Michael Bourne

Singers Unlimited & Afternoon Jazz Host, WBGO Journal Critic-at-Large

Michael Bourne has been a presence on WBGO since the end of 1984. He's hosted the popular Singers Unlimited (Sunday 10AM-2PM) since 1985 and Afternoon Jazz (Monday-Friday 2-6:30PM, including the 3PM Blues Hour) since 1997. He's been honored with the Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Excellence in Jazz Broadcasting from the Jazz Journalists Association. Michael is also a senior contributor to Down Beat, with the magazine since 1969. Doctor Bourne earned a PhD in Theatre from Indiana University -- which comes in handy when he's a theatre critic for the WBGO Journal.

"I became a jazz jock by chance," says Michael. "I was working on my doctorate in Bloomington. I'd been an occasional guest on the jazz show of IU's NPR station WFIU. When the regular DJ was going on vacation, the program director asked me if I'd like to fill in on the show. That was the summer of 1972 and I'd just survived my doctoral exams. I needed to do something fun, plus they were going to pay me to play records on the radio. I was supposed to fill in for four weeks, but four weeks became almost 40 years! I was offered the gig and I stayed until 1984. WFIU was a mostly classical station, but I played everything else, especially jazz, but also lots of blues, Brazilian and Irish music, singers (like I play Sundays on WBGO) and Broadway musicals."

How he came to New York and WBGO also involved some chance for Bourne. "I came to New York every summer for theatre and jazz, especially for the George Wein festival. I often stayed with my Indiana school friend Kevin Kline. When I first stayed with him, he was still beginning as an actor. When I came in 1984, he was a bonafide movie star. I also left a tape of myself with Wylie Rollins, then the program director of WBGO. I'd been thinking about venturing to New York for years, but I didn't know when or how. And on one fateful day in September 1984, Kevin called and said he was off on location for a while and I could have his apartment for several months if I wanted to come to New York. That very afternoon, Wylie called and offered me work at WBGO. I couldn't resist what seemed a real 'sign' that New York was meant to be. My first shift was filling for Rhonda Hamilton on the afternoon of New Year's Eve, 1984."

Bourne celebrated his 25th anniversary at WBGO on New Year’s Eve, 2009. He was joined live by singer Hilary Kole. She sang some of his favorite songs, and they performed together – Hilary singing, Michael “acting” – songs they’ve performed at the jazz festival Michael programs and hosts every January at the Mohonk Mountain House. Tony Bennett and Michael have been friends for years , and together they reminisced for two hours on the new year’s first Singers Unlimited. Michael and Tony became friends because of their love for great paintings. Tony, besides being a great singer, is a celebrated painter, and he’s painted Michael’s portrait twice. Michael’s 25th anniversary hang with Tony and performance with Hilary can be heard at wbgo.org/blog

Bourne's passion for music began early in his hometown of Saint Louis -- but not for jazz. "I was a boy soprano. I wanted to be an opera singer when I grew up. I was crazy for Wagner especially. I eventually eased into Gilbert and Sullivan, then the Broadway shows." Bourne's passion for jazz came about -- again -- by chance. "When I was a junior in high school, my chem lab partner and the kid behind us were always talking about jazz. I remember a very animated argument about whether Miles Davis or Sonny Stitt was hipper. I asked them what was a good jazz record to begin with, and they said Dave Brubeck's Time Out. I bought the LP at a grocery store the very next day, and when I heard ‘Strange Meadowlark’ I was addicted to jazz. I bought more Brubeck records at the grocery store, and soon I was listening to Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, the Modern Jazz Quartet. I even became a drummer as I fell in love with Art Blakey and Max Roach."

Bourne got to know Brubeck through the years. “The best thing I’ve ever done for WBGO was a special about Brubeck. I went to his house in Connecticut and we talked as he played the piano. He even played ‘Strange Meadowlark’ for me. He said it was his favorite interview.” Bourne fantasized hearing Hilary Kole singing ‘Strange Meadowlark’ with Brubeck at the piano, and that happened for Hilary’s 2010 album You Are There.

Bourne’s other love, for theatre, blossomed as an undergrad at what is now called Truman State. He came to graduate school at IU in 1967, and while working at WFIU he finished a PhD. in theatre -- but he enjoyed being a jazz jock so much that he stayed on the radio rather than become a professor somewhere. "I always meant to work in the New York theatre as an actor or a playwright or a critic, and when I first came to WBGO, I was also working on two musical theatre projects. Both shows crashed and burned just as they were about to happen, and I didn't want to be an always struggling actor, so my theatrical career became only critical." In the early OO’s, Bourne was welcomed into New York’s Outer Critics Circle.

