REICH COMMUNICATIONS

Jazz Birthday - Dr. Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor, whose birthday was yesterday, is one of my heroes.  He's the person who got me hooked on jazz when I was a teen.  My mom listened to WNEW and one afternoon I put the radio on and there was Billy Taylor, doing his jazz show.  The music spoke to me from the start.

Billy eventually moved over  to WLIB Radio, Harlem's radio station, and I followed.  WLIB expanded his one-hour show to a few hours starting at 4, so there was more to hear and I ate it all up.

Billy not only played great jazz; he talked about the music and the musicians, so his show was like a lesson in jazz.

He became a culture correspondent for CBS, with frequent reports about jazz musicians on CBS Sunday Morning.

I met Billy Taylor several times over the years. When I was doing a jazz show on my college radio station, I called him at WLIB and asked if I could visit him in the studio. He graciously said, "Of course, come on by."  He recorded some promos for me, which I aired on my station.

I happened to befriend the bass player in Billy's trio -- Ben Tucker, who was working as a promo guy at a new jazz record label.  The trio was playing at college near mine, and he invited me to the gig. Afterwards, Billy, Ben and drummer Grady Tate drove with me ten miles to my school, where they did a one-hour special edition of my "Jazz Scene" show, picking out some records and talking about the music.  Billy liked that the opening tune for my twice-a-week show was his "That's Where It Is," from his 1963 album with Oliver Nelson's big band.    

I saw Billy a few years later in concert at Carnegie Hall and I chatted with him after the show.  And I called on him when my PR agency was looking to create a music program for one of our clients. He met with us at our offices and helped us shape a proposal which, unfortunately, didn't get picked up.

The last time I saw him was in the crowd at the annual crafts fair on the plaza at Lincoln Center.  He remembered me and we spoke for a few minutes.  About a year after that, I read that he had passed.

I'm lucky to have known him, even if just a little. His influence on me lasts to this day.

 

 

An American Treasure

What We Do: Teacher Excellence Award

Representing the National Road Safety Foundation, I'm in Wichita at the national conference of ADTSEA, the American Traffic Safety Education Association. The group represents driver education teachers nationwide.  I'm proud to serve on the ADTSEA Board of Directors and Executive Committee.

The National Road Safety Foundation honors outstanding driver education teachers every year at the conference.  The Teacher Excellence Awards honorees are selected by a committee of their peers.

Today I presented the Teacher Excellence Award to Sandra Dunbar, who teachers at the Jordan Driving School in Wake Forest,NC and to Gary Scott, who teaches at the Johnny Rowland Driving School in Overland Park KS. Gary is a past-president of ADTSEA.

These are two people who are passionate about teaching driving skills.  The honor is well-deserved.

 

 

 

 

 

TEA Honorees Sandra Dunbar and Gary Scott, with TEA Selection Committee Chair Harold Fleming, right.  Harold is the incoming president of ADTSEA.

News Odds 'n Ends

A few odds 'n ends in the world of journalism to report...

The New York Times is ending sports coverage and disbanding its sports department.  

The Times hasn't had a separate Sports section in several years -- not even on Sundays or Mondays.  You might get two pages of sports, toward the back of the Main section or at the back of Business.  

The paper will be dropping daily sports coverage, except perhaps for major things like the World Series and Super Bowl.  They plan to continue an online sports page that I believe now runs weekly, covering trends and the business of sports.

I guess Sports is no longer "news that's fit to print."

On a positive note, I see that a group of 20 local papers in Maine, including Portland's daily Press Herald, are being bought by the non-profit National Trust for Local News, which looks to preserve local news by finding ways to help local outlets be financially sustainable.  The Gates Family Foundation is a big supporter of the group.

I think it's better than having the papers be bought up by Gannett, whose business model seems to be to buy struggling papers, cut local reporting staff to the bone and then fill the paper with pickup of national news from the Gannett chain, with minimal local reporting. I've seen that happen in Westchester/Rockland in New York, where the "local" Journal News is a shadow of what it had been locally.  The same can be said of the papers Gannett bought several years ago in northern New Jersey.

  

 

 

 

What We Do/Did

I posted yesterday about the death of Dr. Frank Field, a longtime fixture on New York City TV as a weatherman and health & science reporter on three local stations here.

Coincidentally, I just came across some remnants of a project I did with Frank in 1988 and 1989, when I managed the McDonald's PR account in metro New York.  McDonald's was doing a national program on home fire safety and I took it to WCBS-TV here, where Frank Field embraced it wholeheartedly.  Frank reached out to the NY Fire Department and they put him through the fire training center, where he experienced being in a fire, sharing it in a most compelling way with his viewers.  Frank did six different reports that aired three times a day on the morning and evening newscasts. He also did a 30-minute special.

I arranged to have McDonald's use trayliners in all their 350+ metro area restaurants, promoting the fire effort.  And we got Newsday to partner, running promotional ads featuring Frank Field and offering fire safety tips/.

Frank won an Emmy for the series and the NYFD credited the effort with saving dozens of lives.

Five years later Frank had moved to another station, WWOR-TV 9, and I had opened my own PR agency.  The New York Auto Show was a client and I worked with Frank on a weeklong series on traffic safety that aired daily for a week during the Auto Show.  I got my former client McDonald's to do trayliners promoting the effort, and we partnered with the Daily News for stories daily about traffic safety.

I loved doing the work and still feel good that our efforts saved lives. And it was a privilege to work with and get to know Dr. Frank Field.

 

A Long Life

 

Longtime New Yorkers will remember Dr. Frank Field, weather/health/science reporter at WNBC-TV, and then at WCBS-TV and WWOR-TV.  

 

I met Frank in the late 1980s, when I was running PR for McDonalds, and I interested him in doing a series on home fire safety. The series won Frank an Emmy and for me, a friend.

 

When he was at WCBS, we did a week-long series on driving safety, which brought me to the attention of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which retained me to do their regional PR for 18 years.

 

Frank and I stayed in touch till he moved to Florida.

 

He was a nice man who cared about journalism. He also cared about his Jewish heritage.

 

Frank died the other day, at age 100. I'm glad I got to know him.

 

Click here for a nice tribute to Frank Field from WNBC-TV.