undoubtedly listened to Faga and knew his as a mover in the jazz biz. You couldn't be a jazz head in in New York and not know 1330 WEVD-AM in the 1960s.

Mort Fega, was from New Rochelle, NY which is where he had his first show at 1460 WNRC-AM on Saturday afternoons. New Rochelle was New York City suburb, so it's signal reached parts of New York City. The popularity of that show grew such that in 1962 he was able to jump to WEVD and launch a  "Jazz Unlimited" which aired six nights a week simulcast on 97.9 WEVD-FM. His show aired opposite Symphony Sid Torin, but by the 1960s Sid was old hat. While he was a His hep cat jazz delivery was decades old.  Fega was all about modern jazz he pushed artists like Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk alongside jazz classics.

Fega left WEVD in 1966, and continued broadcasting jazz from WBAI, WRFM, and WTFM in New York City. His departure from WEVD is a bit mysterious but he debuted on WRFM in June of 1965 while he was still on WEVD and Cue Magazine lists him in January of 1966 already hosting Jazz in Stereo on WTFM. In August of 1965 Billboard specifically spells out that on his new station that Fega beat out Sid for the top spot.  Then he showed up on WBAI in June of 1966 with a Friday night program.

The quick shuffling around the dial came to an end three years later when in 1969 Fega and his wife Muriel relocated to Phoenix where he quickly got a radio show on 1400 KXIV-AM named simply "Night." That program continued midnight to 4:00 AM six nights a week until at least 1974. He moved to Connecticut in 1976 and started a program that aired twice a week, one on Saturday afternoons and one Tuesday evenings on college radio station 91.3 WWUH. He then added on a program at 1230 WINF-AM in Manchester and in 1979 a Sunday morning program on 1550 WMLB-AM in West Hartford.

Then finally the workaholic jazz man retired to Delray Beach, FL in 1986.  But the itch came back and he picked up a weekly show on 90.7 WXEL-FM. It was only once a week but it was five hours long! He also taught a History of Jazz course at Palm Beach Community College and wrote a weekly column for the Palm Beach Post newspaper. Mort Fega died on Jan. 21st 2005 due to complications from a recent back surgery. He was 83.

Bebop Hits The Radio

I like Jazz, but I have a particular soft spot for Bebop. As a genre, it was short-lived starting with Coleman Hawkins highlights in the early 1940s and petering out into novel but less atonal work by Sonny Stitt and his peers. Around 1948, at the relative peak of the genre it made the leap to radio— in all it's atonal improvisational glory.

In the book Why Jazz Happened  author Marc Myers quotes Walter Gil Fuller describing how not just jazz but Bebop specially made it into the popular culture.

"The first promoters to successfully present 'bop' were Monte Kay, who produced the nightly concerts here at the Royal Roost, and Symphony Sid, the WMCA all-night disc jockey. In 1945 they sponsored the concert debut of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie at Town Hall and since then have been active in presentation and promotion of be-bop in New York.  Several other disc jockeys have been instrumental in bringing the music to a wider audience: Fred Robbins and Bill Williams of WOV, Leonard Feather of WHN, Willie Bryant and Ray Carroll of WHOM, Jerry Roberts and Bill Cook of WAAT, Woody Woodard of WLIB, and Dan Burley and Fred Barr of WWRL..."

This is your short list of makers and shakers in jazz circa 1950. I've written about a few of them before, namely Symphony Sid, Willie Bryant and Ray Carroll, and Fred Robbins. Those are certainly the bigger of the few names on that short list. Leonard Feather is also famed but more for his jazz writing at this date.Those other names you don't recognizance are all still worth knowing. Bill Cook was actually mentioned in Philip Roth's book, American Pastoral.

"...Bill Cook, the smooth late-night Negro disc jockey of the Jersey station WAAT. Musical Caravan, Bill Cook's show, I ordinarily listened to in my darkened bedroom on Saturday nights. The opening theme was Ellington's "Caravan," very exotic, very sophisticated, Afro-Oriental rhythms, a belly-dancing beat..."

