Leigh KAmman©Andrea 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 in fall 2008 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 Broadcasters Hall of Fame. On Sunday, September 2nd, Leigh reaches another milestone, his 90th birthday, and everyone is invited to join the party at the Artists Quarter (6 pm).

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."

Leigh continued his broadcasts, later from Mitch’s, a Mendota Heights jazz club, featuring live music and jazz quizzes. He then had a short stint in Duluth for radio WEBC, broadcasting “Symphony Riffs” from the local club, The Flame. The time was short but the sound was big. "We had Coleman Hawkins on, and Oscar Pettiford, a rising Twin Cities bassist came up when he heard Hawkins was going to be there… they jammed together all night long. Oscar and Hawkins became friends, and Oscar later joined Duke Ellington's band." Shortly thereafter (in 1942), Kamman went into the army and continued his career with KOA/Denver and Armed Forces Radio, recording jazz programs and interviewing sick and wounded soldiers. Back home in the Twin Cities, he continued to broadcast jazz programming, hosting “Swing Club” on WLOL and a concert series at the Calhoun Beach Club, “We Call It Jazz.” One of the artists he promoted was Percy Hughes. "He opened doors that didn't open easily at that time for any black bands," Hughes said. "I probably would have fizzled out many, many years ago if it hadn't been for Leigh.” Back broadcasting from Mitch’s, Leigh brought such stars as Peggy Lee, Mel Torme and Tommy Dorsey to Twin Cities’ audiences, as well as the house band, the Mendota Buzzards.

Leigh Kamman©Andrea Canter

In the early 60s, Leigh premiered Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of “Mack the Knife” on his program “Image: The ‘60s,” an early version of what became The Jazz Image on Minnesota Public Radio. “She didn't want to sing it,” Kamman recalls, “she didn't think it would work for her. But she performed it here, improvising and getting a feel for it. Three weeks later she did it in Berlin, and it became part of her repertoire.”

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."

Over the years, Leigh Kamman has interviewed the legends of jazz as well as up-and-comers. "Musicians are more difficult to interview than politicians or sports figures," he says. And he started early and in grand fashion when he caught up with Duke Ellington at a St. Paul train station while working for his high school paper, the first of a number of interviews with the great composer and bandleader. “The last place I interviewed him was at the Guthrie,” recalls Leigh. “In between, we talked at the Monterey Jazz Festival, in Harlem and in the Twin Cities a couple times…I tried to get to some social and political topics - and succeeded occasionally. But mostly I talked with him about that muse he constantly battled with - for the elusive melody." Kamman’s long-time fascination with Ellington culminated in April 1999, the 100th anniversary of Duke’s birth. For this occasion, Leigh produced special segments of The Jazz Image regarding the nation’s celebration of this centennial, including interviews with surviving members of Ellington’s bands and grandson Paul Ellington. Of Ellington’s legacy, Kamman notes that “The body of work is just remarkable - 2,000 compositions is the estimate… What he and the musicians and the orchestra did in a concert setting, in a studio recording setting, and in broadcast one-on-one performances to a large audience cut a new path.”

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.

Kamman has not been idle since his retirement. He’s been working on a history of jazz broadcasting and has taught a community education class on the topic. And when there is a major jazz event in town, you are likely to find Leigh in the audience.

Celebration at the AQ 

The local as well as global jazz scene is alive and well, and today we find jazz in our schools, our concert halls, our libraries, our parks and festivals. “There are many opportunities today to learn about jazz.,” Leigh says. But none has reached as wide an audience as The Jazz Image. And we have Leigh Kamman to thank for that. Come down to the AQ and thank him in person, and enjoy a great party with music from Carole Martin, Pete Whitman’s X-tet, Brad Bellows and other special guests.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites