January 18, 2007

By Virgil Hervey

Evidence that WYSO General Manager Paul Maassen’s quiet community-building effort is bearing fruit became public last Tuesday night with the reappearance of Dave Barber’s locally hosted show, “Jazz Night.” Barber and several other local jazz hosts had been victims of former general manager Steve Spencer’s decision, in February 2002, to significantly cut the station’s volunteer-hosted programming and replace it with nationally syndicated programming.

That move sparked several years of controversy surrounding Spencer and the station, during which some popular WYSO employees left their jobs or were pushed out, station finances suffered from declining membership, and many longtime WYSO supporters became alienated from the station.

But Maassen, in the manager job a year and a half, has made progress in repairing the damage between WYSO and its listening community, and the return of Barber seems a good sign, according to several WYSO activists in recent interviews.

“Maassen has been a big improvement,” said local music teacher and jazz pianist Larry Halpern, who has been active in Keep WYSO Local (KWL). Halpern pointed to the community forums Maassen instituted to improve the station’s relationship with the community. However, he remains concerned that WYSO is still too dependent on NPR programming.

Halpern became involved with Keep WYSO Local shortly after it was formed in 2002 as a regional effort to restore volunteer-hosted programs and to reinstate popular WYSO volunteer hosts who had left or been let go. His involvement was out of concern not only for the loss of jazz music programming for himself, but for the loss of its exposure to the public, he said.

Halpern sees the station moving in a positive direction, using more volunteers and more volunteer-hosted programs, which, although local, for the most part are not the same shows that were cancelled in 2002. As a result, KWL has been in a wait-and-see posture since Maassen’s arrival in the summer of 2005.

KWL is no longer in an adversarial role with the station, Halpern said. “It‘s more like an independent group.”

Steve Schwerner, another former jazz host whose show was cancelled in 2002, has been involved with radio at Antioch since hosting a student show between 1955 and 1960. He feels that Maassen is trying to rebuild the station, he said, and is glad that Barber is back with his show and willing to help any way he can.

According to Barber, he was invited back to the station a couple months ago to fill a one-hour Sunday afternoon jazz spot that had been vacated when host Noah Bellamy left to take a teaching position in Florida.

Barber wasn’t really interested in doing anything beyond the Sunday gig, he said, but he was approached around the holidays about filling a two-hour Tuesday evening slot that was being similarly vacated by host Sean Harding.

“I thought the music could stand the exposure,” Barber said. “It would also allow me to share a luxuriously large music collection.”

At the time that his show was cancelled in 2002, Barber had had a long history of volunteering at WYSO, having hosted weekly shows since 1977. According to Barber, public radio was the destination if you wanted to learn about the kind of music that was off the beaten track.

Asked about the future of local volunteer programming at WYSO, Barber said, “I do think there has been a commitment to putting locally hosted music shows back in the mix. I’m curious myself about who’s out there listening at this point.”

For his part, in a recent interview -Maassen continued to play his cards close to his chest when asked about reversals of Spencer’s programming policies.

“Dave does a great job. I am looking forward to having him,” he said.

Another KWL member, Andy Valeri of Dayton, would like to see reinstatement of all the volunteer hosts who were let go and a makeover of the WYSO Resource Board to include more diversity.

Local artist and co-owner of the Shirley/Jones Gallery Michael Jones, who had been a vocal critic of Spencer, said in a recent interview, “Maassen is doing some important things in bringing sanity back to the station internally and externally. Their return to jazz programming makes a great deal of sense. Jazz is this country’s contribution to the arena of classical music.”

Given African-American contributions to the music and Antioch College’s historical connection to the civil rights movement, Jones said he feels it’s appropriate that jazz programming should herald a return of the locally hosted shows that were lost.

“With institutional memory, history and roles are often forgotten,” he said. “Maassen can reclaim the institutional memory.”

Contact: vhervey@ysnews.com