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 Leigh KammanİAndrea Canter
"His instrument is a microphone. There's only one voice like that in this world." – Percy Hughes A long and celebrated era in jazz journalism ended last September with Leigh Kamman’s final broadcast of The Jazz Image on MPR. After a six-decade career including a 34-year run on MPR, Kamman’s retirement was truly the end of an era spanning his interview of Duke Ellington as a teen reporter to his shows for Armed Forces radio during World War Two, through broadcasts from Harlem to his long stint at MPR and induction into the Pavek Museum Broacasters Hall of Fame. Leigh’s career and sharp insights into the evolution of jazz will be celebrated on Sunday, September 28th with a musical salute (“Urban, Suburban and Way Out”) at the Artists Quarter in downtown St. Paul.
Leigh Kamman’s Life in Jazz Leigh’s journey into jazz began early, when as a 12-year-old he spent his summer as a “gofer” at a Lake Minnewaska resort in central Minnesota. "The people who owned the resort were friends of my parents. At night, as everyone was getting ready for bed, they played these old 78s - blues, jazz and early country music. This was in the early 1930s, so you had Ivy Anderson singing ‘Stormy Weather' with Duke Ellington. You had Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy Band. We'd go to sleep to it, and my appreciation for the voicing of bands and the solo vocals, I got by osmosis." Five years later as a junior at St. Paul Central High School (where he published an interview with Duke Ellington in the school paper), Leigh landed another gofer job at radio station WMIN, and soon was hosting his first jazz radio show with pal Sev Widman in a weekly, one-hour slot (midnight to 1 am), called “Studio Party Wham.” Leigh recalls that “The first 25 minutes showcased big bands. Then we had 15 minutes for guest collectors to play their music and talk about it. The last 15 minutes, we played the most popular jazz pieces of the day."  Laura CavianiİAndrea Canter In 1950, Leigh moved to New York to work at WOV radio in Harlem, broadcasting live from the Palm Café near the Apollo Theater. In addition to the broadcasting experience, he notes that his off-the-air time was his “street academy,” meeting and mingling with the top artists of the day. He moved back to the Twin Cities in 1956, working for KSTP with live broadcasts from Freddy’s and sharing live remotes with other NBC affiliates. Through KSTP, he also taped six months of programming for "International Band Stand" via KJAZ in San Francisco.  Gordy JohnsonİAndrea Canter When the first MPR production of The Jazz Image was broadcast in 1973, the show ran through the night, from 10:30 pm Friday until 7 am Saturday morning. Later it became a three-hour show every Saturday night. And until recently, Leigh broadcast every show live. Aside from his exhaustive knowledge of jazz and his rapport with the artists, Leigh Kamman’s inimitable style has endeared him to audiences worldwide. If his voice did not immediately cue the listener to his identity, then his turns of phrases and ability to put the listener into the music’s context would give it away. "The technique is to take people on a journey, to use imagery and pace with the music to suggest a time and place so that they can picture it, or remember it," he said. And Leslie Johnson of the Mississippi Rag notes, "It is distinctive. His greatest fear is dead air, and he'll come up with some flowery phrases. God only knows where he gets them…It can sound highfalutin, as if he's trying to be kind of ethereal. But it's an impressionistic quality that can be quite lovely. And once you know Leigh, you know there is no artifice to him."  Arne FogelİAndrea Canter Charlie Parker was Kamman’s most memorable subject. "I interviewed him ineptly. But the material is there… He was articulate, intelligent, very clear; I caught him at a time when he was not involved in drugs…I asked him what music he'd recommend to listeners who wanted to understand jazz, and he began by listing classical composers. He had studied classical music and he knew how an appreciation for it could help as a foundation for appreciating jazz… He was especially intrigued by Bartok and Stravinsky.” Just ask any jazz fan in the Twin Cities – they’ll tell you that the voice of Leigh Kamman is as distinctive and crucial to the survival of the art form as that of any performing musician. And maybe more so. Said Lowell Pickett, owner of the Dakota Jazz Club in downtown Minneapolis, "He's had more influence than most of us here realize. His presence in New York in the early '50s, his involvement with jazz artists at a very exciting time, make him one of the most important people on the jazz scene." Fans from the city to remote rural areas know the voice of Leigh Kamman. "I have a few out there who tell me they sit and listen on a crank-up battery radio by the light of a kerosene lamp," he once told the Star Tribune. Celebration at the AQ  Bruce HenryİAndrea Canter The Leigh Kamman celebration begins at the Artists Quarter at 7 pm on Sunday, September 28th; $10 cover. The AQ is located at 408 St. Peter Street, in the lower level of the Hamm Building in downtown St. Paul. Quotes in this article primarily from interviews in the Star Tribune and MPR Archives.
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Thursday, 08 January 2009
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