Like any business, radio has its share of unwritten rules.  If you’re an on-air talent, however, your unwritten rules basically boil down to just one, and it’s inviolate:  your shift has to be covered.  Short of a fatal or near-fatal accident, you are expected be seated in front of the microphone at your appointed time (or have made arrangements for a suitable replacement to take your place).  Even most of what would be classified as an act of God (i.e., tornado, hurricane, flood) wouldn’t qualify as a valid reason for you to miss your shift at the assigned time without a replacement.  I can hear my boss now . . .  “If you had enough time to flee, you had enough time to call a sub!”

In my nearly 20 years at WNUA I can recall only two instances where an on-air host didn’t show up for their shift without an explanation.  (That’s significant, if you think about it:  five shifts a day, 365 days a year—doing the math, that’s 36,500 shifts in 20 years, and only two were left uncovered.)  Both cases, however, involved the same person, and that person ended up with one of the shortest reigns of any full-time announcer I worked with on 95.5.  I am positive this wasn’t a coincidence.  I also had the misfortune of doing the shift immediately before this announcer’s, and I ended up having to cover most of their shift myself both times.

That final point is the reason why this rule is so sacred.  Radio stations have no one waiting in the wings to take over in a pinch.  Most part-time and vacation relief announcers hold full-time jobs elsewhere.  Whenever you heard a Scott Adams or Domingo Castillo filling in for someone else on WNUA, for example, realize that they had to make their own arrangements to take time off their other jobs to fill in as a substitute announcer on 95.5.  They couldn’t just drop what they were doing and come in. In other words, leave your shift uncovered without a replacement, and you set off a mad scramble (and a string of frantic phone calls) on the part of your boss, the program director, a person who definitely has better things to do with their time.  In my experience, that’s something the typical PD has a long memory for.

Miss a shift without explanation once, and it’s likely to end up in your personal file.  Miss a shift more than once, and they’re starting to work on your severance papers.  Going AWOL in radio does come with a very harsh penalty.  Thankfully, in an era of cell phones, you’d really have to try hard to mess this one up.

I’m always curious about how an instrumental tune gets its name, so I’m never shy about asking musicians that question.  Quite often, the answer I get makes for an interesting tidbit I can share with listeners.  Take my vintage-track-of-the-day for today, “Saul Steps Out,” for example, by J. Michael Verta.

I’ll let Mr. Verta pick it up from here:  “Saul was this little old Jewish man who lived in an apartment down the hall from me, back in the days when I was struggling to get by as a musician, looking for my first break.  [Those] were lean times; things were tough and I was living in this tiny little apartment, and yet whenever I would see Saul—through the open door to his apartment or on his way to get the mail, laundry, etc.—he’d be doing this little half dance, half shuffle as he walked, with the most content, knowing smile on his face.  Saul had a groove, and nothing in life could faze him.  I admired that and drew a lot of strength from it.  And he always made me laugh.  So when I finally got my first record deal, I decided Saul’s groove needed its own track on the record—a sort of ‘thank you’ for giving me peace and perspective.  That it was the most popular track on the record is fitting, I think.”

What a wonderful story!  Something that gives us a glimpse into not only the creative process but also the lifestyle of the aspiring musician.

J. Michael Verta is an interesting story in himself.  A Chicagoland native and 1990 graduate of New Trier High School, he released his first CD, The Phoenix, as a 23-year-old in 1995.  “Saul Steps Out” came from that CD and became a hit on WNUA.  In 1995 he recorded his second and final CD, Time Line.  Since then, he’s been active in Hollywood as Mike Verta, composing numerous scores and themes as well as working in mixing, engineering and sound design for film and TV.  Maybe the coolest nugget I discovered about him is that last March he married his longtime girlfriend, actress Danica McKellar, who played Winnie Cooper on the show “The Wonder Years.”

You can find out more about J. Michael Verta at his site, www.MikeVerta.com.

According to today’s Tribune, the Arie Crown Theater will be going dark starting in September.  I won’t miss it.

There was a time when the place was the hottest concert venue in town.  Back in high school seeing a group such as Chicago playing the Arie Crown was the ultimate downtown adventure for a group of teenagers from the western suburbs. The Arie Crown still had the sheen of newness back then, having reopened in 1972.  For my friends and me, it was exciting seeing performers we loved at a classy, adult venue frequented by our parents.

As a grown-up, however, I came to see the Arie Crown in a much different light.  For openers, I never felt the sound was very good there.  Seated in the center of the theater halfway back, I thought it was acceptable.  Anywhere else—especially in the wings—and it was terrible.

The smooth jazz shows we did at the Arie Crown never seemed to have the spark of shows we did at other venues, either.  Boney James at the Arie Crown on March 22, 2002, was a typical example.  I introduced Boney from the stage that night, but what I remember most about the night was what went on an hour before the show.  As I was walking through the lobby I spotted Boney standing by himself in a hallway near a side entrance to the stage.  I remember thinking how cold and sterile the place felt—quiet as a morgue, too.  There might have been a dozen people around but, in that wide, expansive lobby, Boney and I felt like we were alone.  We stood around and talked for about 15 minutes, and not a single soul came up to either of us the entire time.  Contrast that with the typical scene at the Chicago Theatre before a show—the crowded lobby, buzzing with excitement and anticipation.

