S,C&M came on a bit later after The Other SIde of Brother Ralph left the airwaves in the Saturday night 10pm -midnight slot. var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; In 1983, just short of his thirtieth anniversary, the station dropped him permanently. Another friend who really blossomed as a personality on the WPFW airwaves was Nap Turner. In 1990 new owners decided Bill Evans did not mix with Beethoven and dropped jazz. The human family is pissed.. WGTB evolved into a free-form underground rock station while maintaining much of its jazz programming. addy68494 = addy68494 + 'wpfw' + '.' + 'org'; In the early days, it was a cauldron, says WPFWs news director, Askia Muhammad, whos had several stints on staff and was an early programmer. Also, Miyuki will be talking with trombonist Craig Harris about the upcoming Baraka celebration. var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; Thanks for the shout out and keep the music flowing, good sir. As the staffer responsible for enforcing programming standards, Daughtry reported his own infraction. It may have sounded crazy and desperatebut to many of the programmers of WPFW, so was the state in which they now found the station. Blakkat, Mark Bell. Jazz programming benefited from this shift. Privacy Policy Whoops! Porter thinks the stations been going downhill since 1993, and sees little hope; staffers like Stitt, Minott and Muhammad think it can thrive with limited corporate underwriting; everyone wants more transparency and dialogue. document.getElementById('cloak39617').innerHTML += ''+addy_text39617+'<\/a>'; I was so addicted to PFW that I started listening 24/7, started volunteering phone duty and pledging my financial support. //--> . Worried that the anti-Pacifica invective could turn obscene or libelous, Watson had engineer Bob Daughtry instruct techs at WPFWs transmitter at American University to pull the plug. The 1990s were PFWs best years. It is undoubtedly the best show for jazz up through 1945 in the country. Like Washington City Paper, which also has its office in the building, the stations lease is up at the end of December. About this time Ron Sutton introduced me to his neighbor, Jerry Washington, who had retired from the Air Force and was currently working for the United Planning Organization. Another programmer on the station was a Georgetown student named Ken Steiner, who got hooked on jazz while attending a Duke Ellington concert on campus and later became an Ellington scholar. I dont play the heartbreak stuff so much, she said. Cool. But the on-air relationship and the stories were made up. Students at Howard University struck for the inclusion of Black Studies in the Eurocentric curriculum and jazz in the music program, where Donald Byrd would become its first director. This comprehensive, searchable directory covers Just a little bit, but enough.) The next day, Hughes told staff that the programs WPFW planned to buy from NPR and PRITell Me More, The Tavis Smiley Show, Smiley and West, and the news program The Takeawaywere back on the shelf until a new programming director was in place. In the coming days, several shows on WPFW will broadcast tributes to Belafonte. The first announcers were Faunee Williams, who hosted the morning drive-time show, and Gwen Redding, who was heard in the afternoon. var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; Vince Evans, Wes Biles, Jeff Neal, Lyle link and Dave Cole. WGTB evolved into a free-form underground rock station while maintaining much of its jazz programming. Many of the stations in-house talk programs, like In Our Voices and DC Politics, kept their once-a-week slots, while others are gone. Miyuki M Williams Age 60s | Washington, DC View Full Report Phone | Current Address | Public Records | Criminal Records Top Result for Miyuki Williams in Washington, DC 1 The best result we found for your search is Miyuki M Williams age 60s in Washington, DC in the Pleasant Plains neighborhood. community.". I had been offered the slot but opted to continue my weekly show, now called Jazz Sunday. miyuki williams (@miyuki_williams) / Twitter Williams has several favorite jazz artists. var addy_text25885 = 'membership' + '@' + 'wpfw' + '.' + 'org'; The day. This essay appears as part of Rewind: The Roots of Public Media, Currents series of commentaries about the history of public media. Jazz was politics; politics was jazz. He got his start in broadcasting as a student at Georgetown University on WGTB before my arrival. Baseball To the dissenting programmers, the schedule changes represent a betrayal of the stations mission as a progressive, even radical, alternative to mainstream radio and a preserver of jazz, one which particularly serves the D.C. areas black residents. Wpfw: Employee Directory | ZoomInfo.com The daily blues show at noon survived the changes, and an hour of jazz has been inserted in the afternoon. