Apr 07 2008
Hi folks,
In an attempt to do some e-triage, I’m not updating this particular site very often. However, I regularly contribute to the following sites, some of which I run and some of which I just participate in:
My weekly jazz interview show
The online home for cyclists in upstate New York
The world’s most-visited jazz site
The newspaper of Hilton Head Island, SC
Veloquent, a bicycle site run by Kent Peterson
Aug 03 2006
I’d love to hear from you, and there are several ways to contact me:
Aug 01 2006
15 Oct 2002
The (Canandaigua, NY) Daily Messenger
by Julie Sherwood
(GENEVA, NY) — About 75 people marched through the city’s business district yesterday, raising anti-war signs and chanting slogans against a United States attack on Iraq.
“War is a huge (concern) now,” said Meredith Faulkner, a Finger Lakes Community College student who played guitar and sang several anti-war songs during a gathering of the group at the gazebo on Seneca Lake off Routes 5 and 20. “It’s a repeat of history that we don’t need right now,” said the Green Party member.
The event, organized by the Green Party of Ontario County, included speeches, music and a puppet show promoting the Green Party candidates and platform.
Jennifer Daniels, Green Party candidate for lieutenant governor, called the approval Congress gave President Bush last week to go to war against Iraq “a failure of democracy.”
Daniels is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and has a community medical practice in Syracuse. “Our citizens don’t want war,” she said.
Lynda Pownall-Carlson, of Middlesex, who attended the rally, agreed. “I was so disappointed” with the votes that U.S. senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer cast last week giving Bush the O.K. to go to war, she said. “Corporations and oil are such great powers,” she added, citing those influences as the reason behind politicians’ votes in support of war.
“Starting war with Iraq is starting war with the American people,” said Green Party candidate for comptroller Howie Hawkins.
A war would not only kill our children, but “suck up all our tax money into the war machine,” said the Vietnam veteran, who is co-founder of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance and the national Green Party.
Rachel Treichler, the Green Party candidate for the 29th Congressional District, said she advocates cutting federal military spending — which she said now totals about $400 billion annually — by half. She wants to put taxpayers’ money to work on causes such as universal health care and alternative sources of energy, she said. She said she backs wind power as a renewable energy source to reduce our nation’s reliance on nuclear power and foreign oil. Organically grown foods, locally-owned businesses and a government health care system that covers everyone, similar to the Canadian and Australian models, are key issues the party supports, she said.
Treichler, a lawyer, lives on a farm in Hammondsport, Steuben County, and operates Eco Books, an online bookseller specializing in books on ecological issues.
The redrawn 29th Congressional District will cover all of Ontario County, except Geneva, parts of southern Monroe County and Cattaraugus, Allegany, Steuben, Chemung, Schuyler and Yates counties.
Marty Dodge, a professor of environmental conservation at FLCC and faculty advisor for the college’s Finger Lakes Environmental Action group, was impressed. “It’s a wonderful opportunity,” he said, as a number of participants circled the lawn near the gazebo on the chilly, windy afternoon waving signs and puppets in support of Green Party ideals.
Jason Crane, chairman of the Green Party of Monroe County, who attended the rally, agreed. Events like this help “get regular people involved in making changes in their community,” he said.
Stanley Aronowitz, the Green Party candidate for governor, was scheduled to attend the event, but had his flight canceled at the last minute.
Aug 01 2006
20 May 2002
The (Canandaigua, NY) Daily Messenger
by Sarah J. Allen
Some 1,800 county residents voted for Ralph Nader in 2000.
Ontario County is the right environment for a Green Party.
At least that’s what two Canandaigua natives believe. Jason Crane and Kevin Baird decided to organize a Green Party here after becoming inspired by the local support for presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 2000. Nader, a well-known consumer advocate and environmentalist, received 10 times the amount of votes in Ontario County than that number of registered Green Party voters.
The first meeting was held last week.
“I’m a big supporter of everybody having a voice in the political system,” said Crane, who is chairman of the Monroe County Green Party [sic]. “In Ontario County, I think it can be difficult for progressive people - those who don’t promote sprawl, who support the environment - to realize their views in the ballot box.”
Crane, a Rochester resident, and Baird, who’s also affiliated with the Monroe County Green Party [sic] and now lives in Buffalo, still have family in Canandaigua, where they attended high school together. “Jason and I have roots in (Ontario) county and care about its future and wanted to do something beneficial,” Baird said.
Both men are confident the Ontario County group will gain rapid support. “There are 180 registered Greens in Ontario County,” Baird said. “But 1,800 people in Ontario County voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. We thought there was enough interest to provide some framework.”
Next, the men hope to set up Green Party clubs, or “Campus Greens” chapters, in Ontario County high schools, Finger Lakes Community College and Hobart and William Smith colleges.
Crane and Baird will eventually hand over leadership to local residents.
Sandra Lynch, of Canandaigua, will be one of the county residents to take over stewardship of the Ontario County group. “Our plan is to try to contact a lot of people who voted for Ralph Nader but may not be registered as Green,” she said. “We would like to see a lot more people register.”
Lynch recently returned to the area from Baltimore, where she worked on Nader campaign efforts. Once home, she learned there was a Green Party in Monroe County, but no group in Ontario County. Lynch tried to find out more information and how to get an organization going in her area. Then recently, she was contacted and told to come to the Ontario County group’s first meeting.
Like Crane and Baird, Lynch is sure the local group will succeed. “It’s good for grassroots organizing,” she said.
