Jason Crane | |
|---|---|
 Crane in 2012 | |
| Born | 1973 |
| Occupation |
|
| Notable works |
|
| Website | |
| jasoncrane | |
Jason Crane is an American podcaster, writer, radio broadcaster, poet, activist, and musician.
Jason Crane | |
|---|---|
| Crane in 2012 | |
| Born | 1973 |
| Occupation |
|
| Notable works |
|
| Website | |
| jasoncrane | |
Jason Crane is an American podcaster, writer, radio broadcaster, poet, activist, and musician.
Before 2001, Crane was Tokyo business correspondent for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, [1] a newscaster for Bloomberg Radio Tokyo, and an on-air host for KUAT and KUAZ in Tucson, Arizona. [2] He worked professionally as a soprano saxophonist in Arizona; Hilton Head, South Carolina; and Japan [2] [3] [4] [5] and as a union organizer. [6]
In 2001, Crane served as operations producer of WXXI, the AM public radio affiliate serving the Rochester, New York area. Shortly afterwards, he joined the staff at WGMC Jazz 90.1 in Greece, New York, a suburb of Rochester. His first position at WGMC was development director and then, at 28, he stepped into the role of station manager until 2004. There, while also hosting an afternoon show, Traffic Jam, and running for city council (see Politics and Activism below), he oversaw the fundraising and installation of a new $120,000, 15,000-watt transmission tower, replacing the station's 2,000-watt tower. In Crane's last year there, JazzWeek bestowed a national award to WGMC as the best station among medium-sized radio markets. [1] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
While at WGMC, Crane interviewed over 200 jazz musicians including Claudia Acuna, Ben Allison, Karrin Allyson, Billy Bang, David Berkman, Gene Bertoncini, Bill Bruford, Jack DeJohnette, Kahil El'Zabar, Marty Erlich, Wycliffe Gordon, Benny Green, Fred Hersch, Bill Holman, Charlie Hunter, Norah Jones, Don Lanphere, Joe Locke, Les McCann, Bobby McFerrin, Ben Monder, Jane Monheit, David "Fathead" Newman, Houston Person, Bobby Previte, David Sanborn, John Scofield, Curtis Steigers, Tierney Sutton, Cuong Vu, Bobby Watson, Fred Wesley, Matt Wilson, and Nancy Wilson. [12]
Crane says he left Jazz 90.1 to take a break from public life and work as a stay-at-home dad to his newborn son. [7] In 2005 he took on a weekly gig hosting his own political show, The Jason Crane Show, on NewsTalk 950 WROC-AM in Rochester. The show, which featured an interview with Richard Dawkins, among others, eventually became a podcast. [3] [13] [14] [12]
In 2007 while living in Rochester, Crane created The Jazz Session, which was to become a long-running podcast featuring new interviews with jazz musicians. During that time, he contributed articles to the website All That Jazz and worked as union organizer for Unite Here in which capacity he was transferred to Albany, New York. [4] [12]
In 2010, Foothills Publishing published his first collection of poems titled Unexpected Sunlight. [15] The publications Blue Collar Review, Poets for Living Waters, qarrtsiluni, State of Emergency: Chicago Poets Address The Gulf Crisis, and Meat For Tea have featured Crane's poetry. [16]
In 2011, crane published a poetry zine called Daylight Robbery [17] and had his Twitter account recommended in Culture Monster, then the arts-and-culture blog of the Los Angeles Times. By that time he had relocated to New York City. [18] [19] [20]
In 2012, Crane lost his housing. In response, he executed a crowdfunding campaign and struck out on an interview tour for The Jazz Session during which he also presented local readings of his poetry at tour-stops in the US and Canada. [16] [19] [5] Later that year, he relocated to one of those stops, Auburn, Alabama. [21] In Auburn, he was an on-air personality for Auburn University's WEGL 91.1 [13] [22] and helped found and organize the Third Thursday Poetry Series at the Gnu's Room, a bookstore where he held a management position. [4] [23] [24]
In 2013, his second crowdfunding effort for The Jazz Session allowed him to relocate to State College, Pennsylvania to be closer to family. There he was manager of Webster's Book Store and Cafe where he founded and organized Open Mike Poetry, a weekly poetry-reading series. [4]
In 2015 he was on-air host for WKPS The Lion in State College. While living there, he produced First Laughs with Jason Crane, a podcast that chronicled his own efforts entering the field of stand-up comedy. [25] He later worked as a DJ in State College for indie-rock station WFEQ The Freq, continuing through that station's switch to the country-music-format Big Froggy WFGE in 2019 and leaving soon after. [26] In 2019, he launched the podcast A Brief Chat. [27] [28] In State College, he performed with the group Mantz, Chaplin & Crane with Jud Mantz and Lynn Chaplin. [29]
Crane stated that in 2020, after having moved back to Tucson, his romantic partnership ended resulting in his decision to begin a nomadic period of van life for which he created an Instagram series called Vanarchism. [30]
In 2023 Crane began working as program director and afternoon host for WCNR in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Crane advertises as a professional promotional writer, focusing his craft on artists and musicians. [31]
Crane is a stated atheist, Buddhist, anti-capitalist, and anarchist. [30] He has been an advocate for veganism [32] and cycling, [33] and has used The Jazz Session to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. [31] Aside from his union work, he has participated in party politics, [6] organized protest events, [34] and written publicly about his views. [35]
In 2000, he worked as a volunteer for the Green Party in Monroe County, New York, as volunteer coordinator in 2001, [6] and in 2002 as chairman. [36] In 2003, he ran as the party's candidate in Rochester's city council election for the city's East District in the council's first contested election in 16 years. He won the endorsement of the Rochester Labor Council [37] and brought in 17% of the vote, but ultimately lost to Democratic candidate Lois J. Giess. [38] [39]
In 2006, he was the leader of the 24th Legislative District (New York) Committee of the Monroe County Democratic Party. [3] [40]
In 2015, he informally organized a write-in campaign for the seat of Constable of the Borough of State College. He won the most write-in votes from the combined State College precincts with no other official candidate on the ballot. [41] [42] [43]
In 2020, Crane published a series of short podcast episodes called 3 Minutes of Buddhism which is used as an online educational tool for Northeast Religious Resources in the United Kingdom. [44] [45] [46]
In 2024 in the wake of the Israel–Hamas War, he organized a daily protest in Charlottesville in support of the Palestinian people. [34]
Crane graduated high school in 1991 from Canandaigua Academy, then traveled to Japan as an exchange student sponsored by Rotary International. He later attended SUNY Potsdam. [47]
Crane was born in Lenox, Massachusetts in 1973. He married Jennifer in 1996. They raised two sons. His grandfather, whom he says inspired his love for jazz, was Bernie Flanders. [47]
Ronald Levin Carter is an American jazz double bassist. His appearances on 2,221 recording sessions make him the most-recorded jazz bassist in history. He has won three Grammy Awards, and is also a cellist who has recorded numerous times on the instrument. In addition to a solo career of more than 60 years, Carter is well-known for playing on numerous iconic Blue Note albums in the 1960s, as well as being the anchor of trumpeter Miles Davis's "Second Great Quintet" from 1963-1968.
