Phil Schaap, jazz aficionado

May 12, 2008 2:42 PM

Phil Schaaphas hosted a jazz program for the past twenty-seven years on WKCR, Columbia University’s radio station with unapologetic passion and a depth of familiarity that comes, in part, from the personal relationships he had with the musicians themselves.
posted by semmi (27 comments total)

Wow! What an interesting guy. Thanks for posting.
posted by suelange at 2:58 PM on May 12, 2008

He also talks (and talks, and talks) like nobody's business. The ratio of talk to music is easily 3:1, and he can be maddeningly pedantic: his knowledge is indeed encyclopedic, but is so clogged with factoids that he has memorized (discographical arcana and minutia about record dates, etc) that the effect of listening to him can be like that of listening to a baseball fanatic talking stats and trivia for hours on end. The birthday broadcasts are legendary, and I'm glad a guy like Schapp exists, but there's an almost pathological fanatacism about him than can be a bit wearying at times.
posted by ornate insect at 4:15 PM on May 12, 2008

Yeah, what the insect said. When I first discovered Phil's morning show, I listened enthralled: what depth of knowledge, what passion, what an amazing circle of acquaintances! But then, as with Howard Stern, Garrison Keillor, and other radio voices I once enjoyed, his shtick palled on me. Yes, he had rarities nobody else played, but if it came at the price of half an hour of uninterrupted Phil trivia ("...now, I once thought this was recorded on June 24, 1948, but a couple of years ago I was talking with the bass player on that session, and he told me that it must have been the previous Thursday, because...") it wasn't worth it to me, and I really grew to hate listening to a dozen takes of the same tune, which is about his favorite thing in the world to play ("Now, in the tenth take, listen to the little hitch in the rhythm just before the sax enters..."—and then, as often as not, after he's played all the takes he'll play the sax solos from each one again, just so we won't miss the subtleties). I think it was around the time he decided it was important to everyone's education to play Bird's "Ko Ko" every single show that I gave up and found another way to spend the hour before leaving for work.

But God love him, he's doing good work and keeping alive the memory of worthy musicians otherwise pretty much forgotten, so good for him.
posted by languagehat at 5:26 PM on May 12, 2008

Wow, he's been doing this for 27 years? I started listening to him 26 1/2 years ago -- honest! Even then he sounded like he'd been listening to and talking about jazz for a thousand years. I could not listen to him every day without going crazy. In carefully monitored doses, though, Phil Schaap is amazing listening. I cannot think of anyone on the radio to which he can be compared.
posted by gum at 5:28 PM on May 12, 2008

What ornate insect said is so right on target, and so perfectly articulated. "Maddeningly pedantic", indeed. Schapp is a brilliant jazz historian, but can be grating after a while. I have tapes of some of his Parker festival broadcasts and my God, he just goes and on in that nerdy monotone. If he just had Jonathan Schwartz' style of presentation, or a golden voice like the late, great William B. Williams or even Scott Muni, he'd have it all.

Though I do wish Schaap would have a little more time for guys like Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Paul Desmond, et al. Thanks for the post semmi!
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 5:28 PM on May 12, 2008

I know the man, and he is a first rate ass in person, just as he comes across on the radio. He also has no musical skill to speak of, and a tin ear for anything but praise for Himself. Plus he has a really nasty temper when he feels dissed. He's the master of the narcissistic hissy fit. And as a former DJ myself, I find myself screaming "shut the fuck up" at the radio when he's carrying on at great length in a show of how many arcane, trivial details he knows.

He's also downright unpleasant to many musicians, and at least the jazz musicians I know don't like him personally, don't respect his "knowledge" much, and find his interviews tedious to endure.

/been waiting years for a chance to say this in public
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:08 PM on May 12, 2008

Old thread, classic Phil .
posted by hortense at 7:23 PM on May 12, 2008

Phil is the man. Every morning for two decades this man has brought Bird into my life for a half hour commute. More talk than music, but over the years it starts to feel like Bird is family. Phil is the best thing that has every happened to New York radio. The rock scene has sucked on NYC radio for almost that same two decades, so Phil is NYC's radio savior.
posted by caddis at 8:15 PM on May 12, 2008

Wow, he's been doing this for 27 years? I started listening to him 26 1/2 years ago -- honest! Even then he sounded like he'd been listening to and talking about jazz for a thousand years. I could not listen to him every day without going crazy. In carefully monitored doses, though, Phil Schaap is amazing listening. I cannot think of anyone on the radio to which he can be compared.

With the caveats and kvetching about "great show--needs less intrusion" I would hesitate to think of anyone on the radio to whom he could be compared, but for all the good that Schaap does in keeping the jazz torch aloft, I think of Ed Love, also on radio 25+ years, also a friend and confidant of musicians throughout those years. His show The Evolution of Jazz was nationally syndicated for 6 years and 125 stations.

Having heard them both, I love Love.
posted by beelzbubba at 8:23 PM on May 12, 2008

I have to say the Remnick piece is quite good, and very judicious.

He does not skirt around Schaap's often tiring mania for detail and photographic recall for dates, names, etc, but uses it as the central theme for the profile: Reviewing the Holiday set for the Village Voice, Gary Giddins called Schaap “that most obsessive of anal obsessives.”

That Schapp was something of a prodigy in this regard is duly noted with several examples. Among them:

at the age of two he recited the names of the American Presidents, in order, “while standing on a rocking chair.” He was the kind of kid who knew the names and numbers of all the New York Rangers of the nineteen-sixties and, whether you liked it or not, recited them. He was the kind of kid, too, who wrote to the manager of the Baltimore Orioles to give him advice backed up by statistical evidence. He routinely beat all comers, including his older cousin the late sportswriter Dick Schaap, in the board game Concentration. At school, this was not a quality universally admired. “I guess some kids may have found it annoying,” he allows. But musicians were generally fascinated by young Schaap. Count Basie was one of many who discovered that Schaap knew the facts of his life almost better than he did. “I think that kind of freaked Basie out,” Schaap said. “I’d talk to him about a record date he did in the thirties, and he looked at me, like, ‘Who . . . is . . . this . . . child?’ ”

and...

The precocious obsessive is a familiar high-school type, particularly among boys, but the object of Schaap’s obsession was a peculiar one among his classmates. “The lonely days were adolescence,” he admitted. “My peer group thought I was out of my mind. But, even then, kids knew basic things about jazz Teddy Goldstein knew ‘Take the A Train.’ But he kept telling me, ‘Don’t yo know what the Beatles are doing? Your world is doomed!’
posted by ornate insect at 8:35 PM on May 12, 2008

(I spent much of the 90's in the building trades in NYC and listened to the radio a lot and) OH! I fucking HATE Phil Shaap! OH how I hate him! Sweet mother of Christ how I hate him! I have literally thrown radios down flights of stairs, out windows into courtyards and smashed them with hammers and pipe-wrenches to SHUT HIM THE FUCK UP!

Oh, my hatred of Phil Shaap is like a vibrant thread of crimson that winds through my thoughts and ideas like the last thing between me and the most beautiful girl in the world. I hate Phil Shaap like a fish needs water and I need air. I hate Phil Shaap like Phil Shaap loves himself.

I once heard Phil Shaap berate - berate - Thelonius Monks' window about the date of a recording. Bam-O! Radio's dead.

I once heard him start a monologue about Artie Shaw that lasted through lunch break and all the way to the next coffee break. He had only one point (Artie Shaw = good but not god-like) and a thousand dumb fucking factoids. Bam-O! Out the window!

I would love to kick him in the knee. I really would. If he could just get the fuck out of his own way he would be gold. He plays great music and knows important stuff but god, stirke him with laryngitis, just for a month, so he can learn that the silence is as important as the sound.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:36 AM on May 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

And caddis is absolutely 100% right that Schaap's morning show, "Bird Flight" is more often great than brutally tedious.

And I misspelt his name six times out of spite.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:42 AM on May 13, 2008

There are factual inaccuracies in the article, as usual, owing to Schaap's tendency to overstate his own qualifications.

The one that sticks out because I know the back story: Remnick asserts that Schaap has held "teaching positions at Columbia, Princeton, and Yale."

The phrase "teaching position" means "appointed as a professor or lecturer in a full time capacity" in my lexicon; it does not mean "paid to teach an occasional class as an adjunct instructor," which is exactly what Schaap's relation to the academic side at Columbia has been. In fact, I don't think he's taught there in years, and when he did, it was as an adjunct instructor, to teach a class here and there. He has never held an academic appointment - certainly not at Columbia.

