ByGeorge! Online

Feb. 5, 2002

All That Jazz & More

GW's Radio Program Brings Tony Bennett to Foggy Bottom for a Live Broadcast Feb. 10; Hirschfeld Logo Unveiled

By Thomas Kohout

“GW Presents Capital Jazz,” the University’s five-month-old music and conversation radio program, kicks off the next phase of its development Feb. 10, when it airs a special three-hour live broadcast from the Marvin Center featuring special guest Tony Bennett.

The special broadcast is just one of many changes to hit the radio show in the new year. In January, the program added The Smithsonian Associates to its partnership that includes The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Duke Ellington School of the Arts, ClearChannel Communications, and GW. At the start of the year, ClearChannel offered an additional hour for the show. And just recently, the partnership unveiled an image designed by world renowned illustrator and devoted jazz enthusiast Al Hirschfeld to call attention to the radio program’s rapid success.

The weekly commercial-free broadcast hosted by Dick Golden on Sunday’s from 11 am–1 pm on WRC-AM 1260, will be produced from the studios of WRGW in the Marvin Center for the Feb. 10 special. During the show, music legend Bennett will make his first encore visit to the Foggy Bottom campus since receiving an honorary doctor of music degree at the 2001 Commencement ceremony. The staff of WRGW will lend its technical support for the broadcast and will simulcast it on its Web site (www.gwradio.com).

“It’s a marvelous concept,” says Golden, a veteran of more than 30 years on the radio dial, about the partnership. “When you think of these preeminent institutions having a forum where they all meet once a week and discuss something that’s relevant and dynamic and happening at these institutions.”

Most of the programs include the participation of two or three of the partners, including interviews and performances by students and faculty from GW and the Duke Ellington School, as well as archival performances from the Kennedy Center audio library.

Since its debut on Sept. 9, the show has featured programs devoted to the music of George Gershwin, Tony Bennett, Quincy Jones, and Johnny Mercer; the songs of New York; jazz in Hollywood; the Kennedy Center Honors; and rare interviews with Duke Ellington, W.C. Handy, and Ethel Waters — artists who contributed to the very rich history of traditional jazz, referred to as America’s classical music.

“In a way we’re trying to educate people,” explains Golden, about the goals of ‘Capital Jazz.’ “But you can’t be too didactic. The way you demonstrate this music is playing it and listening to it. I’m not a musicologist. I can’t explain the harmonics and the complexities. But you don’t have to know that. That’s the marvelous thing about it.”

At the start of the new year, having received such overwhelming responses for the broadcasts, representatives from ClearChannel Communications offered an additional hour. GW Vice President for Communications Michael Freedman and the partnership’s other members were quick to grab the extra time.

“From my vantage point it [the program] has been an embarrassment of riches,” says Golden, who also serves as the morning host and program director for WOCN-FM Ocean 104 in Hyannis, MA. “We started with 54 minutes, three minutes of news from CNN at the top of the hour,” says Golden. Now with an additional hour at his disposal, Golden’s excitement is brimming. “The longer the time you have, the more you can incorporate the music. What makes it so difficult is that you want to balance the music and the talk.”

The partnership also unveiled a new identity that matches the goals of the radio show, as well as helping to get the word out about the show.
“This is an evolutionary process,” says Freedman. “The show is growing almost every week and we wanted something that would speak in a very eloquent and classy way to what our goals are for this project. I think that Al Hirschfeld, at 98 years old, has hit a bullseye in the creation of this visual image for ‘Capital Jazz.’ ”

The illustration is a representation of Louis Armstrong’s first horn, a coronet that he was given to play when he was a resident of the Colored Waifs’ Home in New Orleans. The drawing comes complete with Hirschfeld’s trademark “Nina’s.” Perhaps the world’s preeminent caricaturist, Hirschfeld has hidden his daughter’s name, Nina, in each of his illustrations since her birth. The number adjacent to his signature refers to the number of “Nina’s” in the drawing. As a special gift to the University, Hirschfeld also inserted a pair of “GWU’s” in the horn.

“It’s a lot of fun when we show the horn to people,” says Freedman. “They see the ‘Nina’s’ first and then they see the ‘GWU’s’ in there. This is really an historic Hirschfeld drawing.

“This is just about the most enjoyable project anyone could be involved in,” Freedman says beaming. “It allows you to enjoy listening to the radio. I may start listening to it with half an hear while reading The New York Times or The Washington Post, but after a few minutes, I put the paper down and pay full attention to the show. It’s that kind of a show, and that’s very special and very unique in the market. I think we have created that through this partnership. Thanks in large part to Dick Golden and the support of President Trachtenberg, something very special both for the community and for GW has been born.”

 

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