Gilbert Scott-Heron was an American jazz poet, singer, musician, and author known for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackson fused jazz, blues, and soul with lyrics relative to social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles. He referred to himself as a "bluesologist", his own term for "a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues". His poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", delivered over a jazz-soul beat, is considered a major influence on hip hop music.
Donald Eugene Cherry was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and multi-instrumentalist. Beginning in the late 1950s, he had a long tenure performing in the bands of saxophonist Ornette Coleman, including on the pioneering free jazz albums The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959) and Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (1961). Cherry also collaborated separately with musicians including John Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Sun Ra, Ed Blackwell, the New York Contemporary Five, and Albert Ayler.
Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, composer, playwright, editor and publisher known for his satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best-known work is Mumbo Jumbo (1972), a sprawling and unorthodox novel set in 1920s New York.
Anthony Frederick Levin is an American musician and composer specializing in electric bass guitars, Chapman Stick and upright bass. He also sings and plays synthesizer. Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson (1981–2021) and Peter Gabriel. He is also a member of Liquid Tension Experiment, Bruford Levin Upper Extremities (1998–2000) and HoBoLeMa (2008–2010). He has led his own band, Stick Men, since 2010.
Joseph Jarman was an American jazz musician, composer, poet, and Shinshu Buddhist priest. He was one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
Billy Bang, born William Vincent Walker, was an American free jazz violinist and composer.
Quincy Thomas Troupe, Jr. is an American poet, editor, journalist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, California. He is best known as the biographer of Miles Davis, the jazz musician.
Cornelius Eady is an American writer focusing largely on matters of race and society. His poetry often centers on jazz and blues, family life, violence, and societal problems stemming from questions of race and class. His poetry is often praised for its simple and approachable language.
WGMC is a listener-supported station licensed to Greece, New York and serving Rochester, New York. It airs a Jazz radio format. On air, the station is identified as "Jazz 90.1" in reference to its FM frequency. WGMC specializes in all styles of jazz, but is also an important outlet for music and voices that do not make it onto commercial radio.
David Meltzer was an American poet and musician of the Beat Generation and San Francisco Renaissance. Lawrence Ferlinghetti described him as "one of the greats of post-World-War-Two San Francisco poets and musicians". Meltzer came to prominence with inclusion of his work in the anthology The New American Poetry 1945–1960.
WXXI-FM is a non-commercial radio station in Rochester, New York, United States. It broadcasts news, talk and informational programming as a member station of National Public Radio (NPR). WXXI-FM is owned by the WXXI Public Broadcasting Council, Rochester's primary public broadcaster. The station was founded as WJZR in January 1993 by North Coast Radio, Inc., and broadcast a smooth jazz format for 29 years before it was taken silent in July 2022 upon the owner's retirement. Since May 2023, WXXI-FM has carried WXXI's news/talk service, which originates from WXXI.
Luis Perdomo is a jazz pianist, composer, and educator.
Boris Daenen, better known by his stage name Netsky, is a Belgian drum and bass producer and musician. The name Netsky is based on the computer virus of the same name.
Jason Mantzoukas is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter and podcaster. He is best known for his recurring role as Rafi in the FX comedy series The League, his role as Nadal in The Dictator, and as one of the three co-hosts of the podcast How Did This Get Made? alongside Paul Scheer and June Diane Raphael.
Backwater was an American jazz fusion band formed in Mobile, Alabama, that was active in the 1970s.
Grant Stewart is a Canadian jazz saxophonist.
The Pythodd Room("The Pythodd") was a prominent jazz club on the national Chitlin' Circuit located on Clarissa Street, in Rochester, New York's historic Third Ward neighborhood which had many African American businesses. At 159 Troup Street, it was originally intended as a meeting space for two local Black-run benevolent societies, the Knights of Pythias and the Odd Fellows. By the 1950s, notable jazz musicians such as Pee Wee Ellis, Ron Carter, Roy McCurdy, and brothers Chuck Mangione and Gap Mangione began their careers as young regular performers at the Pythodd.
The Jazz Session is a jazz-interview podcast created by Jason Crane in 2007.
The Jazz Session podcast website
First Laughs with Jason Crane podcast website
The Jason Crane Show podcast website
Crane's music and audio poetry on Bandcamp
A Spotify link to Crane's podcast 3 Minutes of Buddhism
Crane's website vanarchism.com