Being out at McCormick Place didn’t help the Arie Crown, either.  There were no restaurants nearby.  If you wanted to dine before or after a show, you had to park your car twice—at the Arie Crown and at wherever you decided to eat.  It was both an inconvenient and expensive proposition.

Over the years we’ve hosted concerts at just about all the downtown venues.  None of them is perfect.  But the Arie Crown was the most imperfect of all.  I’m glad we did only a handful of shows there.  And, after each one, listeners told me in no uncertain terms I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

Whenever a radio format is around for a long time, there’s a lot of good music that doesn’t get played.  It boils down to a numbers game:   too many titles, not enough time to play them all.  In the case of Smooth Jazz, it’s 24 years’ worth (!) of new releases, over a thousand titles in just the new releases pile alone—not including all the  standards such as “Breezin’” and “Winelight” that were around even before the format was born in 1987.  No radio station could ever sustain itself with a playlist that lengthy, because the best tunes, the ones listeners want to hear over and over, couldn’t possibly rotate around fast enough.

So, what’s a radio station to do with all those extra titles that would still sound good on the air but for which it has no more room?  Sadly, no matter what the format, these titles usually get relegated to what we call an “icebox” category, never to see the light of day again.

That’s always bothered me, because the Smooth Jazz genre is filled with some wonderfully distinctive music that we never put on the air anymore.  By folks such as Dan Siegel,  Shakatak,  Dancing Fantasy and  Rodney Franklin, for instance.  Songs and artists that would make you go, “Wow—I haven’t heard that in ages.”

For a long time I’ve been wrestling with the idea of finding a way to resurrect these gems and give them some airplay in the proper context, and here’s what I’ve come up with:  a new feature on my show, called “Rick O’Dell Remembers.”   Starting next Monday, February 1, I’ll be going deep into the Smooth Jazz vault and selecting one vintage track to play every day at 11:00 a.m.

I know we can have some fun with this feature, jogging your memory a bit each day.  And, along the way, I’ll be open to requests.  Feel free to suggest a favorite ol’ tune or two you haven’t heard in a long time, and I’ll see what I can do.  Email me at:  Rick@WLFM877.com or post your requests in the In Box at the station website.

Of all the emotions I felt since the loss of WNUA, perhaps strangely, there was no sadness. Until last night (Monday, June 15), that is.

I was at Navy Pier last night for the “Guitars and Saxes” concert. Walking through the main gate and into the patio area, several people—former WNUA listeners who recognized me (bless their heart)—came over, and we talked about what would be the main topic of the evening: the sudden end of WNUA as a smooth jazz station. For much of the evening leading up to the 8:00 start of the concert, I spoke with quite a few people. That in itself wasn’t sad. In fact, a listener put it best when, as she was saying goodbye and making her way toward her seat, she commented, “I’m glad we had a chance to talk—I feel a sense of closure now.”

What struck me as sad came in the couple minutes right before the show began, as I was taking a quick stroll around the patio. If you’ve been to the Skyline Stage before, you know that just south of the seating area is an open space.  It’s where sponsors of WNUA’s annual Navy Pier series used to set up. In past years, when the series was at its peak, the area was abuzz with activity. Sponsors would be describing their products and services (and putting on the soft sell) to concert goers. We would be giving away various goodies and signing listeners up for the evening’s raffle at the WNUA table. People would be milling around, conversing with each other and members of the WNUA airstaff who would be congregated there. Last night, that area was dark and eerily unoccupied.

In the late ‘90s heyday of the annual WNUA concert series on the Pier, the patio area itself would be a crowded place before showtime.  There would be multiple lines to the refreshment stand, and each would be quite long.  Open tables would be scarce.  And listeners would be milling around the shiny new automobiles which our primary sponsors, the Chicagoland Audi dealers or BMW, would provide.  Last night, however, there was only one line for refreshments, nearly every table was open, and there were no new cars to be gawked at.  Listeners were noticeably subdued, proceeding from the main gate directly to their seats.

Finally, the red and orange lanterns which hung overhead by the hundreds, added to my feelings of loss.  It was evident to me that the Skyline Stage was no longer even an occasional home to smooth jazz anymore.  The Chinese acrobats of Cirque Shanghai had taken over.  We were in their territory.  The neighborhood had changed.

The show got underway at around 8:15—with no formal introduction by a WNUA personality, by the way.  I looked around and saw that the seating area was half-filled at best, a far cry from the nights we’d pack the place to its 1,500 seat capacity.  The wave of nostalgia was slowly lightening its grip on me.  By the end of the evening, as I drove up the ramp to northbound Lake Shore Drive, a trip I’d made dozens of times going home from a Navy Pier concert over the years, I was feeling more philosophical than sentimental.  Smooth Jazz had had its day on the Skyline Stage.  We had our moments of magic out there.  The shows we did were outstanding.  I knew I’d always have the memories.