Disc jockey/Passion: Jazz
”We may have to move to the garage–the records are taking over the house,” says jazz aficionado and disc jockey Dick Buckley. When my three kids were growing up, I always thought it would be a good punishment to make them sit and count the records. People always want to know how many I have. It`s probably in the tens of thousands.
”A lot of collectors would look down their noses at me. They will go as far as putting on white gloves to handle their records. I use mine all the time. Once I dropped an album–you used to be able to buy empty albums that would hold 12 of the old 78s. It was filled with Charlie Parker originals on Dial. I broke eight or nine. It was a terrible moment.”
Buckley is well known to the listeners of radio stations WBEZ and WAIT, but even before the Oak Park resident was a jazz disc jockey, he was a walking encyclopedia on the music. ”Jazz started as a hobby when I was a kid. I played trombone in high school and college. It`s the freedom of it that appeals to me, the individual expression. It`s probably one of the most difficult arts. The performer not only has to perform, he has to create, create something of beauty. I loved baseball, but after a season of doing play-by-plays on radio I found I didn`t love it enough to be a sportscaster. But jazz, well, when my show used to be rebroadcast in the afternoons, I`d tune it in. I knew I`d enjoy it.”