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. //--> Required fields are marked *. Thanks for this very detailed look at one of the most fertile radio markets in the country at that time. His suggestion that WPFW embrace its niche audience and invest in event programming is solid advice and exactly what on-air hosts Miyuki Williams and Robyn Holden have been urging station management to do. For the stations audience, some of WPFWs personalities became legendary: There was Martin, whose Caribbean programa hybrid of news and musicled the way for a diverse lineup of Haitian, Jamaican, Afrobeat, and Latin shows. Von Martin, Charlie D. I miss D Gator, Nap, Ambrose I Lane, Hodari, Gloria Minnot and so many others. But changes with programmers and talk shows started changing at PFW in a way that was confusing to many listeners. Some of the music was headier and harder than the handful of other local jazz stations. District Line Daily: Our news, politics, arts, food, and sports coverage in one email every weekday. If you think that it's important to have high quality local reporting we hope you'll support our work with a monthly contribution. Coronavirus, Carry-out Critic Sometimes he read on air from the Simple stories by Langston Hughes, and his acting ability came through in the voices he used in portraying Jesse B. Semple. Her father, who was African-American, met Williams mother in Yokohama, Japan, and they married there in 1955. While WPFWs new programming is simpler to comprehend, perhaps less jarring from program to program, its also less diverseno Haitian show, no Brazilian show, no feminist show. Miyuki Williams, one of the stations more prolific fundraisers, said last weekend on her Sunday Kind of Love program that while she was grateful for the extra hour she now has each week, she wished it hadnt been at the expense of some of the stations Sunday-night Latin music programming. Thies asked Hughes to respond to Yates article. A part of WPFW died over the weekend By Clinton Yates December 3, 2012 When I left WPFW (89.3 FM) as an on-air volunteer nearly two years ago, it was because I was dreading this day. It sponsored jazz cruises where Jazz90 listeners could hear Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Clark Terry, Jay McShann, Benny Carter, and Phil Woods, and it cosponsored performances by Wynton Marsalis at Lorton and the DC Youth Center to enable the incarcerated to hear great music. Photo courtesy of Miyuki Williams. He says WPFW pulls in a weekly cumulative audience of about 140,000 to 150,000 listeners, a drop from its peak in the 2000s. Young & Hungry Downloads are convenient, but background and appreciation for the music is lacking. He eventually returned to WPFW, where hed been a programmer and a staffer beginning in the 1980s, and eventually became interim programming director. It was a station for a majority black city newly empowered to run itself; it was thoroughly ideological, coming just after the civil rights and anti-war generations; it was a station for black thought and black music and the highest intellectual aspirations of both; it was a space for ideas and anxietiesnutty ones, maybe, to the radio-dial wanderershut out of the mainstream. Voiron Distribution Automobile - Voiron, Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes Amina Claudine Myers, Plowed Fields, Tom Porter, Jazz and Justice: The jazz aficionado hosts "A Sunday Kind of Love" at noon on Sundays on WPFW 89.3 FM. W. Royal Stokes, a freelance writer for the Washington Post, had two shows. No one person, be it John [Hughes], should be able to damage something thats this important to the community, said Porter. Then they can be expected to teach the next generation their expertise, share their craft and preserve the culture. Jerry Washington and his wife remained together until her passing, and he missed her terribly as a widower. DC Black Fathers Matter Project. addy49599 = addy49599 + 'wpfw' + '.' + 'org'; Now, a faction of supporters is petitioning Pacifica to fire Hughes, who must implement his changes, move the station, win back the confidence of his volunteer and paid staffs, and convince listeners that WPFW deserves their money, even though no ones sure what the stations schedule will look like in a few weeks. Local Dining Guide, City Lights DC. The Bama Hour was so popular that WPFW gave him another show featuring jazz on Sunday afternoons called The Other Side of the Bama. As opposition to the new grid mounted last week, Martin says Hughes called him and asked him to stay at Saturdayfor two hours, not three. Music served a conscious-raising purpose. I remember being nervous, but I soon overcame my natural shyness as I began to share my love of jazz and introduce others to the music as I had been by Symphony Sid and Mort Fega. By then WAMU had begun to cut back jazz programming. She remembers listening for the first time to vibraphonist-band leader Lionel Hampton and singers Dinah Washington, Roy Hamilton and Frank Sinatra, among others. The series is created in partnership with the Radio Preservation Task Force, an initiative of the Library of Congress. WPFWs founders were five years into their struggle to get on the air when D.C. gained home rule in 1973, and their station shared the eras DNA. On Nov. 30, a few hours after General Manager John Hughes used a previously scheduled appearance on the air to defend the changeshe also apologized for the impolitic rolloutthat discontent spilled into the streets, with about a dozen programmers and listeners gathering outside to find out what, exactly, was happening to their station. Shaboom Records. I was soon asked to become a substitute host on