Aug 01 2006
15 Oct 2003
Candidates for City Council were invited to submit essays answering the question: What mistake did you make in your personal life that taught you an important lesson? All did, except John W. Smith, Republican candidate in the South District.
Jason Crane
Candidate for City Council East District
At age 18, I returned from a year as an exchange student in Japan and went to study jazz at a SUNY school. While I was away, there were massive state budget cuts and the program was reduced to one professor. I went anyway and enrolled in a music education and classical performance program. I hated it and spent a year performing poorly and eventually refusing to study at all.
I then spent a year working in a bank and trying to figure out how to get back on the accepted path - college, job, family.
One day, I realized that maybe the problem was the path, not the person on it. I packed up my things, moved to the Southwest and started playing music professionally. I met my wife and within a year we were back in Japan having an adventure.
Since then, I’ve tried very hard to be true to myself. The important thing is not that I fit in a particular box or category, but that my actions and energies go toward improving the world around me at the same time as I challenge myself.
I learned another lesson, too: Have fun! “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is a fine idea, and its time has come. We need to create an environment where our citizens have a real chance to pursue their dreams. We need a city full of rewarding jobs, healthy neighborhoods and innovative ideas.
Like my decision to head west, the choices necessary to make this dream a reality will not be easy. But many times the only way to succeed is to step off the well-trodden path and strike out in a new direction.
Crane is running on the Green Party line.
Lois J. Giess
Candidate for City Council East District
As Robert Frost wrote, I regret “The Road Not Taken.” I grew up in Oak Park, Ill., a community much like Rochester - rich in cultural activities and opportunities for creative expression. I took advantage of all of it: ballet, tap dancing, piano and singing lessons tennis, synchronized swimming and field hockey. I took cello lessons from a cellist in the Chicago Symphony and played in the school orchestra.
As an adult, I continued to seek out those avenues of creative expression - classes at the Memorial Art Gallery, yoga, furniture restoration, flower arranging, needlepoint, etc.
What I regret is not choosing one of those avenues and pursing it to the point of individual satisfaction. My husband, John, loves sacred and orchestral music and has pursued it with a passion since he was 8. He is familiar with the extensive sacred organ repertoire and the principal organists who play this sublime music. He sings enthusiastically with our church choir and he shares his talent and joy.
I now believe it is important to develop that creative side of all of us. I have become a passive (or want-to-be) voice. Frost understood that this was a lesson that I would be “telling with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence.” Despite the sigh over those missed opportunities, I do believe that it is never too late to nurture that creative side. But for real fulfillment, one must pursue the creative instinct to the point of satisfaction. Just sampling will not sustain the spirit, will not avoid the sense of a road not taken.
Giess is running on the Democratic Party line.
Anthony Giordano
Candidate for City Council East District
The biggest mistake that I have made in my personal life is giving the amount of trust that I have to certain individuals from my past.
I always give the benefit of the doubt to every person with whom I come in contact.
But I think because they know I am an open and kind person, some see this as an opportunity to take advantage of me.
In the past, there was a couple who were friends of my mine and who had very bad financial problems - as I did.
I helped them out with transportation when they had no car. I also gave them a place to live when they were evicted from their suburban home.
However, after I gave them all this help, they stopped being my friends.
And after everything I had done for them, they never once even said “thank you.”
However, I learned a big lesson from this experience and others like it.
I realize that I probably should not have trusted certain individuals from my past to the extent that I did.
I have discovered that there are people out there who will knowingly take advantage of you and/or the situation.
So, having coming to these realizations, I now feel that I will choose more wisely those people I will trust or depend on.
Nonetheless, despite any negative experiences, I will continue to have a positive outlook when it comes to dealing with people. My nature is to be trusting and I just feel good about helping people, even if the kindness is not returned.
Giordano is running on the Citizens for Change Party line.
Luis A. Perez
Candidate for City Council Northwest District
What is one mistake you made in your personal life that taught you an important lesson?
One mistake that comes to mind was that I didn’t go to college right after I graduated from high school.
I had been doing an internship with Rochester Telephone my senior year at Monroe High School, and when I graduated the company asked me to continue working full time.
With seemingly secure employment, a new car and money in my pocket, I decided I could continue my education at a later time.
Three years later, after a six-month labor strike, my job was eliminated and I found myself in the unemployment line - with a new appreciation of the need for a college education.
A young family and a new career at Eastman Kodak Co. later made it even more difficult for me to attend college.
It would be many more years and many sleepless nights before I would finally receive my master’s degree in social work - fulfilling a dream and major goal in my life. The personal sacrifice and the strain on my family and social life were immense.
I learned many lessons from this mistake.
One of the most important is not to put off for tomorrow what you can do today. We must seize the moment when it is before us.
I also learned that if you work hard and stay focused you can accomplish much.
More importantly, I learned a new level of appreciation for my family and friends who were so supportive through it all.
Perez is running on the Republican and Conservative party lines.
Robert J. Stevenson
Candidate for City Council Northwest District
A man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” I grew up in “Butterhole” in northwest Rochester, a Catholic enclave in the 1930s.
After completing eight grades at the local parochial school, in accordance with parental advice, I entered St. Andrew’s Preparatory Seminary and six years later St. Bernard’s Seminary to prepare for the religious life.
By the last year of training, I finally figured out that my preparation was appropriate for a monk in Italy in the 1920s. I took leave of the advanced training in philosophy, theology, Scripture and ancient Hebrew, Greek and Latin wondering what practical use 11 years of priestly training could have in the real world.
