Rob Bamberger

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Rob Bamberger is a jazz historian and collector best known for his long-running program Hot Jazz Saturday Night, which has run for more than 40 years on WAMU Radio, 88.5, a public broadcasting radio station in the Washington, D.C. area.

Bamberger grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and experienced an epiphany in 1963 after picking up for ten cents a two-record set of Tommy Dorsey broadcast performances at a book fair at his elementary school. [1] While working as an energy policy analyst at the Congressional Research Service, he began volunteering at WAMU and, in 1980, created his own jazz show, Hot Jazz Saturday night. [2] On the program, he plays selections from the large jazz collection that fills the entire basement of his Arlington Virginia home, [3] and discusses both the musicians and the music for the benefit of his listeners. [4]

Bamberger continues the show as a part-time employee of the radio station (with a short break after WAMU decided to jettison all programing besides news and talk, described in Hot Jazz Saturday Night). During that interregnum, he produced a similar program for WOWD in Takoma Park. [5] He lectures on jazz at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian and other venues, [6] and has written the liner notes for dozens of jazz albums. [7] He also as the lead author of Congressionally-mandated study of the deterioration of the archive of recorded music, with particular reference to pre-1972 recordings. [8]

After Bamberger retired from the Congressional Research Service in 2010, he studied for a Masters in Social Work to pursue a second career in senior care. He currently works at Iona Senior Services where he facilitates support groups for the children, spouses and partners of individuals with dementia and similar chronic conditions, [9] and serves on the Steering Committee and faculty of the Aging Program of the Washington School of Psychiatry. [10]

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Hot Jazz Saturday Night is a weekly jazz program broadcast on WAMU, a public radio station owned by American University and affiliated with National Public Radio or NPR. It has been hosted since 1980 by Rob Bamberger. Each Saturday, from 7 PM to 10 PM, Bamberger plays three hours of jazz, particularly from the 1920s through the 1940s, drawn from his personal collection of 78's, LP’s and CD’s, and provides detailed explanations of the artists whose recordings he is playing. Some programs focus on a particular jazz performer, often from a discrete period during that artist’s career, or a related set of performers, while other programs spin merrily through many difference artists and different eras. The program is extended to several hours every year for “Hot Jazz New Year’s Eve.”

References

  1. ↑ Moran, James. "Hot Jazz Saturday Night". Congressional Record. Government Printing Office. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  2. ↑ Booth, Glenda C. (May 2, 2022). "Jazz Heats Up Saturday Nights". The Beacon. The Beacon Newspapers. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  3. ↑ Beaujon, Andrew (February 24, 2021). ""Hot Jazz Saturday Night" Is Back—and Rob Bamberger's Beard Is Gone". Washingtonian Magazine. Washington Media, Inc. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  4. ↑ Hendrickson, Paul (May 11, 1996). "A Cool Night for Hot Jazz". Washington Post. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  5. ↑ "A Hot Jazz Friday Afternoon with Rob Bamberger". SoundCloud. WOWD / Takoma Radio 94.3FM. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  6. ↑ "Rob Bamberger". WAMU. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  7. ↑ Smith, Kingsley (June 23, 2009). "Hot Jazz Boils Over With Rob Bamberger". NPR. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  8. ↑ Bamberger, Rob (January 2010). The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States: A National Legacy at Risk in the Digital Age. Council on Library and Information Resources. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  9. ↑ "Ron Bamberger". The Org. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  10. ↑ "Study of Aging". Washington School of Psychiatry. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
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