Today we salute Leigh Kamman, who just ended a broadcasting career that began at the height of the Big Band era with the final broadcast of "The Jazz Image", a program he has hosted on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) since 1973.
Kamman's long career included interviews with just about every major (and minor) personality in jazz and stints at various Twin Cities radio stations in the 1950s and 60s. At 85, he's leaving to write a book or two.
What Kamman did for three hours every Saturday night (it used to be all night in the early years) was to take his listeners on a journey to another world, in words and sound, where the drinks flowed, the music was hot, and the mood was mellow.
That quintessential piece of Americana called jazz, once the most popular sound in the land, has been relegated in recent years to that audio museum called public radio. And it's no mystery why: it's an insomnia cure compared to rock, country and pop--not to mention more marketable. We're not counting "smooth jazz", the province of such luminaries as Kenny G and George Benson, which has seen two Twin Cities radio stations come and go.
MPR has not announced a replacement for Kamman yet, nor is it known if the show will continue in some form. Whatever happens, whoever sits behind the microphone has a hard act to follow, with a different set of images to conjure.
UPDATE (10/20/14): Kammann died on October 17. He was 92.
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