After two years of active duty in the Army, two years at Rochester Products and having acquired a master’s degree and three teaching certificates, I started a 30-year career teaching high school.
Gradually I realized that parts and pieces of my seminary training complemented my career choice of teaching science. The logic and cosmology courses stood me in good stead to teach the orderly procedures of gaining knowledge in science. Moreover, I can apply my teaching skills to addressing the myriad constituent problems I have addressed in representing 50,000 citizens these last 16 years.
What I initially thought was almost the biggest mistake in my life has turned out to be a very strong logical and ethical framework for dealing with the city and its citizens. The very act of reaching for something impossible has guided my life.
Stevenson is running on the Democratic, Independence and Working Families party lines.
Adam C. McFadden
Candidate for City Council South District
In February 1993, I was in my junior year at Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C.
On the first springlike day, I decided to skip my marketing class to hang out with my Phi Beta Sigma brothers.
I ignored the fact that I had a presentation to do with my classmate Ronald “Killa” Anthony. Ronald was the point guard of our basketball team who earned the name “Killa” because he could destroy anyone who defended him on the court. After working for two weeks on our marketing presentation on mint-flavored beer, we thought we could get an A. But because I skipped the class, he was unable to do the presentation.
When Ronald found me after class, I was given the task of persuading our professor to allow us to present in the next class.
About 10 o’clock that night, I was getting ready to meet Ronald to review our presentation when a friend came to inform me that Ronald was dead. He had dropped his car keys down the elevator shaft in the boys’ dorm. He had gone under the dorm, which was built on stilts, to retrieve his keys, when he fell 10 feet into the elevator shaft. He had lain there helpless with a broken neck and when someone sent the elevator car up, the counter weights had crushed him.
I was never able to make that presentation or even say goodbye to him. He was a leader on and off the court. He taught me that when you are given a task, you must complete it because others are depending on you. We all must do our part and when one of us does not, we are accountable together.
McFadden is running on the Democratic and Working Families party lines.
Aug 01 2006
28 July 2004
The Democrat & Chronicle
Report ranks WGMC radio as best in nation for medium-sized markets.
by Bennett J. Loudon
(GREECE, NY) — Not only is WGMC one of the few 24-hour jazz music stations in the country, it’s also one of the best.
Jazz Week, a weekly report of the top 50 jazz and smooth jazz recordings in the United States and Canada, named the station as the best among medium-sized radio markets - those ranked from 26th to 100th by the Arbitron media and marketing research firm.
The rankings are based on the metropolitan population of residents older than 12 years old.
Rochester is ranked 54th with a metro population of 932,000 potential listeners older than 12.
WGMC-FM (90.1) beat out rivals in Buffalo, which is ranked 52nd; Syracuse, ranked 80th; Tucson, Ariz., ranked 61st; Louisville, Ky., ranked 55th; and New Orleans, ranked 46th.
“It’s a huge deal. . . . This is a big honor for us because it’s an award bestowed by our peers. It’s people who do what we do every single day and who know how important radio is to jazz, who’ve decided that in 2004 . . . the station in our market size that they felt was really bringing the jazz message forth the best was Jazz 90.1, which is a real honor,” said station manager Jason Crane.
“The criteria was basically what have they done for the industry in their market size,” said Tony Gasparre, publisher of the Rochester-based Jazz Week and a weekend volunteer DJ at WGMC.
The award, which was presented on June 5, was decided by music directors at the 85 stations that report their playlists to Jazz Week, plus 12 promoters and 35 recording industry executives.
“What they liked is the way that WGMC delivers its presentation of music and how it does it. I think some of the best comments that were given about it were that WGMC didn’t sound like a true noncommercial station. The way that the music is delivered, it’s delivered almost like it’s a top-40 station,” said Gasparre, who was the station’s music director last year, when he won Jazz Week’s music director of the year award.
“It’s important that people are not only playing the classics and respecting the tradition of the music, but also that people are treating jazz as a living music and really trying to get the word out about the people who are out there playing jazz now,” said Crane.
“We play about 55 percent new music, music by living artists. That’s really important to us because if we don’t play that music, no one is ever going to hear those people,” he said.
WGMC, promoted by station officials as Jazz90.1, operates out of a studio on the third floor of Greece Apollo Middle School. The studio and the station’s license are owned by the Greece Central School District. WGMC has been presenting a jazz format since the mid-1990s.
The district charges no rent for the use of the facilities. The station’s staff includes Crane, the only full-time employee, and a part-time office worker. Volunteers provide most of the on-air talent. About 80 percent of funding needed for salaries and other expenses is provided by membership donations from listeners. The remainder comes from business sponsors.
A new studio will be part of a new library and multimedia center at Olympia High School, which is expected to be completed in January.
“Once we get in there, we hope that’s going to give us even more of a chance to show kids what radio is about and bring students over to have them see some in-studio jazz performances,” Crane said.
Students are not involved with the operation of the station, but the station staff teaches about jazz and broadcasting in the Greece schools, and they interview students involved in performing jazz.
The station now operates with a 7,500-watt signal, but federal approval to operate at 15,000 watts is expected soon. Listeners can hear WGMC within about 40 miles - as far east as Lyons; Batavia, Genesee County, to the west; and Penn Yan, Yates County, and Geneseo to the south.
Aug 01 2006
15 Oct 2003
The Democrat & Chronicle
(ROCHESTER, NY) — The Rochester Labor Council has endorsed Green Party candidate Jason Crane for City Council’s East District seat over two other candidates.
