Revisiting Jazz Revisited

The Original Tape Collection of Jazz Revisited and its New Home in Hamburg: History and Documentation of the Famous Radio Michigan Jazz Show Hosted by Hazen J. Schumacher, Jr. (Hamburg: Jazz Museum Bix Eiben Hamburg, 2005)

BY PIOTR MICHALOWSKI

For more than a quarter century Hazen Schumacher (vice president of SEMJA) hosted the syndicated radio show Jazz Revisited. The half hour program, which was produced in the studios of WUOM-FM in Ann Arbor, was a celebration of jazz recordings made between 1917 and 1947, and at one time was carried by more than 100 stations. I started to listen to the show before I even knew where Ann Arbor was on the map, and the sounds of Hazen’s theme song — "What Am I Here For" — were like "Take the A Train," another Duke Ellington recording that was used by for the Voice of America Jazz Hour, which was the major source of information on the music for Europeans during my youth.

In 1996 a new director took over WUOM and banished all cultural and arts programming. Schumacher retired from the university, and the show was gone. To the eternal shame of both WUOM and the University of Michigan, the unique record library of the show, much of it donated by U-M alumni, needed a new home. The collection was taken over by the Jazz Museum Bix Eiben Hamburg. Over 60,000 pieces of Americana were packed and shipped to Germany, where they are now in loving hands.

The museum in Hamburg has just published an amazing book that serves as a tribute to Schumacher, to his radio program, and to his record and memorabilia collection. The text is bilingual German/English in parallel columns. Most of the book consists of reprints of articles by Hazen or about him from Ann Arbor and national publications. We learn from a postscript that the Museum is currently transferring all the programs to digital media and will eventually make them live again.

The book is magnificently produced, printed on very high quality heavy duty paper, and is filled with lovely photographs. Some of these show 78 rpm shellac records, or later LP covers, others depict how the collection was housed in Hamburg and Ann Arbor, but local readers will undoubtedly focus on the more personal photographs. The nostalgia of old records pales besides pictures of Schumacher with his family and friends.

Reading this book, I realized once again what we lost when shows such as Schumacher’s Jazz Revisited left our airwaves. Schumacher's aim was not just celebratory; it was to inform and instruct its listeners in a unique manner and to keep a whole tradition alive. I should also note that this book also revealed to me a lovely piece of personal trivia: Schumacher’s first record purchase, made while he was still a kid, was the 78 of Benny Goodman’s Carnegie Hall performance of "Sing Sing Sing." When I was a teenager I went to a record store with my father and picked out my first two LPs: one was by Thelonious Monk and the other was the Goodman album that comprised the same concert!

Hazen Schumacher has done many things in his life, is enjoying a fabulous retirement, and his generous spirit remains unbridled. This book is a well deserved tribute to a great man and to the magnificent music that he so loves.

The Hamburg museum is making the book available to SEMJA members free of charge. If you would like one, please contact SEMJA at 734-662-8514 or semja@semja.org and leave your name and mailing address.

I N - T H I S - I S S U E :
1. REVISITING JAZZ REVISITED   2. NEW COTTON PICKERS
3. BUDDY BUDSON'S SEXTET
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