”Yes, yes, that was one of those delightful and exciting live sessions that took place down at the Village Vanguard in New York City. J.J. Johnson was presiding on the sackbut. For the uninitiated, that`s the trombone. A beautiful tune-`Just Friends`-played with a difference by the great J.J. Johnson. This is WBEZ, Chicago. Now hear this!”
Forty floors above Clark Street in the city`s financial district, in a drab studio with threadbare carpeting and charcoal-colored acoustical baffling on the walls, Larry Smith, host of the 11 p.m.-to-3 a.m. ”Jazz Forum” at WBEZ-FM 91.5, plays a classic Gene Ammons side as he keeps things swinging through the wee hours. At 59, Smith has played jazz on the radio for 35 years, working at a variety of Chicago-area and northwest-Indiana radio stations. He has also doubled as a news reporter and talk-show host. At public radio WBEZ since 1980, Smith is the only ”Jazz Forum” host who`s on the station`s full- time staff. (The program`s other hosts are Dick Buckley, Chris Heim and Neil Tesser.)
He`s also one of the few people in the country putting live jazz on the air, as he does once a week broadcasting his ”Live Jazz Party” from a larger studio one floor below. Thirty years ago he used to broadcast Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane and Maynard Ferguson live from the Sutherland Hotel; now he brings in top local and internationally known musicians to jam at WBEZ.
”We always wind up having a good time-swinging,” he says. ”I remember one night when Benny Golson and Art Farmer walked in around 3 a.m., when I had the Bob Stone Big Band playing live, and they almost flipped. When McCoy Tyner came up and played, it turned the whole city around, because McCoy`s not the sitting-in type. Just about all the Chicago notables have played here, like Von Freeman and Wilbur Campbell.”
Mention ”Play Misty for Me”-the Clint Eastwood film about a late-night disc jockey pursued by a deranged fan-to an overnighter and you`ll get one of two reactions: either a juicy anecdote or a shudder of recognition.
But while he has never had a problem with deranged fans pursuing him, Smith has his own opinion of another one of late-night radio`s staples-the lonely-hearts call.
”I used to like to say that after midnight the nymphomaniacs come out,” he says with a chuckle. ”You get calls from some really strange people. Sometimes you get calls from women who are lonesome and are home alone and all that. They talk in a low, sexy voice, tell you they`ve got the lights down low and invite you to come over after the show. Being the conservative person I am, I never accept those offers. Besides, the sweeter the voice sounds, usually the more hideous the person behind the voice is!”
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Debi Diamond, the 2-to-5:30 a.m. disc jockey at WUSN-FM 99.5, hears from this particular breed of late-night listeners as well.
”I`ve got this `Fatal Attraction` man who calls every night and thinks we have this big relationship going, and I`ve never even met this person,”
she says. ”Then there`s this guy who thinks he`s in the center of a CIA plot because he `knows too much.` He`s sent me letters with the warning, `After you read this, burn and flush.` He also thinks the station`s phones are bugged, but he still calls. It`s bizarre. For some reason, the wackos generally stop calling after 3:30. I guess even wackos have to sleep sometime.”
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Hollywood has a long-standing fascination with radio`s nighttime personalities. Besides ”Play Misty for Me,” Eric Bogosian and Jeff Bridges both portrayed acerbic late-night talk-show hosts in ”Talk Radio” and ”The Fisher King” respectively. And then there was Gary Cole as the ex-cop-turned- talk-show-host solving crimes on the air on TV`s ”Midnight Caller.”
The reality of late-night radio is less glamorous than we imagine. In fact, the hours can be a real problem if you desire a personal or family life. Simple things become difficult, like sleeping when the sun is shining.
”Even though I`ve been doing this for a long time, I still have trouble sleeping in the daytime,” says WBEZ`s Smith. ”You get awakened by wrong numbers or by someone trying to sell you something. Often, I`ll get to bed at 8 a.m. and get awakened by a call at 9. And I`m a light sleeper too. I even get awakened by people activating their car alarms.”