“This city has 10 percent unemployment, an epidemic of child poverty, thousands of lost jobs, and no apparent plan to deal with these issues,” Jim Bertolone, president of the council, said in a statement. “We need a City Council member with innovative ideas to help working families.”
Crane’s platform includes increased investment in small business the creation of a Community Enrichment Index to track companies’ job creation and provision of wages and benefits and more citizen empowerment at every level of government.
Aug 01 2006
January 7, 2004
WGMC expanding broadcast power to reach more than 430,000 listeners.
by Lauren Stanforth
GREECE - Rochester resident Jason Crane, 30, is station manager at WGMC-FM (90.5, 105.1), the area’s only full-time jazz radio station.
The station is located in space owned by the Greece Central School District, but WGMC is independently owned and supported by community donations.
The signal the tiny radio station emits from atop Greece Athena High School can’t even be picked up at Crane’s home near Cobbs Hill in Rochester.
“I guess it’s good for the staff,” Crane joked about his inability to listen to how the station is run from his home.
But it hasn’t been good for a station that is itching to be heard on more home stereos and car radios.
That’s why WGMC applied for, and received, a Federal Communications Commission permit in 2000 to expand its broadcast power from 2,000 watts to 15,000 watts. The station had three years to erect the new 199-foot tower and antenna, and has attempted to raise the necessary $120,000 to cover the costs.
“(The station) is great for the local jazz music scene,” said Pittsford resident and jazz guitarist Steve Greene. “Not too many people know there are very few 24-hour jazz stations in the country, period.”
The station has raised about $40,000, through mailings and on-air fundraising, and $50,000 from the nonprofit group Greece Community Broadcasting. Although there is $40,000 to go, the station has to erect the tower before the license runs out in January.
So all the antenna and transmitter equipment will be functional in January in hopes that the station will reach more people, and therefore have more people to ask for donations. The station took an advance on its 2004 budget to pay for the equipment. It will have to raise the funds to cover the loss this year.
“It’s easier if you can ask 10 times as many people for the money,” said Crane, who is also chairman of the Monroe County Green Party.
The radio station estimates it will now be able to reach 433,000 listeners, as opposed to 299,000 listeners currently. The range of the station can currently reach to Canandaigua, but mostly it is limited to Greece and other westside locations because of the current small wattage the station runs on. With the new antenna equipment, WGMC will now be heard in the city of Rochester and parts east.
That’s important, says Crane, because the station is the only one in the Rochester region that showcases new jazz talent. National Public Radio and other stations might play jazz, but not nearly 24 hours a day such as at WGMC.
“One of our functions is to give (new jazz musicians) a fighting chance,” Crane said.
The station is in an interesting location - in the third floor of Greece Apollo Middle School. The district used it as a student radio station starting in 1973, but gave it over to to be used as a community radio station in the 1980s when the district had budgetary problems. The school district allows the radio station to use its studio as a public service. WGMC has existed as a jazz station since the mid-1990s.
With a new antenna and more listeners, Crane hopes the station will also be able to grow. The station has about a $120,000 budget per year and employs Crane, one half-time employee and a few disc jockeys. Jockeys who work from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and on weekends are volunteers.
Another step toward that goal will be the new studio the radio station will have in December 2004. The school district, while constructing more space for the Greece Olympia High School library, is donating a leftover room for a new WGMC studio. Crane hopes the new space will allow for more programs to get Greece students involved in the radio station. Currently, Crane brings some students into the studio to see how the radio station works, but there is no formal program for students to intern there.
Aug 01 2006
September 19, 2001
Vounteers in their teens and 20s make presence felt in politics.
by Sheila Rayam
The Democrat & Chronicle
(ROCHESTER, NY) — Stephen Keblish remembers watching George Bush debate Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential campaign.
He was 6 years old at the time, mind you, but the now-sophomore at the State University College at Brockport understood one very important aspect of the presidential debate and politics back then.
“I knew there was a Democratic and Republican Party,” says Keblish, 19, of Herkimer, Herkimer County.
Keblish has been seriously studying up on the political process since the 10th grade. Last year, he started a Brockport for Bush organization. This year, he has organized a group called the Brockport College Republicans.
“The main reason that I like politics so much is it’s gonna be in the history books someday - what happens in Washington,” says Keblish, who’s also a member of the Herkimer County Republican Committee.
“There is a lot of drama in politics.”
Joe Christoff didn’t watch the Bush-Dukakis debates, but he remembers his parents talking about them. Now, he’s able to discuss politics with his parents if he chooses.
“Politics makes sense to me,” says Christoff, 17. “It’s something I’m interested in.”
The Penfield teen won’t be of legal age to vote until next month, when he plans to register without enrolling in a specific party. But that hasn’t stopped him from getting involved.
Christoff became a campaign volunteer for Monroe County Legislature candidate Mitchell Rowe earlier this summer. The senior at Penfield High School has put up Rowe yard signs and attended a campaign strategy meeting at county Democratic Committee headquarters, among other things.
Rowe is the Democratic candidate for the legislature in the 26th District, covering parts of Rochester’s Maplewood and Edgerton neighborhoods. He is among dozens of local candidates vying for office in the 2001 campaign.
More than 100 positions representing the city, towns and county will be decided by voters on Election Day, Nov. 6.
And working behind the scenes to get their candidates in office are volunteers who have been stuffing envelopes and making phone calls for months.
Those volunteers come from all walks of life and demographics, including the late-teen and 20-something groups that have been saddled with an apathetic label by society.
