Tonight Is Steve Schwerner’s Last WYSO Jazz Show

I’ve learned a lot about jazz over the years by listening to Steve Schwerner on WYSO 91.3 FM. After the radio station’s absurd suspension of local jazz programming several years back, it’s good that WYSO is showing Steve the love he deserves. Tonight will be his last “official” show before he moves back to New York. No one leaves YS for good, though, so I think we’ll hear him on the air again.

By proclamation of the mayor, today is Steve Schwerner Day in Yellow Springs. Virgil Hervey wrote this in Yellow Springs News Online:

When he was a student at Antioch College, Steve Schwerner was sure to get co-ops that would bring him back to his hometown, New York City, so he could hang out in jazz clubs as much as possible.

“I have seen [John] Coltrane live between 150 and 200 times,” he said. “I used to think I was at the Half-Note in the Village every night, but I have heard so many other jazz fanatics say the same thing, I realized that it would have been impossible. The place only held about 90 people.”

Now, after more than 50 years of hosting jazz radio shows from Antioch and the Dayton Public Schools, Schwerner and his wife, Nancy, will soon move back to New York for good to be closer to their two daughters, Cassie and Greta, and their grandchildren. His final appearance on Dave Barber’s Jazz Night on WYSO will be on Tuesday, Sept. 30, at 8 p.m. Read more.