Steve Schwerner, a former long-time music host for WYSO with a lifelong love of jazz, has died.
Schwerner hosted a jazz program on WYSO for 50 years, starting when he was a student at Antioch College.
Dave Barber, the host of WYSO's NiteTrane, recalled Schwerner was heavily influenced by jazz legends like radio host, Symphony Sid, and performers Charlie Parker and Bud Powell.
"And he's able to share his knowledge with a couple of generations of listeners on WYSO," Barber said. "If it was a radio audience or a group of students of any age, Steve never missed an opportunity to share his enthusiasm and love for the joy and beauty of jazz. He savored it.”
Barber will honor Schwerner in a tribute show on NiteTrane, 8 p.m. March 30.
Schwerner hosted his last show at WYSO in September 2008, but a year before his departure, local filmmaker Steven Bognar captured Schwerner in a documentary short film called Jazz DJ.
“Steve Schwerner was a true mensch," Bognar said. "Principled and thoughtful, attentive to everyone around him, and humble, even though he was deeply wise and had voluminous knowledge on life, on other subjects and certainly on jazz. Listening to his weekly jazz show on WYSO for many years, I learned so much from him about this great American art form. It was a great honor to make a short film about him doing his jazz show.”
Dave Barber called Bognar's black and white film of Schwerner "an intimate close capture of a lifelong love affair with jazz."
"Steve Schwerner represented the best of WYSO," said WYSO General Manager Luke Dennis said. "He loved jazz so much that he devoted decades to turning others on to it. He set the standard for volunteer music hosts at our station: knowledgeable, warm, dedicated, and he had an incredible record collection. We have lost a WYSO legend. He will be missed, but you can hear his legacy in the good work of today's crop of volunteer music programmers on WYSO."
"He died in the most peaceful way imaginable: at the end of a long life, in his own bed, without pain, drinking Scotch, listening to Charlie Parker and his president, Lester Young, with his family beside him.”
In a Facebook post Schwerner’s family recalled his love for Antioch College where he became Dean of Students and taught classes that included the Civil Rights Movement and the history of jazz.
Civil rights was an entrenched family value for the Schwerners.
His younger brother Mickey was one of three activists murdered in Mississippi in January 1964 during a Black voter registration drive.
The investigation of those murders were the basis of the 1988 film Mississippi Burning.
In her Facebook post, Schwerner's daughter Greta said, “Our beloved father, Steve Schwerner, died yesterday. He loved our mother Nancy ("the love of my life"), us, Cassie and Greta, his four grandchildren, jazz, Chinese food, and the Knicks, pretty much in that order.
"He died in the most peaceful way imaginable: at the end of a long life, in his own bed, without pain, drinking Scotch, listening to Charlie Parker and his president, Lester Young, with his family beside him.”