Jason Crane, 28, of Rochester has heard the they-don’t-care-about-politics talk in reference to his age group.
“I think it’s unfair to apply that apathetic label to 20-somethings,” says Crane, who’s a member of the Monroe County Green Party.
“Quite honestly, half the American public voted in the last election.”
In Crane’s eyes, if only half the American public didn’t vote, why single out the 20-something demographic as apathetic?
Crane has actively volunteered for the county Green Party for the past two years. Currently, he’s volunteer coordinator.
For a minimum of an hour a day, seven days a week, Crane does everything from answering e-mails about the party to creating and handing out literature about the five Green candidates in the 2001 campaign.
And he did all of that recently while working 70 hours a week as a union organizer before starting a new job as an operations producer for WXXI radio (FM 91.5 and AM 1370) on Sept. 10.
Crane isn’t the only young activist who’s volunteering for a local campaign on top of a busy work schedule.
Melisza Escher of Chili is campaign manager for Linda Terrell, the Democratic candidate for County Legislature in the 13th District.
As campaign manager, Escher’s duties include everything from writing press releases to stuffing envelopes, the activity most associated with campaign workers.
The 22-year-old spends about 12 hours a week of her free time volunteering for Terrell’s campaign. She does so after putting in a full day as a broadcast traffic coordinator at Jay Advertising in Pittsford.
If you had told Escher a few years ago that she would be running a local campaign, she probably would have laughed.
Although she enjoyed her political science classes at the State University College at Geneseo, Escher admits she wasn’t big on politics.
But that all changed after she attended the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles last year. Escher, who is of Hispanic heritage, was recruited by Monroe County Democrats who wanted to send a diverse contingent to the convention.
“I went to the convention and had the most amazing experience,” says Escher. “It just completely enlightened me on what you can do as an individual in politics if you put your mind to it.”
Now, Escher has political aspirations of her own and dreams of running for office one day. She hasn’t decided which office, however. For now, she’s content to learn the ropes of political processes on the local level.
Many young activists aspire to political office, say experts, and that’s one reason they volunteer to work for a local campaign.
For Escher, there’s another very important reason why she’s volunteering her time.
“It’s just so important for young people to be involved,” says Escher.
“Where is our future going if we don’t have young people involved?”
Escher acknowledges that there’s a segment of her age group that isn’t interested in politics. She says the majority of her friends, for instance, are not registered to vote.
“I would have been one of those people if I hadn’t been called to action to go to the national convention,” says Escher.
But Escher believes that a big part of the problem with getting young people involved in politics is that politicians aren’t reaching out to them.
Monroe County Green Party volunteer Norah McCormick has been registered to vote since she was 18 and she has exercised her right to do so often since then.
Still, she can understand how participating in the political process by volunteering or voting can be a low priority for 20-somethings.
“You have a lot of developmental life tasks to deal with in your 20s,” says McCormick, who turned 30 this month.
“Thinking about my 20s, it was hard enough to get it together to go and vote.”
McCormick, a special education teacher in the Rochester City School District, volunteered with the Green Party for the first time this summer. Much of her volunteer work included voter registration.
McCormick is running unopposed for a position on the Green Party’s state committee. If she becomes a member of the committee, she’ll have a hand in deciding which candidate the party will put on the ballot for governor of New York state, among other offices.
Like Escher at the Democratic Convention, McCormick may very well get a bird’s-eye view of the system.
Most citizens don’t have that opportunity, says Crane.
“You don’t generally have access to the political (process),” says Crane. “I think it is very difficult for people in this country to become informed with unbiased information.”
Still, the information is out there. And that’s what Mark Chadsey, assistant professor of political science at SUNY Brockport, tries to convey to his students.
“Many of them think that they can’t acquire information,” says Chadsey, who’s also faculty adviser for Brockport College Republicans.
“They don’t realize that if they pick up the newspaper, they can learn information about politics every day in their lives.”
Stephen Keblish understands this.
Although the political science major is not volunteering on any local campaigns, he hopes to hold several public debates with other groups on campus.
Whether you’re volunteering for a political party, voting for a candidate or both, Keblish says, he believes it’s important to be active in the political process somehow.
“If you aren’t involved, your voice isn’t being heard,” he adds. “If you want to be heard, you have to be involved.”
Aug 01 2006
October 23, 2003
Section: Opinion
Edition: Metro
Page: 12A
Fighting For Rochester’s Future
by Staff
The Democrat & Chronicle
Our recommendations
Today, the Democrat and Chronicle Editorial Board presents its choices in Rochester’s City Council and school board races.
We carefully weighed information about each candidate, gathered from interviews and talks with people who know them personally and professionally.
We looked for thoughtfulness, the ability to work with others, fresh ideas and the ability to focus. Those leadership attributes are critical if the city is to live up to its potential, and if the school district’s many problems are ever to be turned around.
CITY COUNCIL
Stevenson, McFadden and Giess
On Nov. 4, voters must select three City Council members who can help lead the city through present challenges toward a more diverse economy, better schools and healthier neighborhoods.
Their shoulders will bear the responsibility for turning Rochester back into a destination that attracts people from Monroe County and beyond.
Five City Council positions are up for election. Benjamin Douglas and Bill Pritchard are unopposed for the Northeast and at-large seats, respectively.
Adam McFadden, Bob Stevenson and Lois Giess have the skills, energy and commitment to fill the South, Northwest and East district seats. They are the Democrat and Chronicle’s choices for four-year terms on City Council.