”It`s hard getting adjusted to the hours, and it`s difficult to sleep during the daytime,” says WUSN-FM`s Diamond, a relative neophyte to the graveyard shift. ”The phone rings, the garbage man dumps the dumpster outside your window or the landlord decides to mow the lawn at 9 in the morning. Those days that I can sleep straight through until 2 p.m. are like heaven.”
(Even though she`s not working right now, Diamond probably still isn`t getting any more sleep. She`s on maternity leave, but plans to be back in the studio sometime in April.)
Adds Schwartz: ”You sacrifice in many ways. You sacrifice most of your social life, many friendships and the normalcy that most people live with. Those of us on at night have an absolutely different lifestyle with a number of limitations forced upon us.”
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”It`s 3:26 at U.S. 99, playing nearly 400 great country favorites every day without all the interruptions. Here`s one from Clint Black. He`s no longer `Loving Blind,` he`s loving his new bride, actress Lisa Hartman!”
At WUSN-FM, whiskey-voiced Diamond begins another ”10 in a row” block of music from the station`s shoebox-sized studio in the John Hancock Center. The studio, which has autographed photos of country stars Brenda Lee, T. Graham Brown and Lee Greenwood on one wall, barely has enough room for a carousel full of music and commercial carts and the console. Most nights Diamond, 31, and a five-year veteran of Chicago`s only country-music station, has the entire U.S. 99 facility to herself.
”Sometimes it does get lonely here, and I`m glad when there`s somebody here late doing work in the production studio,” she says. ”And when nice people call on the phone, that helps. We`ve got good security here, but sometimes you hear a strange noise, and you get a little scared, especially when you`ve just been reading a spooky Peter Straub book just before you came in.”
Diamond learned quickly what her counterparts at the other stations know: There are a lot of troubled people out there in radioland late at night.
”A lot of people are by themselves at this time of night, and the radio and the person on the other end of it become their friend,” she says. ”Once in a while, you get somebody who`s really depressed, and that`s always a little bit touchy. You don`t want to push anyone over the edge. They may be distraught about losing their job or maybe about a death in the family. Those calls always tend to upset me a little bit. You try and talk them through it, but sometimes I think: `I`m not a trained social worker. My life`s a mess;
please don`t ask me for advice!` ”
”You get more suicidal people on overnights than on any other shift in radio,” says WBBM-FM`s Murray. ”I had one woman who called up and said she found out that her husband was cheating on her. When she confronted him with it, he beat her up in front of their kids. She thought she lost the respect of her children and said, `Now that my children don`t respect me, I have no reason for living.` I told her that her children, if anything, respected her more for standing up for herself. I just tried to talk her through it and suggested that she and her husband seek counseling. Later on I met them at a
`Killer Bee` bash after they had gone through counseling and had become friends again. I really enjoyed talking to them.”
Says Mr. A: ”I drove a cab for 10 years, and this is almost like the cab business because people will tell you all about their problems. A lot of people are alone with their problems at the end of the day, and maybe they can`t sleep. And then they hear this voice on the radio in the middle of the night, and they call the station.
”It`s usually about everyday things. Some people ask for your advice about domestic problems. Sometimes it`s just that they can`t make a decision about what they want to wear. Other times they just want something like the phone number for City Hall. It`s amazing the things that people will call you about.”
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It`s shortly before daybreak, and Eddie Schwartz is standing outside Tribune Tower. He`s now wound down from his show, and as he prepares to head home-or maybe to drive around the city`s various neighborhoods for a while, as this ex-cab driver is wont to do-he turns reflective.
”You know, I`ve turned down better hours several times,” he says.
”Some people think I`m crazy for not fighting for the better time slots and the bigger dollars they represent. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and say the same thing. But though there`s much bigger fame and fortune in daytime radio, I`ve always felt that there was greater fun at night.”
