Brian Delp

Jazz After Hours Host

When bassist Rufus Reid wrote It's the Nights I Like, he could have had Brian Delp in mind.

"I've always been a night owl," said Brian, host of WBGO's Jazz After Hours. "There were a lot of midnights when my father or mother would tell me to put that book away, turnout the lights and go to sleep!"

These days, Delp plays music from 1 to 6 a.m., keeping people company through the night in "the city that never sleeps." And there is no greater place to air jazz than the New York metropolitan area.

When Brian was growing up in Oklahoma City, he dreamed of making to the "Big Apple." Spurred by a lifelong love of jazz, he first hosted a show fifteen years ago on KOSU, Oklahoma State University's public radio station. From there, he went to Bismarck, North Dakota and the Prairie Public Radio network, spending almost a decade broadcasting jazz to the northern plains. And then the call came from WBGO.

"Life can be fast paced and hard here," Brian said, "so I program Jazz After Hours with relaxation in mind. You'll hear plenty of hard swinging, from Horace Silver to Christian McBride, but by 5 a.m. I am in a mellow mode. I like to wake people as gently as possible."

So when you hear Ben Webster blowing on Oliver Nelson's arrangement of Blues for Mr. Broadway or Coltrane featured on his own Central Park West, you'll know Brian Delp and Jazz After Hours has taken you through another night.