Stevenson, a Democrat who has represented the Northwest District for the past 16 years, shows no sign of slowing down. At 75, he exhibits uncommon energy and enthusiasm. The “breadbasket,” as he calls his district, has 90 percent of the manufacturing zoning in Rochester and was hard-hit by recent layoffs.
As chairman of the council’s Parks, Public Works and the Environment Committee, Stevenson has sought and received state brownfield cleanup funding to make polluted land available for development. Stevenson leads the effort to get smaller companies, like the hundred or so tool and die companies in the northwest, to pick up where the big employers left off. When Sealtest Ice Cream vacated its plant, Stevenson worked to get DiLisi Foods to take it over, providing 60 jobs for city residents. Success like that should be duplicated.
Stevenson should also lend his expertise in economic development to other areas of the city, particularly downtown. His Republican opponent, Luis Perez, 48, declined an invitation to be interviewed by the Editorial Board and a request for a phone interview.
In the South District, McFadden has community connections and creativity that make him the best candidate to fill outgoing Councilman Tony Thompson’s seat. He is president of the 19th Ward Community Association and also a supporter of the neighborhood activist group Interfaith Action.
McFadden, 32, comes to the table with fresh energy and new ideas. He suggests making Midtown Plaza a high-tech center and he rightly insists that this community needs a fitting memorial to Frederick Douglass. His independent attitude will be an asset in a City Council that is likely to be all Democratic.
His opponent, John W. Smith, 62, showed passion and a commitment to change the city. His campaign, however, was long on criticism and short on new ideas.
McFadden is the best choice. He should strive to maintain his independence and community-based attitude as he moves to City Hall.
Lois Giess, the current City Council president, deserves another term representing the East District. Don’t let her mild-mannered demeanor fool you she works hard for her constituents. Giess led the Newcroft development project that cleaned up abandoned and abused properties in the area around Woodstock Avenue and East Main Street. Her lobbying brought in state brownfield cleanup money, and more than 20 homes are scheduled to be constructed on that site next year.
After running unopposed for many years, Giess faces two tough challengers in this election. Jason Crane, who is chairman of the Green Party, is a thoughtful and sharp candidate with a commitment to ending lead poisoning that Giess should adopt. He should keep an eye open for another elective office.
Anthony Giordano, a Republican running as an independent on the Citizens for Change line, is a community activist with a strong commitment to social justice. His call for a more accessible and people-friendly City Council is a valid one that Giess should embrace, particularly when running City Council meetings.
Candidates such as Crane, 30, and Giordano, 35, offer hope for the future of this community. For now, Giess’ connections, experience and ability to navigate the system make her the best choice.
Jul 31 2006
July 30, 2006
Web site preserves the era when buildings doubled as billboards
by Leigh Remizowski
Staff Writer
The Democrat & Chronicle
Twenty years ago, Pat Domaratz’s friend pointed out a faded advertisement for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1944 re-election, painted on the exterior of the building at 217 W. Main St.
“Victory, Peace, Jobs, Security — Vote for Roosevelt,” the just barely visible sign reads.
When another friend, Jason Crane, started www.SignWall.com, Domaratz decided that this piece of history should be documented. SignWall.com, which is devoted to old and abandoned signs and etchings, is a growing archive of the history seen on the walls of Rochester buildings.
“In a lot of cases, this is the only physical evidence we have left of companies, local dignitaries, economic conditions and lifetimes of past eras,” says Crane, a 32-year-old Rochester resident and organizer for the union UNITE HERE. “And in many cases the memory of these things has completely passed out of existence.”
Crane and Domaratz have found signs for French’s mustard at the old factory on Mustard Street, an original Beech-Nut factory at the corner of East Main and North Goodman streets, a 1936 Valley Cadillac dealer on East Avenue near Union Street and other businesses and products dating to the 1800s.
The Web site has been up since March, and Crane has collected more than 50 photos. He relies not only on his own findings but also those of the community.
“I hope people will find their local history interesting,” says Domaratz, a 43-year-old Rochester resident and labor relations specialist for New York State United Teachers. “I also hope that people will take an interest in helping to preserve these things.”
So far, archiving has been Crane’s main goal. But he hopes to help restore and maintain significant signs.
For the FDR sign, Crane met with the building’s owner and with the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in Hyde Park, Dutchess County. He hopes to raise money so they can restore the sign — which is on the backside of a building in the midst of renovations. “I think it could actually be a tourist attraction for history buffs,” Crane says.
The urgency with which they work comes with knowing how quickly and easily the city’s history can be destroyed.
Just a few months back, Domaratz found himself staring at a sign for a bakery on Goodman Street. Thinking he could come back later for a better quality photo, he snapped one with his camera phone and left. About a month later, he returned with a digital camera. But the sign had been taken down in a renovation project.
“All of Rochester’s built-in history, you can’t get it back. You can’t re-create it,” says Crane.
Many signs that have made it through the years have survived because of luck, says Cynthia Howk, architectural research coordinator at the Landmark Society of Western New York. Factors such as weathering and the building owner’s budget can mean the difference between life or death for a historical sign.
“Most of these signs have survived out of neglect,” she says. “They might be too high up or not a maintenance priority.”
Howk’s job has brought her across Rochester and its surrounding areas. In her experience, she has found that raising public awareness is often the key to keeping these signs in tact. For that, she praises the work of Crane and Domaratz.
Now, both of them carry cameras with them. “I drive down the streets with one eye on the road and one eye looking up at buildings,” says Domaratz.
After a photo is snapped, often from several angles, the hunt for the history begins. Crane researches and then posts whatever information he can.