That's all true actually.  William B. Helmreich even re-quotes some of the same passage in his book, The Enduring Community: The Jews of Newark and MetroWest, making the connection between a major Jewish population center and black culture. Cook was actually popular enough he later had a program on WATV-TV called Stairway to Stardom. He started on WAAT-AM in 1947, in 1951 just 3 years later The New York age magazine was claiming that Cook had been the first black DJ in the New York metro. Around the same time in 1948 Jerry Roberts was doing a new midnight show at WAAT titled Top Flight Time. But they were both jazz men on the same station, Roberts often filled in for Cook when he was out. Though Cook was more popular, Roberts has been on WAAT since 1942 hosting his own program Swing Shift.

In 1948 Ebony magazine listed off what they claimed were the only 16 black DJs in America. (This website claims they missed one) On that list was Woody Woodard of WLIB-AM.  But Ebony also claimed in 1986 that Woodard was New York's only Black DJ in 1946!  That certainly predates Cook. In 1947 radio guides show him on a 7:00 AM news program on WLIB so I'll call it at least plausible. Above you can see a picture of two Girl Scouts present an award to Woody Woodard at WLIB in 1947.

Dan Burley wasn't just a DJ, he literally wrote the book on hipsterdom, the Original Handbook of Harlem Jive, published in 1944. He wrote for the Amsterdam News, New York Age, Jet Magazine, and Ebony. It was news when WWRL hired him to do a radio program, the Skiffle Club, in 1947. Then in 1948 he crossed the street to WLIB. But he was out of radio and back to writing by 1949. Also interesting to note he helped propel the Skiffle craze in the UK with his band "Dan Burley and his Skiffle Boys."

PD Fred Bar and SM Edith Dick ran WWRL, they wooed Hal Jackson to the station which is notable enough. But they also brought in Tommy Smalls aka Dr., Jive and many others. In 1946 after Fred returned from WWI and a 31 months at AFRS he started moving in some jazz programming. But he himself was never a jazz DJ.  Fred Barr hosted Gospel Time on WWRL from about 1958 through at least 1964. His connection to bebop was more like Monte Kay's. Without jazz men on both sides of the equation— both events and media, bebop wouldn't have prospered as it did.

Interracial Host and Co-Host

I came across a quote from Ahmet Ertgun that sent me thumbing through my radio history books for attribution:

"The hot show in New York in those days - the two hot shows - were Willie and Ray - Willie Bryant and Ray Carroll, and the Symphony Sid Show..."

The quote was in the context of Alan Freed but of the other two shows mentioned I only knew one. Symphony Sid was Sid Torin. But who were Willie and Ray? Ray Carroll was the first white DJ to co-host a program with a black DJ. He started out co-hosting with another white jazz man Symphony Sid on WMCA. I think ray was at WWRL prior to that.  Ray and Sid paired up for just a year in 1947.  Bryant was already the emcee at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem which is how he got his nickname. He appeared in a couple films. In 1946, CBS hired him as the first black host of a network radio program, "Night Life. By then Ray Carroll was already on WMCA with Sid. Sid Hired Bryant to flip records.  Ray and Willie started their program together that February and stayed at it for 6 years on 1480 WHOM-AM. In 1952 they added a second program together on WOV. Sometimes it aired live from Birdland.

Willie Bryant was born in New Orleans and raised in Chicago. He did vaudeville tours tap dancing with the Whitman Sisters, and later the Chocolate Revue with Bessie Smith. He played the Shim Sham Club in Harlem with Leonard Reed where they invented the dance, the Shim Sham. In 1934 he put together his first band, The Wilie Bryant Orchestra. Between 1935 and 1938 they cut 26 sides mostly for Victor and Bluebird. They were truly excellent. Give it a listen here. 

