KUCR’s Jazz Tuesday Featured UCR Founding Prof for 20 Years
KUCR History is Good to Know
“Jazz is the greatest and most sophisticated form of American music, in all of its diversity and all of its complexity and sophistication. I’m a firm believer in the devlopement of this great American art form.” — Elvin Jones, drummer for John Coltrane, from an interview with Louis Vandenberg.
KUCR believes jazz is a great art from and always had featured it, but not as a regular block of programming. When KUCR decided to devote all of Tuesday to jazz, KUCR Manager Vandenberg assembled the most deeply knowledgable set of programmers available at UCR. Melding a core of student aficionados together with UCR faculty and administrator hard-core jazz heads gave birth to 30 years of Jazz Tuesday on KUCR, seeding a tradition which continues today. Vandenberg’s first faculty recruit was Dr. Francis Carney, one of UCR’s founding professors. Carney was a living legend on campus, having been at UCR since the beginning. He was also a civil rights activist at the height of the movement, a friend of Robert F. Kennedy and a leader in his campaign for the U.S. presidency. And he knew jazz performers like Chet Baker and Mose Allison personally. Vandenberg gave him a rapid fire practiced pitch to join KUCR. Carney listened calmly and said without batting an eye, “Of course I will, Lou.” Thus began a twenty-year run by Dr. Carney, which ended in 2009. Joining Francis were other UCR faculty and administrators, including Dr. Donald Johns, Dr. Sterling Stuckey, Robert Herschler, Lee Farley, Oscar Brown, Jr., Dan Bernstein and others. Jazz Tuesday is still going strong as a Riverside tradition. (Reflections by Louis Vandenberg, with KUCR Archivist Elliott Kim.)