WPFW, filling in for such programmers as Rick Bolling and Guy Middleton. May Pledge Drive | The People For WPFW Mwiza Munthali 49. WPFW Listen Live - 89.3 MHz FM, Washington, United States | Online This ones my complaint: You cant remain a station serving underserved communities, as WPFW professes to do, if your programming mostly reflects the whims of your more monied listeners. Our Staff A 2008 programming update, the first since 1994, added slightly more jazz as the format slowly disappeared from other stations on D.C.s airwaves. document.getElementById('cloak49599').innerHTML = ''; At home later, youre cooking dinnerbut there isnt just one station that fits however you identify. The Beacons award-winning content covers health, financial, technology, housing, travel and arts topics, as well as local events and feature stories. Tom Porter, the host of Jazz and Justice, got the call a night before his final Monday-afternoon program. Liz at Large He eventually returned to WPFW, where he'd been a programmer and a staffer beginning in the 1980s, and eventually became interim programming director. addy39617 = addy39617 + 'wpfw' + '.' + 'org'; Everyone agrees that WPFWPFW to its most loyal listenershas to change. You tune into WAMU, or WTOP, or WOL, or WNEW for news on your morning drive. Then He Tested Positive for COVID. WPFW was kind of like D.C. And Pacifica was its Congress, with 1993 its control board era. Hughes, who is 61, has insisted in interviews and on the air that his proposed changes arent just in keeping with the stations progressive, alternative ethos; theyre about rescuing it. Not too long after the show, Askia Muhammad from WPFW told me how much he learned from the interview. Hockey One afternoon during my junior year I was drinking beer with friends when I noticed another student holding some jazz albums. Hughes says research by the Radio Research Consortium shows its largely over 55. The charge of gentrification is so off-base, Hughes said, redirecting course. WPFW has seen a corresponding drop in fundraising, Hughes says, leading to several years of offandon six-figure deficits on its operating budget of $1.6 to $1.8 million. By 1980 Paul Anthony was a veteran broadcaster. In 1980 a new station came on the air to replace WGTB at 90.1 on the FM dial. New Engineer jobs added daily. One spring day in 1981, Williams was driving her car along Minnesota Avenue in southeast D.C., listening to the Bama on the radio. He made me understand improvisation and appreciate it. Yes Greg. The station also added to the jazz programming on Saturday. var addy39617 = 'news' + '@'; Its emotional, Hughes said. Torries at Wilson. When he began having trouble with some of the records he was spinning, a listener called him with on-air complaints. I want to show some hope that its not all bleakness. Washington, DC, is fortunate to have WPFW still broadcasting the music with knowledgeable programmers. Williams, 64, chooses mostly timeless jazz for her sessions, with some exceptions. But in December 2012 the station manager abruptly dropped all of the daytime jazz shows to expand the talk and public affairs programming. Talk to WPFWs mainstays and you hear the same prescription (WPFW has to change), the same caveats (but it should change sensitively, and stay true to itself), and a diversity of forecasts. It was a real thrill to join the station at the same time as Grant. //-->, WPFW1990 K St NWSuite 14RWashington, DC 20006. Which is a shameespecially when you want to hear, say, world-class jazz presented with a D.C. sensibility and you realize, now that WAMU only plays trad jazz on Saturday nights and the genres real estate on WPFW is shrinking, you cant always find it. He proceeded to miscue songs, start something then change his mind and play something else, and start a cut from the middle of the song. Its a seasonal thing that happens with us.. Saxophonist Byron Morris had a program named after Rahsaan Roland Kirks Bright Moments. Tom Cole started a Sunday morning show focusing on guitar music called G-Strings that is still on the air today. The underground format would become a feature of commercial FM stations such as WHFS. This isnt about gentrification, Hughes said. Its listenership is aging and dwindling, its ledger red, and its lease is about to expire. For a decade he broadcast a show on Saturday nights on a commercial station where his ratings were good and the advertising book solid. By mid-decade the lineup included Bill McLaurin, Whitmore John, Steve Metalitz, Tim Masters, and later Candy Shannon. WPFW Staff Declare No Confidence in GM - Washington City Paper ), Near the end of her show, Williams played You Take My Breath Away by Tuck & Patti. You never know, she said to her listeners. Students at Georgetown demonstrated against the war in Vietnam and pushed for the abolition of ROTC. CMS recognizes and celebrates the positive changes to the program schedule brought about recently since Katea Stitt and Miyuki Williams were put in charge of programming. Martin said he couldnt do it, and prepared to end his show. document.getElementById('cloak26045').innerHTML = ''; The New Thing Root Music Show kicked off what would be a golden age for jazz radio in Washington, DC, as jazz radio programming proliferated during the 1970s. //