Juzzletter PO Box 240, Ojai CA 93024-0240

Gene Ites Ad Libitum Juzzletter PO Box 240, Ojai CA 93024-0240 Mail Brg States. Conover was heard on the Voice of America, a government-funded service whose mandate forbids its broad- I want the whole world to subscribe to the Jazzletter. casting to tlre land of its origin, and thus Americans could not Unfortunately I don't have that kind of dough. But I would hear Conover's marvelous music shows, even though they like to give three gift subs. paid for them. Since he taped the first VOA broadcast in John Clayton, Alta Dena, California becember 1954, and it was aired in January 1955, Conover was on the air longer than any jazz broadcaster in the world: Don't you dare even think about leavrng all of us addicts 42 years. beached and gasping in this "vast wasteland" of crap. The Voice of America was bom during World War II as Johnny Mandel, Malibu, California a counter-force to Nazi propaganda, a little like the BBC oversffN service. Afterthe war, as the adversarial relationship ofthe United States shifted from Nazi Germany to the Soviet In Memoriam: \7i11is Conover Union, the VOA stayed on the air. It employed broadcasters speaking the languages of the countries who had fallen under I wrote obout Wllis Conover twtice ii the 1990s. Now he has the control of the USSR and whose own broadcasting systems been gone for seven years, and I think it is time to take a were merely propaganda facilities of their governments. The longer look at his lfe and his immense contribution to his VOA remained comparatively objective and accurate in its country and to music. If some ofwhat follows in part tepeats news reporting, though men in successive administrations what I wrote earlie4 my apologies. But it all needs to be eyed it hungrily. It is hard to know how much political said. interference it endured at various times. But I have the impression that wiser heads on the whole prevailed, realizing I gave this idea a good deal of thought before I began to that the BBC maintained its immense credibility around the bounce it offa few friends and colleagues for reaction. I first world precisely because its news was believed when the considered how many presidents had come and gone since the propaganda disseminated by dictatorships was not. I think end of World War II: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, tlnt the VOA on the whole did its job honorably; it certainly Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton. And I did it well. thought of all the famous Cold Warriors, McNamara, Dulles, But whether you are telllng the truth or lies, it mauers little MacArthur, Westmoreland. Which American did the most to if no one is listening, and since you cannot force people in far- break the Soviet Union? Truman with his Korean War? away lands to tune lr! you must induce them to do so. During Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon with their Viet Nam War? Reagan WorldWar II, Alliedtroops in Europe listened to Lord Ha-Ha with his comy actor's reading of "Tear down this wall, Mr. from Germany andthose in the South Pacific to Tokyo Rose. Gorbachev"? They took the American music they were broadcasting and None of the above. The man who did the most to bring ignored the lies. down the Soviet Union was one of the unsung heroes, a Even ifthe VOA was trying to disseminate truth, what was handsome and beautifully'spoken broadcaster named Willis there to attract listeners in the USSR, Poland, Czechoslova- Conover, whose name was known in every country in the kia, Hungary and other countries? world but his own. Willis Conover was far and away the best- A program calledMusic U&4. Host: Willis Conover. He known American on this planet, and the most loved, except in played the very best of American popular music and jazz, his own country. That's because, unless you listened to short- presenting it wittr a quiet authority. That authority was wave radio, you couldn't receive his programs in the United founded on unfailing taste and a knowledge of jazz that was "fireside chats". encyclopedic, as was his knowledge of the men and women told me, on that of Franklin D. Roosevelt's could follow who create it. In the old days of Jim and Andy's in New York, Speaking slowly so that those with little English people everywhere, inspiring a bar much favored by musicians, Conover was a regular, and him, he introduced the music to and laymen to appreci- there wasn't amaior jazzmusician, nor many minor ones for countless musicians to learn to play it jazz was to a that matter, whom Willis didn't know. He interviewed them ate it. If there is a vast audience for abroad, it people onto jazz year after year, editing the tapes into broadcasts. The collec- large extent created by Conover. He turned have that tive broadcasts of Willis Conover are an American national all over the planet. He was the only non-musician to just how powerful an treasure of inconceivable value. kind of influence, and his work showed proper can be Willis Clark Conover Jr. was born on December 18, 1920, educational medium broadcasting, in its use, jazz in Buffalo, New York, the son, he said, of an army offtcer. Time and time again, when you ask a player from the This meant he grew up in various parts of the country. I erstwhile Iron Curtain countries how he became interested in gained the impression that his relations with his father were ja,z,youllhear a variant on "Well, I heard Willis Conover's not good. His father wanted him to attend the Citadel, but programand..." Willis was adamant in refusing a military career. Early in his Willis was heard eight times a week by an estimated 100 life he became enchanted by the horror stories of H.P. million persons. During the darkest days of the Cold War, Lovecraft, as, too, did I. I have never understood the fad for many found some strange consolation in his broadcasts. One the poetry and prose of Edgar Allan Poe, which I find young Russian wrote him a poiguant letter saying, "You are mannered, affected, and hollow. But Lovecraft's stories truly a source of strength when I am overwhelmed by pessimism, gave me the creeps, and so they did Willis. In his early teens my dear idol." Willis treasured such letters. he wrote Lovecraft a fan letter, which the author People listened to his broadcasts even when they were answered.This led to a correspondence that continued until forbidden to do so. They learned English from him. This Lovecraft's death, and in 1975 Willis published these letters opened worlds for them. The Butnan brothers, Igor and Oleg, in a book titled Lovecraft at Last. living in New York, told me that just about every announcer Willis began his broadcasting career at the age of nineteen. of jazz,concerts in Russia affected Conover's slow, sonorous He once described his first job at a radio station in the manner of speech. Washington, D.C., area. He painted a vivid picture of a He traveled to more than forty countries. He could not steaming summer night, so hot that the windows of the station visit Poland without being mobbed. In 1982, he accompanied had to be left open, which allowed a vast variety of mosqui- a group of jazz musicians to Moscow. Though there was no toes, moths, and other flying things to whir around his head advance notice ofthe concert, 500 fans crowded a 400-seat while he had to keep the turntable on which he was playing auditorium to hear them. Willis stepped up to a microphone. records from breaking down by holding something or other He got no further than "Good evening" when the crowd, with both hands. He said it was horrible. recognizing the voice, roared. One young man kissed his In the early 1940s, he acted to desegregate Washington. hand, saying, "Ifthere is a god of jazz, it is you." His part in this effort was to present musicians in nightclubs, Willis remained apolitical throughout this career. He insisting that blacks be admitted. He also produced a series of declined to join either Democratic or Republican clubs, a Saturday midnight concerts at the Howard Theater. His judicious course in a town where the payoffin jobs is one of opposition to racism was lifelong, and deeply te-lt. its most iniquitous practices. This permitted him to survive in In a curious way, Conover the name is Anglicized from a position that was more important to the country than something German, and one- of his ancestors signed the partisan appoinnnents. Whenever some foreign dignitary was Declaration of Independence combined a vast cultural afforded a state dinner, and the current president needed - jazz, cosmopolitanism with a deep American patriotism. This made entertainment for him - as often as not - Willis was him the perfect spokesman for a country he loved to peoples called on to organize it. He did this I know not how many he loved but whose governments he did not. times. In 1969 he produced and narrated the White House Whatever the incidental political effects his VOA broad- concert in tribute to Duke Ellington's seventieth birthday. He casts had, the musical influence of this man was awesome. was responsible for more than thirfy concerts at the Kennedy Conover did more than any other human being to make jazz Center for the Performing Arts, as well as concerts at Town an international musical language.

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