Feb. 8, 1975: Live jazz broadcasts on WEBR

 

For a bright moment in the mid 1970s, Buffalo had two radio stations that featured jazz – UB-based WBFO at 88.7 FM, under the leadership of John Hunt, and WEBR, at 970 AM, which had a memorable but too-brief excursion with Jazz in the Nighttime host Al Wallack. 

Feb. 8, 1975

Another Era: The Count Live on Radio 

“THIS IS THE SECOND greatest thrill of my life,” program director Steve Lapa, a piano player himself, tells Count Basie after they settle arrangements to air one of Basie’s sets live from the Statler Hilton over radio station WEBR.

          It isn’t the first live show WEBR has done from the Statler either – Lapa already has broadcast Jackie & Roy and Ruby Braff from the Downtown lounge – but it’s certainly the biggest and most likely to foul up.

          Not only will they have to make sound checks during Basie’s first set, they also will have to contend with Basie’s own microphone plan, which is designed for the room, not the radio.

          Plus they can’t get into the Golden Ballroom until after a Rotary Club luncheon is ended.

          “It’s very difficult, it really is,” the bearded, 24-year-old broadcaster shakes his head. “I’ll tell you, though, we have three plans for miking this thing. If one doesn’t work, we can go to the next one in 60 seconds.

          “And we’ve got some incredibly experienced technicians. These guys go back to the days of the NBC Blue Network, when everything was live.”

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THE LIVE SHOWS are a natural step for the Brooklyn-born Lapa, who did live studio recordings of various progressive rock groups when he was at the former WPHD here. WEBR is one of the few stations in the U.S. that does live shows, he says.

          “Most people don’t understand that I also have background in films and TV,” he points out. “The first thing in filming is you always have to be prepared for more than what will occur.

          “I’ve even got a plan to mike the place from the balcony, if necessary. It’s got to sound good on the air. It’s a piece of work, you know. It’s not something you just do.”

          Lapa also feels that WEBR’s musical bent for softer sounds, big-name entertainers and a late-evening jazz show is well-suited for live jazz and big band concerts.

* * *

HE’S FOUND that the response of the fans and the people involved with arrangements has been especially gratifying.

          “We’ve worked very closely with the people at the Statler,” he says. “Nell McPherson, the publicity lady, has been instrumental in setting things up for us.

          “And the telephone company’s been dynamite on getting lines through to the station. Everything has worked out really well.”

          Oddly, as the Basie band is bringing the dazzling Golden Ballroom crowd out to the dance floor, it’s a telephone problem that fouls out the plans to broadcast the evening’s second set.

          Lapa phones back to the station to bring in the band and the lights on the studio phone don’t light. He can’t signal the switchover. It’s finally straightened out in time for the alternative plan – doing the third set.

          “It was a freak of nature,” Lapa says the next morning, “but we had ourselves covered very well. We didn’t promise our listeners a specific time. We just said we’d have Basie between 9 and 10.

          “When we finally got through at 10 o’clock, it came off very well. The quality was really, really good. And I think the third set was a hair better than the second because of that trumpet solo. It had more of that big band flavor.”

* * *

THE ENGINEERS were pleased too. So were the people who listened and called the station. Even the sponsors were happy, although the show itself had no sponsors.

          “We cleared one hour of air time for Basie,” Lapa says. “We didn’t run one commercial.

          “Can you imagine if I went up there and said: ‘Now back to our studios for a 60-second message?’ You can’t. You don’t tamper with that kind of artistry.”

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IN THE PHOTO: Count Basie at the piano in the Statler Hilton.

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FOOTNOTE: This series first encountered Steve Lapa back in March 1974, when he was music director and afternoon man at WPHD during its revival as an FM progressive rock station, having come over from WCMF in Rochester. His stint at WEBR came after PHD was sold later in 1974, the focus changed and everybody cleared out.

          Lapa went on to become general manager at WGRQ, then had “upper management positions at 28 radio and TV stations for public and privately held companies from South Florida to San Francisco,” according to his lapcomventures website. He and a partner also bought and sold a few stations. Now based in Florida, he develops and syndicates radio shows and podcasts through Lapcom Communications.

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FURTHER NOTE: All of these transcripts of old feature articles about the Buffalo music scene can be found in a somewhat more legible and searchable form on my Blogspot site: https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/4731437129543258237.