Riverwalk Jazz with the Jim Cullum Jazz Band

Tuesdays at 6:30pm

Jim Cullum is interested in where early jazz comes from. “That early music tended to be like a folk music,” says Cullum, “that aspect fascinates me. It’s almost a miracle how that music came up out of the earth.” 

So it is, on WBGO’s new weekly program Riverwalk Jazz, that you will hear some of the best early 20th Century jazz music – all the cakewalks and the small, pre-WWII Benny Goodman ensembles -- as the Jim Cullum Jazz Band plays it and then
explains, even dramatizes, the stories of both the unsung and the famous folk who created it.

With repertoire from Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Rhythm Kings, King Oliver Creole Jazz Band, Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet and drawing on the resources of universities and libraries around the country, jazz luminaries and distinguished actors, Riverwalk Jazz documents the early history of America’s classical music in a way that is positively guaranteed to make you smile and keep time on your steering wheel, dinner table, or whatever other hard surface is at hand between 6:30 and  7:30pm on Tuesdays. 

The title of the show tells its own story of how Cullum came to be such a popular bandleader/folklorist/radio star.  Riverwalk is a riverfront development project in San Antonio, Texas, originally started by the WPA in the 1930s.  “The idea,” says Cullum,  ”was cafes, bistros and little places, as the river snakes through downtown. But when I was growing up in the 60s, the little cafes had never really happened.”

There was a move on to better develop the waterfront. So a few city visionaries approached Cullum’s father, who in his earlier life had played in the sax section of the Jimmy Dorsey and Jack Teagarden bands, to start a jazz club down there.

Meanwhile, young Jim had shown an interest in some of the Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke 78s his father had, even to the extent of secretly going out to a hock shop and buying his own cornet. “My father hadn’t been paying much attention to me,” says Cullum, “and became fascinated that I had figured some of this out myself.”

Jim developed his playing to the point where he started a band that had a regular gig at a suburban beer tavern. “When I stuck with it, I think my father was thrilled,” Cullum continues. Suddenly, the spot, the band, and the spirit to do it, all came together at once. “It was a joint effort of the two of us,” says Cullum. “We were the kids and he was the pro. We did it together. I had all the fun, he did all the work.”

The club opened in 1963 and the band played every Friday and Saturday night. This was the catalyst to jump start the nascent development. Hotels, shops, other clubs followed.

“At first local radio broadcasts were just a way to get more customers down to the club,” admits Cullum. But the stations liked having the band’s music live, and when a public radio station was started in San Antonio, Cullum went to see its leader with an idea on how to tell the story of early jazz more completely on the radio.

“With jazz, there are just so many facets, so much richness, so many stories to tell, “ says Cullum. “The roots of the blues, the roots of boogie-woogie, the stories we could tell about the people, their lives...the farther we went, the more interesting it became.”

Click here for listings and you will see just how interesting.  Cullum’s stories have flowed through 18 years of Riverwalk Jazz on the radio, and now it’s on WBGO. We welcome you to catch it all—every Tuesday at 6:30pm. 

Tune in!