Two Pet Peeves: Garrulous Radio Hosts and Emcees

[Ken Dryden]

I was just attempting to listen to a vintage broadcast of Horace Silver at the 1994 Perugia Jazz Festival and the idiot who was the radio host consistently talked over Silver's remarks and the start of every song and also felt the need to interrupt Silver's solo in the first song with his babble. Was he told to do so or did he feel the need to share his unique knowledge of Silver's music? 

The same issue came up every year that we aired the Montreux Detroit Jazz Festival on Labor Day weekend. When the top of the hour was reached, the co-hosts started jabbering at length about nothing important, even though the artists were still performing, this seemed to happen every set, even during the night's headline act. This must have been an executive decision from above, as I can't believe that any jazz fan who worked in radio would feel the need to talk over a live broadcast. On the other hand, I never noticed that problem when we aired the Chicago Jazz Festival, people waited for sets to end to talk.

I have the same feeling about emcees, the less said, the better, get off the stage, nobody came to hear you.

In the late 1980s I witnessed a hapless emcee who was not with our station (we were Jazz 88 then) take so long to introduce Ahmad Jamal that the pianist finally took the stage and started playing and the clueless guy was still talking into the mike.

I've emceed a few local shows and I try to keep my remarks brief, thanking sponsors, sharing house rules about not recording, turning off cellphones, etc. I try to take no more than 30 seconds to do so, less if at all possible.

I'd love to hear some of your horror stories about bad radio hosts and emcees.

 

 

[JSngry]

"Garrulous", there's a word for the list!

[Ken Dryden]

I emceed a show featuring Sun Ta and His Arkestra. There wasn’t a free microphone so they loaned me June Tyson’s mike and the moment that I finished my brief introduction the band started playing as I frantically tried to put the mike back into its stand and get the hell off of the stage.