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THE NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS & E N T E R T A I N
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September 16, 2021 - September 22, 2021 • 21
Phil Schaap, jazz encyclopedic historian and broadcaster, dies at 70
Phil Schaap whose encyclopedic knowledge of jazz history with sidebar insight into musicians and their music led him to become a remarkable broadcaster, historian, archivist, educator and record producer, earning him six Grammy Awards in various categories died Sept. 7, at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 70. His partner of 17 years, Susan Shaffer, said the cause was cancer, which had been a four-year struggle. In the spring of this year Schaap was the recipient of the 2021 National Endowment for the Arts A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for Jazz Advocacy, presented to “an individual who has made major contributions to the appreciation, knowledge and advancement of the American art form.” As a record reissue producer, he won six Grammy Awards. Three of the awards were for liner notes for multi-CD sets released in the 1990s: “Bird: The Complete Charlie Parker on Verve,” “The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve, 1945-1959” and “Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings.” He shared the best historical album Grammy as a producer on the Holiday and Davis-Evans recordings, as well as on “Louis Armstrong: The Complete Hot Five & Hot Seven Recordings” (2000). As a student at Columbia University Schaap worked at the college’s radio station WKCR-FM, in 1970. He managed to transform the little station into one of the most celebrated stations in jazz. After his graduation in 1974 he remained at the station for over 50 years. His two longest-running shows, “Bird Flight” (dedicated to the music of alto saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker) and “Traditions in Swing,” emerged in 1981. Some
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about segregation in 1962. Her Broadway debut in 1963 came in Langston Hughes’ production of “Tambourines to Glory.” In 1964 she performed in the play “The Cradle Will Rock,” set in the Great Depression. 1965 ushered her into television soap operas, as mentioned earlier. In 1967 Carroll started Urban Arts Corps and used it as a vehicle to promote Black and Puerto Rican performers. In 1970 it was where “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope” was first produced. Grant turned her talents to Irwin Shaw’s “Bury the Dead” and created music and lyrics. She also worked on a children’s show—“Croesus and the Witch.” She also wrote lyrics for “Jacques Brel Blues,” and “Don’t Underestimate a Nut,” a musical about
said Schaap’s (Photo courtesy of Jazz at Lincoln Center) daily morning show offered too many details, describing Parker’s lunch at a recording session on a hot Tuesday. It was Schaap’s enthusiasm and pleasant compulsiveness with L to R: Max Roach, Daryl Roach, and Phil Schaap Parker. He had an incredible memory, total recall. He would fill in gaps for musicians, who couldn’t remember details of certain gigs or recording sessions. When musicians made fun of his crazy memory, he laughed along understanding he had a very unique gift. “There isn’t anyone in the country who knows more about this music than he [does],” Max Roach told The New York Times in 2001. “He knows more about us than we know about ourselves.” He helped to establish the station’s signature additions such as music marathons that dedicated 24 hours or more to a single musician, as well as live performances and musician interviews (an accumulation of 3,000 or more). Phil Schaap (Frank Stewart photo) Schaap played music from his own extensive record collection and and highest sense of the word,” Lloyd played whatever he wanted. He made said. “He loved all of humanity and his on impromptu playlist on a daily made an invaluable contribution— basis. Aside from WKCR, he also hosted the archive of his broadcasts alone is jazz programs on WNYC and WBGO in a priceless treasure, which I hope will Newark, N.J. continue to be in daily rotation for the Saxophonist and fellow NEA Jazz benefit of the universe.” Master Charles Lloyd found Schaap’s Schaap was a jazz activist whose combroadcasts in the early ’90s and was mitment led him to managing The impressed with his perceptiveness. Countsmen, featuring veteran mem“Phil was an educator in the purest bers of Count Basie’s Orchestra, along
with musicians from other big bands. He was able to get many of them work at the West End Bar near Columbia’s campus where he programmed live music. David Remnick wrote in a 2008 profile for The New Yorker, “Older musicians, such as Jo Jones, Sonny Greer, Sammy Price, Russell Procope, and Earle Warren, who had known Schaap as an eccentric teenager now welcomed him as a meal ticket.” In addition, he was a curator at Jazz at Lincoln Center, where he created the educational program Swing University; taught at Columbia, Princeton and Juilliard; and was an audio restoration specialist. And for fun he enjoyed swing-dancing. Philip van Noorden Schaap was born in Queens on April 8, 1951. He was raised in the Hollis community, an only child, he was raised by jazz-loving parents. His father was Walter Schaap, an early jazz historian and discographer. His mother, Marjorie, worked as a librarian and was a classically trained pianist. Backstage with his mother at Randall’s Island Jazz Festival in August 1956, he met Basie’s long-time drummer, Jo Jones, who on occasion would babysit for him. By age six he was collecting records and having listening conversations with Jones. As an adolescent on his own accord, he introduced himself to such artists as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie. During that period there were a host of famous jazz musicians living in Hollis, Queens. During the 1966 New York transit strike, Schaap hitchhiked from Queens to Manhattan with his neighbor, Count Basie. According to Shaffer, Schaap’s collection will be given to Vanderbilt University for educational, research and exhibition purposes, in partnership with the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville. His radio programs and interviews are archived online at philschaapjazz.com, where Shaffer says she hopes they will run “forever.” Schaap was survived by his partner, Susan Shaffer.
George Washington Carver. In the 1990s she took on the role of a Delany sister opposite Lizan Mitchell, in “Having Our Say” and toured for two years in the United States and South Africa. A performance which earned her a Helen Hayes Award. Grant also directed productions including “Two Ha Ha’s and a Homeboy” at Crossroads Theater Company. She was a member of The Dramatists Guild from 1972 and serve on its Council from 1999. Grant, throughout her incredible life received many honors: an NAACP Image Award; the National Black Theatre Festival’s Living Legend Award; the Sidney Poitier Lifelong Achievement Award and the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatist Guild of America. Though the musical that put Grant on the map was called, “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope,” she dem-
incision was so clean.’ This was the kind of piece that was trying to enlighten people. It wasn’t putting a fist in anybody’s face. Even though the piece is part of history, it is filled with history. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to tell our story. I talked about Daniel Hale Williams, who performed open-heart surgery on a kitchen table because he couldn’t work in a hospital. This musical was written to give recognition of things that are ignored.” Grant’s life will always be recognized as an exemplary example to those in and out of the arts. Grant is survived by her cousins Daryl Walker, Kimberly EberhardtCasteline and nieces and nephews.
onstrated her love and dedication to the plight of her people. Capturing the purpose of the musical in our 2018 interview, Grant shared, “With all of this, we have survived because we do cope, we find some way. With all the things that we’ve had to overcome, we’re still walking with our heads high. When you feel down you tell yourself you can’t cope, but in the end you do. The last line is ‘you gotta cope, I gotta cope, all God’s children gotta cope,’ and that’s essentially the message. The song tells a story, too—you got to cope. At the end of the show when I was in it, a couple of us come down the aisle and take the hands of the audience, and everyone is holding hands with each other and it was such a thrill. I used to get letters when I was part of the production. I’ll never forget this line from a white person’s letter. She said, ‘You made me bleed, but your
An RSVP-only memorial service will be held at The Riverside Church at 91 Claremont Avenue, on Monday, Oct. 11, 2021, at 7 p.m.