Bourne became a frequent contributor to the WBGO Journal early on. Though he mostly reviews theatre, he's also written about movies, art museums, baseball, beer, and his travels (from his favorite park in Oslo to his favorite pub in Dublin), He hosted WBGO's pre-JazzSet show The American Jazz Radio Festival for five years, and he's hosted or anchored most of WBGO's New Year's Eve broadcasts since 1986.

Bourne filled in on countless shifts at all hours until finally settling into the Afternoon Jazz shift in 1997. "Ironically, just after I'd come to WBGO, Rhonda Hamilton asked me what I wanted to do at the station, and I remember laughing and saying that I wanted her shift in the afternoons. And now she's on mid-days, and here I am in the afternoons."

While nonetheless working six shifts each week on Jazz 88, Michael was also a host on the "Broadway's Best" channel of Sirius Satellite Radio for five years. He's been an active arts and travel journalist, especially for Down Beat. He edited the mini-magazine Hennessy Jazz Notes from 1992-1997 . He's written countless album notes, and in 1997 Bourne produced four CD collections of Mark Murphy songs for 32 Jazz. He's also been a correspondent for the Bon Voyage travel newsletter.

Traveling became his greatest passion after his first trip overseas in 1986. Bourne hosted the Jazz Yatra festival in Bombay. "I was almost 40 and I'd never left the United States. The culture shock was staggering, but I fell in love with the world -- a full-tilt epiphany! -- and I've been traveling ever since. I feel most alive when I'm 'elsewhere' -- far from home, far from work, far from myself." Michael often travels on jazz business, usually reporting, but he's also hosted the jazzfest in Amsterdam and he's been a WBGO travel host on trips to Brazil, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, and the Caribbean. “I’ve been unbelievably lucky, to earn a living playing records, going to the theatre, and traveling the world.”

Montreal every summer is Michael's home away from home. "I first went in 1992 for Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, and I've been virtually adopted by the festival ever since.” In recent years he’s not only written about the festival for Down Beat, he’s also been a judge for the festival's group competition, and he’s broadcast the WBGO afternoon shift live from somewhere around Place des Arts. Michael celebrated his 40th anniversary with Down Beat as the guest editor of the magazine’s October 2009 issue, including an unprecedented 14-page celebration of Montreal’s 2009 jazzfest. WBGO’s blog includes seven pages of stories, interviews, and photos from Montreal’s 2010 jazzfest. Other festival favorites over the years have included Chicago, Berlin, Umbria Jazz in Perugia, NorthSea in The Hague, and the George Wein New York festival since 1973. "What's been especially heartening is how often I've encountered Jazz 88 listeners from all around the world. I remember a jazz lover in East Berlin weeping at the thought of a radio station that played jazz 24 hours a day. Since then, the Wall came down, and now everyone can hear us on the internet."

Traveling offers other delights for Bourne beyond the music, including his passion for great paintings, the Dutch masters especially, and for great beers, the Belgian masters especially. "I'm a Nederlander at heart." He'll happily go anytime to Amsterdam, Antwerp, London, Rome, or anywhere in the U.S. where his beloved Cardinals are playing baseball. Pittsburgh’s PNC Park is his favorite ballpark, and he’s enjoyed a baseball vacation there every season since 2003. “It’s the most beautiful ballpark, and they put on a great show with the game.”

He's also returned to performing in recent years -- that is, for people who can actually see him. He's hosted "Lyrics and Lyricists" concerts at the 92nd Street Y. He's host and musical director for the "Jazz on the Mountain" festival every January at the Mohonk Mountain House in the Hudson Valley -- where he's performed what he calls "duets for actor and drummer" with Michael Carvin. And he always joins in the Monday morning “Parlor Games” when everyone from the weekend plays together as a farewell show. He also co-wrote and directed the show Singing Astaire, a celebration of the Fred Astaire songbook at Birdland that opened in 2004 to a rave review in the NY Times. And after more than 25 years, he's nonetheless "with you" on WBGO. "A listener said to me that she read that I used to be an actor, and she asked me 'Do you ever act anymore?' And I said 'Every day on Jazz 88!'"