“What I’ve learned about urban America is that there’s an amazing wealth of history right in front of our eyes that has become visual wallpaper,” says Crane. “And if you just stop and focus on it, it’s a window into the history of the place we live.”
Jul 31 2006
16 March 2005
City Newspaper
by Chad Oliveiri
Anyone who’s read Jason Crane’s bio (www.jasoncrane.org) knows the former WGMC station manager is terminally restless. One of the only constants in Crane’s life has been his activism — from his stints as a labor union organizer, to his two years as chair of the Monroe County Green Party, to his 2003 bid for Rochester City Council.
And now Crane is heading back to the airwaves, activism in tow. The Jason Crane Show will air every Saturday from 12 to 3 p.m. on NewsTalk 950 WROC-AM. In Crane’s words:
“We’ll tackle the issues that other broadcast media don’t touch; we’ll talk with guests that other media outlets don’t talk to; and we’ll talk to some of the people you hear on mainstream broadcast outlets — but we’ll ask them better questions. The show will not deal exclusively with local news, but the overwhelming focus will be on local news, and on tying larger stories into the local scene.”
Sounds great to us. Crane’s inaugural program will include labor organizer Pat Domaratz and Cornell professor (and former City Newspaper staff writer) Joan Collins-Lambert dissecting the week’s news; Glenny Williams and Howard Eagle on the Rochester City School District’s school-closure plan; Susan Jacoby on her book Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism; freelance writer Richard Zitrin on Rochester’s newspapers; and Andrew Stankevich on the success of the Friends Helping Friends food-distribution program.
And in the next few weeks, Crane promises guests like City Councilman Tim Mains, Police Chief Robert Duffy, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, organic farmer Elizabeth Henderson, and many others. Stay tuned.
Jul 31 2006
24 November 2004
City Newspaper
by Ron Netsky
When Traffic Jam, the popular afternoon jazz show on WGMC 90.1 FM, ended on Friday, November 19, it also marked the end of Jason Crane’s tenure at the station. Along with hosting the show for three years, Crane has served as station manager, overseeing a period of remarkable growth. His primary achievement was raising the funds to purchase a new tower, boosting the station to 15,000 watts.
“I feel really good about leaving now,” says Crane, “the station is stable and growing and it can continue to grow without me. Crane, who has a longstanding interest in politics and history, says that his concern for the country has lead him to the decision to pursue a Ph.D. in American History and become a college professor.
Rob Linton, who will fill his shoes as the new Station Manager, has extensive radio experience at WHAM 1180 AM. Linton, 24, is excited about expanding WGMC’s listener base and taking the station to the next level.
“It’s a completely different environment from WHAM,” says Linton. “You’re dealing with listeners who love the station and support it.” Although jazz is not his priority when it comes to music, Linton plans to catch up on it before making his on-air debut.
“His job is not to be the jazz guru,” says Crane. “We have plenty of people working here who know jazz. His job is to make sure there’s a station to work at and to make it grow.”
Crane, who has held many different jobs in the past, says he never really expected to become station manager at WGMC in the first place.
“This was a fluke, but it’s probably the best fluke I’ll ever experience.”
Jul 31 2006
10 November 2004
City Newspaper
by Ron Netsky
WGMC
For years WGMC 90.1 FM slowly drifted toward its seemingly impossible dream of a signal powerful enough to be heard all over Monroe County. But when Jason Crane took the reigns a few years ago, the fundraising swung into high gear. The result is almost too good to be true in the age of homogenized, corporate radio: a 24-hour jazz station that plays real jazz. The sound is 15,000-watts strong and as clear as a bell way out past Canandaigua. During the Rochester International Jazz Festival, WGMC’s programs and interviews help make Rochester feel like the national epicenter of jazz.
Jul 31 2006
7 January 2004
City Newspaper
by Ron Netsky
If you’ve listened to 90.1 WGMC FM over the past decade you’ve heard no shortage of tower-in-the-sky wishes for a more powerful antenna. Now the new antenna, boosting power from 2,000 to 15,000 watts, is a reality. And the station is celebrating.
A Power-Up Party takes place next Wednesday (January 14) from 4 to 7 p.m. at the studio, 750 Maiden Lane in Greece (Door #4, top floor). Listeners, many of whom contributed to the tower fund, are invited for food and live music by the Vince Ercolamento Quintet featuring Ercolamento, sax; Mike Kaupa, trumpet; Mark Manetta, guitar; Dan Vitale, bass; and Steve Curry, drums, along with other special guests.
After the power boost, the station’s signal should stretch throughout the six-county area all the way from Canandaigua to Batavia and beyond.
“After 30 years on the air, WGMC is ready to truly become Rochester’s jazz station,” says Jason Crane, station manager. “A power increase is a very rare thing in radio, and it’s an even rarer thing for a jazz station. Our staff and volunteers have poured their love of the music into this project, and we’re all thrilled at the result.”
Crane is quick to add that the station actually didn’t raise enough money to pay for the entire project and has gone into debt to meet the deadline. “Now we really need Rochester’s jazz fans and arts supporters to help us move forward.”
Jul 31 2006
22 October 2003
City Newspaper
By Chad Oliveiri
Ten candidates, four seats. The ballot might be telling you that broad changes are in the offing for Rochester City Council this election season. But don’t believe the hype. Change and City Council don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. Democrats dominate voters in the city of Rochester. And City Council, to a member, mirrors its constituents. Aside from a couple of exceptions, City Council has been run by Democrats for an entire generation.