Their program was cancelled in April of 1954 by the VP of WHOM, Charles Bolton. Bryant said it was the first time he'd been booted from a job in 30 years. He described the firing as political. Bolton denied it but he was the same guy that later that month very publicly "banned" some slightly risque songs from the station playlist. At the time WHOM was actively pursuing a license from the FCC for UHF TV license. They had first applied for channel 31 in 1952. They abandoned in in April 1954. Maybe Bolton was feeling some pressure about his Interracial program? Maybe it was because Alan Freed had just hit town and White DJs playing R&B were just safer.

Ray just went back to WMCA and was hosting an R&B program, "Night Watch" by May of 1954. Like any career his had peaked, he'd already been in radio 20 years. In 1957 he moved to WICC-AM in Bridgeport, CT to host a morning program. By the early 1970s he was hosting an interview program called "Sounding Board" on 1450 WNAB-AM in Bridgeport, CT. Bryant tried to move into television he was already negotiating terms but it wasn't until 1949 his program debuted. He hosted "Uptown Jubilee" a Tuesday night black variety show on CBS-TV.  It was short-lived. In 195, he got another network radio show, ABC's "Rhythm on Radio. He bought a bar in the Bronx. None of that lasted either. He moved to California and did a little more radio on KSAN and KALI. He died in 1964. More here.

Symphony Sid

Symphony Sid was the man that brought bebop to the masses. We don't know for sure how Sidney Tarnopol became known as Symphony Sid. In that era, it was common for immigrants to shorten or modify their surnames to make them sound less "ethnic."  That's how Sid Tarnopol became Torin. But that doesn't answer the question at all. One story says that he worked at a record store, the "Symphony Shop." I can find no record of any such retailer. Another version claims that it came with a rhyming introduction by announcer Walter Tolmes. The most believable version is that it came from the classical program he DJ'd on his first radio gig at 1380 WBNX-AM.More here.

Sid was born in 1909, in New York City. and grew up in Brooklyn. And that's where he made his debut in radio as a Jazz DJ on WBNX in the Bronx. He was already using the name Sidney Torin.  More here and here. I can't find a starting year, but generally I assume it to be around 1931, to fit the rest of his timeline. It is often written that he also worked at WBMS-AM, whose calls did reside in New york in this era, but that station was absorbed by 1450 WHOM-AM in 1933. The calls moved to Boston, as did Mr Torin later on, not until 1951, and took a job at another jazz station, 1090 WBMS. He didn't return to New York until 1956.

By 1937 on WBNX he was hosting a jazz show, his "After School Swing Session."  By 1940 he was also DJingat WHOM for his "After-Hours Swing Session.".  He followed that with overnight shifts at WMCA and WJZ . On WMCA it was an all night jazz show "the royal Roost" on WMCA around 1948.  That graveyard shift at WJZ was "Jumpin' With Symphony Sid." Somewhere in there he also was on WWRL. He was already the best known jazz DJ in New York. They even started wring songs about him. In 1947, Arnett Cobb recorded "Walkin' With Sid" on Apollo records. In 1952 King Pleasure recorded "Jumpin' With Symphony Sid" on the Prestige label. The George Shearing Quartet recorded it the next year for MCA, but so had Charlie Parker and Sonny Stitt.

In Boston he ruled the airwaves on WBMS and also did a turn or two at WCOP. He came back a few years later and landed at WOV, hosting the Birdland Jazz show.  He stayed for just a year, giving up the mic to B. Mitchell Reed in 1956 (probably). She spent the next year at WEVD, spinning salsa. He later moved to WADO-AM, still spinning jazz, he stayed there until 1964 when the station first went to an all-Spanish format. It was a shame they didn't keep him on.  the jazz community gave him a lot of flak for shunning jazz at WEVD, he eventually added jazz to the last hour of his program. He retired in 1970 to the Florida keys, and in 1976, briefly un-retired to do shifts on a Miami jazz FM station, 93.9 WBUS.. that today we call WMIA. He died on September 14th, 1984.