Indeed, he made a huge stink a few years ago when the Columbia music department and Jazz Studies Center were searching for a jazz scholar (for a full time tenured position) -- a national, open search that attracted some of the top names in the business. Schaap orchestrated a PR campaign, including having one of his acolytes write a scathing piece about Columbia's disdain for his awesomeness as a jazz scholar in the freaking NY Times, which led to all kinds of abuse (and at least one threat) being heaped on the CU music department and alumni office and on the staff of WKCR. One of the letter writers to the Times said he'd "rather see Columbia leave New York than Phil Schaap." The tone was like that. And that's because the article was completely one-sided in telling a completely imagined tale about the persecution of Phil Schaap.

Irony of it all was a) he never applied for the position, and this is perhaps because b) he was completely unqualified, holding no advanced degree, having produced no major peer-reviewed academic publications, not having any musical skills as a player or composer or music analyst, and being a *notoriously* abusive teacher in the classroom (as the NYer article slightly hints, but doesn't begin to touch it because I'm sure Schaap was on good behavior the day Remnick visited his Lincoln Center class for the retiree set -- I personally know of numerous incidents where Schaap has berated or screamed at students in class).

Many in the jazz radio listening community (not among jazz *musicians* mind you) wrote scathing letters to the Times or online comments about how Columbia's music department must be so behind the curve, so disrespectful of jazz, so unaware of the great historical figure in its own midst -- how could they not seek out Schaap and offer him the tenured professorship in jazz studies? It was a minor scandal, but it got a half page article in the Sunday times, entirely favorable to Schaap.

Guess who Columbia hired the next year? George Lewis. That's who.

If you know anything about jazz, 'nuf said. If not, look up Lewis and laugh heartily at the idea that the University should have hired a minor savant with photographic memory instead of one of the great innovators in jazz and improvised music -- *and* jazz scholarship -- of the last generation.

Look, I get it. There is not enough jazz left on the radio, and I suppose it's a good thing that someone still cares enough to fight for its presence on the air in NYC, and to keep playing all this great old music. Emphasis on the "old," however. Schaap is also a totalitarian about "real" jazz and its boundaries, the classic "moldy fig" in jazz parlance. I guess it's good in a way, but think about what might be different if WKCR actually heeded its own charter and allowed say, *students* to program jazz at the station -- we might be hearing all kinds of new stuff every year that otherwise has no path to the public at all, instead of the ten-thousandth replay of "Donna Lee" followed by 20 minutes of speculation on whether Parker had cheerios or wheaties for breakfast on the morning of the recording session.

Man, when I look up "overrated" in the dictionary, I expect to see a photo of Schaap. If I want to hear Charlie Parker, I have him on my iPod. Uninterrupted by the pronouncements of someone who can't stand not to be hearing his own voice in his headphones.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:03 AM on May 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

Also, Remnick laughs about Schaap's tendency to go over his allotted time by 15 minutes while some poor student DJ stands patiently waiting "clutching" an album of classical music or indy rock.

In radio, going over your time routinely is a cardinal sin, a violation of the ethos of the trade. At a student station, where no one is paid and everyone is there for the music, it's especially egregious behavior. When it's done by the only non-student who regularly hosts a show on the station, whose fundraising power for the station is so out of proportion that the student DJs have to kiss his ass and do whatever he says, it's unconscionable, not a sign of love or respect for music, but a sign of disdain and disrespect for other DJs and the music they are there to play, and their audiences.

Think how you'd feel as, say, a sophomore with a bluegrass show, if every week you had to wait 15 minutes past your air time for a two hour show so Schaap could play one more track from Ben Webster or whatever.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:10 AM on May 13, 2008

I once heard Phil Shaap berate - berate - Thelonius Monks' window about the date of a recording. Bam-O! Radio's dead.

Yep. I'm always amazed to hear him *argue* with his interview subjects over their divergent recollection of "facts" Schaap supposedly "knows." He can't stand to be shown up for his ignorance or his obsession with trivia. He's berated quite a few jazz musicians in interviews; widows are totally fair game, since he doesn't much care about women in general, or women in jazz in particular.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:27 AM on May 13, 2008

Well said on all counts, fourcheesemac.
posted by thedanimal at 10:02 AM on May 13, 2008

Well said indeed.

