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Back where I started

Back where he started, Beck celebrates 40 years at Jazz 88.3 this month.
Back where he started, Beck celebrates 40 years at Jazz 88.3 this month.

“They were saying back in 1974, when I started working at Jazz 88.3, that jazz was a dying thing. It’s not.” This month, on-air jazz host Gary Beck celebrates a 40-year association with the San Diego City College radio station. “I think I was 18 when I started there. President Nixon had resigned, and I had just graduated from high school. After the first two years of operation, Jazz 88.3 started letting student deejays stay,” Beck informs the Reader; this, rather than cutting them loose after they’d completed the City College radio broadcasting class.

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“I worked at KSDO producing Art Green’s talk show at the El Cortez hotel downtown. I was also going to City College. I auditioned there for [an instructor] named Hope Shaw. I passed the audition,” he grins. “One of the first interviews I did for the station? Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines,” he says, grinning some more, “at Tom Ham’s Lighthouse. Hope gave me an A for a grade.”

KSDS Jazz 88.3 went on the air in 1973, the year before Beck got there. “I stayed on for a couple of years, and then I went to WNEW in New York City doing weekends.” He’s worked off and on as an announcer at Jazz 88.3 ever since.

During Beck’s tenure, KSDS has gotten a boost in transmitting power, digital capability, and new studios. The biggest transformation since Beck has been at the station? “The internet and the fact that I can be heard around the world.”

The Fairleigh Dickinson history major turns 59 this year. He and I talk about how the internet has grown the listening audience but not the paycheck. “I’m okay with being ripped off,” he says, “because I love the music. I like the jazz classics, but I also like what’s going on now musically. The standards have already been done, and they’ve been done by the best. Now, I look for the singers that are doing something different. And musicians,” he says, “that aren’t bored and that still play with the same intensity as they did when I was 18.” What does Beck see happening in his immediate future? “I really haven’t thought about doing anything else,” he says. “But I surely never thought I’d end up where I started.”

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Back where he started, Beck celebrates 40 years at Jazz 88.3 this month.
Back where he started, Beck celebrates 40 years at Jazz 88.3 this month.

“They were saying back in 1974, when I started working at Jazz 88.3, that jazz was a dying thing. It’s not.” This month, on-air jazz host Gary Beck celebrates a 40-year association with the San Diego City College radio station. “I think I was 18 when I started there. President Nixon had resigned, and I had just graduated from high school. After the first two years of operation, Jazz 88.3 started letting student deejays stay,” Beck informs the Reader; this, rather than cutting them loose after they’d completed the City College radio broadcasting class.

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“I worked at KSDO producing Art Green’s talk show at the El Cortez hotel downtown. I was also going to City College. I auditioned there for [an instructor] named Hope Shaw. I passed the audition,” he grins. “One of the first interviews I did for the station? Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines,” he says, grinning some more, “at Tom Ham’s Lighthouse. Hope gave me an A for a grade.”

KSDS Jazz 88.3 went on the air in 1973, the year before Beck got there. “I stayed on for a couple of years, and then I went to WNEW in New York City doing weekends.” He’s worked off and on as an announcer at Jazz 88.3 ever since.

During Beck’s tenure, KSDS has gotten a boost in transmitting power, digital capability, and new studios. The biggest transformation since Beck has been at the station? “The internet and the fact that I can be heard around the world.”

The Fairleigh Dickinson history major turns 59 this year. He and I talk about how the internet has grown the listening audience but not the paycheck. “I’m okay with being ripped off,” he says, “because I love the music. I like the jazz classics, but I also like what’s going on now musically. The standards have already been done, and they’ve been done by the best. Now, I look for the singers that are doing something different. And musicians,” he says, “that aren’t bored and that still play with the same intensity as they did when I was 18.” What does Beck see happening in his immediate future? “I really haven’t thought about doing anything else,” he says. “But I surely never thought I’d end up where I started.”

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