Indeed, he made a huge stink a few years ago when the Columbia music department and Jazz Studies Center were searching for a jazz scholar (for a full time tenured position)

Yeah, I remember it well. Christ, what an asshole. And George Lewis is one of the heroes of music.
posted by languagehat at 12:50 PM on May 13, 2008

Another round of the paws for George Lewis.
posted by Wolof at 6:27 PM on May 13, 2008

George Lewis' new book on the history of the AACM and experimental jazz/free improv (in which he is a leading figure) has just been published by the U Chicago Press.

And he was just interviewed about it in the New York Times

It is amazing!
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:58 AM on May 14, 2008

Thanks fourcheesemac. I am hoping to see some of these folks at the Vision Festival next month. Lewis will be playing shortly after the Matthew Shipp trio. I am hoping to see them as Joe Morris will be playing bass that night. Shipp, Morris and Dickey make a powerful trio.
posted by caddis at 8:14 AM on May 14, 2008

I think I've seen all those guys at past Vision Festivals—that's one of the things I most miss about NYC.
posted by languagehat at 8:53 AM on May 14, 2008

Thanks, Mr fourcheeses, I'll be following that up!
posted by Wolof at 1:59 AM on May 15, 2008

There are factual inaccuracies in the article, as usual, owing to Schaap's tendency to overstate his own qualifications.

The one that sticks out because I know the back story: Remnick asserts that Schaap has held "teaching positions at Columbia, Princeton, and Yale."

I think this does a disservice to Remnick. "Teaching positions" is exactly the type of awkward phrase one uses to describe an adjunct or sporadically-recurring guess lecturer. Remnick goes out of his way to point out that Schapp has never been offered a position as professor, too. I appreciate the backstory, Fourcheese, because it was interesting. Interesting enough that it would've been cool to read in the article. But it's not at all inconsistent with what Remnick wrote (in fact, I would've bet something like that had happened, based solely on what I read in the article). It's hard to call it a factual inaccuracy or even remotely misleading.

Also, Remnick laughs about Schaap's tendency to go over his allotted time by 15 minutes while some poor student DJ stands patiently waiting "clutching" an album of classical music or indy rock

I don't know if this is a criticism of the article, or just of Schaap. If it's the former, I have to defend Remnick again. When I first read that part of the article, my first reactions were "sucks to be the students" (your side), and "but hilarious" (Remnick's side). Again, not defending Schaap, but the depiction of him in the article seemed to cover enough details to evoke both appropriate reactions (even if Remnick tipped his hand as to his).
posted by aswego at 6:50 AM on May 15, 2008

Fair enough, the second point not being a fair criticism of Remnick, I mean -- in the big scheme of things, what's 15 minutes of a student's show every other week?

As a former DJ myself, I'd say it's more significant a sign of Schaap's character than Remnick does, but that's a matter of opinion of course

As for the former point, I say "taught classes at" for adjunct work; "teaching position" specifies a full time academic appointment in my lexicon
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:06 AM on May 15, 2008

It's curious to read the vituperations of what is essentially about a radio show when all is needed to avoid it is to move the dial. What it indicates is that some people obsessively listen to it and enjoy hating it --a form of success anyway, or that those who write such profuse abuse don't actually listen to the program, and vent out of some personal dissatisfaction, unrelated to the article or Schaap's radio show.
posted by semmi at 12:17 PM on May 15, 2008

when all is needed to avoid it is to move the dial

My problems with Phil Schaap go beyond the context of his radio show (I have had personal dealings with him, I just choose not to be particularly specific about my "personal dissatisfaction", which you certainly have right); I don't deny his contribution, I just think it is balanced by his negative effects on the world
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:52 PM on May 15, 2008

Just curious, semmi: do you never complain about anything? Because pretty much everything except death can be avoided by "moving the dial" in one way or another. If you're honestly that phlegmatic and/or stoical, I guess it's admirable in a strange way. Otherwise, you're coming off a little trollish.
posted by languagehat at 5:22 PM on May 15, 2008