Besides, there’s really no heap of city issues that would lead to broad changes on council. Unlike the cash-strapped county, the city of Rochester is fiscally sound. And despite a brief downturn toward the end of summer, the city housing market, by and large, is doing quite well.
But that doesn’t mean the city is without its share of problems. The city’s property tax base continues to be eroded by suburban sprawl. Urban homicides, particularly over the summer, continue at an alarming rate. And downtown Rochester, despite making some nice progress in the market-rate housing market over the past several years, continues to be the “hole in the donut” — the center of our region by name only. Vacancies still line Main Street. And there isn’t exactly a waiting list for downtown office space. (The latest survey by the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation reports a 17.1 percent vacancy rate for Class A office space, and a 29 percent vacancy rate for Class B space.)
Rochester’s on the cusp of either a renaissance or a downward spiral. And you can see it throughout every council district. The approaching fast ferry holds the potential to dramatically transform the Northwest District. But so does the continued downsizing of Kodak. In the South District, new economic development initiatives like Brooks Landing should spur development along Genesee Street. And a few big downtown projects — MCC’s Advanced Technology Center, a transit center, and a performing arts center — could either cause more harm or become a catalyst for a positive transformation, depending on who you talk to. Crime, drugs, and murder continue to plague the Northwest and North Districts.
Of course, City Council doesn’t have a lot of direct control over any of these issues. But it does establish policies that have the potential to shape the city. By ruling on zoning legislation and approving every aspect of the city budget — including the large portion that funds the City School District — City Council does much more than preside over street closings and trash collection.
Following is a distillation of interviews conducted with the candidates in City Council’s contested races.
East District
Green Party candidate Jason Crane and Citizens for Change Party candidate Anthony Giordano are challenging 16-year incumbent and City Council president Lois Giess, a Democrat.
Drugs and violence, says Giess, continue to be the main concerns of her constituents. “When you get to the neighborhood level, that’s the issue,” she says.
Giess served on the drug task force with Rochester Police Chief Robert Duffy, and she thinks the group determined the correct strategy for dealing with drugs.
“It really is not just enforcement. You really have to have the prevention and education as well as the enforcement,” she says. “And if we can’t stop the demand side, we just seem to be swimming upstream on the other side. The police are eager to do something about it, but it just moves.”
As one of the councilmembers who approved the city’s new zoning code last year, Giess is excited about implementing the new code and seeing a resurgence of downtown activity.
“We’ve had some success with downtown housing, the East End, St. Paul, some of the things happening at High Falls. But over time we’ve watched the office population shift a block south, and the hole in the donut continues to be there,” Giess says.
Giess and the rest of City Council support the idea of a transit center at Main and Clinton, with two caveats: that buses are stationed below ground, and that a “punch through” be made on Stone Street, one block west of North Clinton on East Main.
“People naturally look to where they can see, and where they feel safe about going,” she says. “I thought maybe this will give that corner an opportunity to develop. When you approach it from any angle right now, it’s not inviting.”
Giess says the best way for council to battle poverty is to attract more jobs to the city. She has worked with council on “a strategy of developing industrial parks in the city,” and she supports Greater Rochester Enterprise, a public-private entity dedicated to attracting businesses to the entire region.
Jason Crane breaks his decision to run for city council down into three numbers: 10, 80, and 16.
“You cannot revive a city with a soccer stadium and a bus terminal when you have 10.1 percent unemployment and 80 percent of kids in the city school district living in poverty,” he says. “It just can’t be done. To my mind, the headline on every newspaper every day should read ‘10 percent unemployment, 80 percent child poverty. What are we doing about it?’ until somebody starts talking about it.”
Sixteen represents the number of years Giess has been in office.
“The idea that what we’ve been doing all these years can continue to be done and have a different result is obviously completely insane,” Crane says. “No one is talking about actually dealing with these hard issues on the street.”
To deal with street-level issues, Crane, the station manager for 90.1 and 105.1 WGMC-FM, would view his role as city councilperson as less legislative and more representative of his constituency. “One person should be the spokesperson for a mobilized, educated, informed, engaged populace,” he says “You get a bully pulpit as a result of being on the council, and many people in the neighborhoods can’t get access to that kind of mouthpiece.”
Crane recognizes the obvious linkages between poverty, drugs, and crime. And, like Giess, he feels these problems have to be tackled on a systemic level.
“Until we actually start addressing the root causes of these problems, until we start finding ways to give people rewarding jobs, to make their neighborhoods healthy to live in, we’ll be stuck,” Crane says.
Crane says the city has to try harder in its economic development efforts to link downtown’s various neighborhoods together. And he doesn’t necessarily think that more bars and nightclubs will lead to downtown’s revitalization. “You can put as many bars in High Falls as you want, but you’re not going to revitalize downtown through a beer glass,” he says.
Crane is proposing a “community enrichment endeavor” that would make tax incentives and micro-loans available to city businesses that meet requirements for job creation, wage provision, health care, and pollution prevention.
Crane would also like to see the city using “economic development officers” who would connect small businesses with legal and financial advice, and take responsibility for a block or street to ensure good lighting, safe sidewalks, and proper marketing.
Anthony Giordano laments what he calls the loss of any “direct, personal representation” of people in the East District. Thus, he’s forwarding a very hands-on approach to City Council.
Giordano says his background as a marketing major — he’s the owner of Olde-Fashioned Anthony’s Premium Birch Beer — gives him an advantage when working to attract businesses to the city.
“I know the best way how to bring in people to these parts of the city, and that’ll bring in jobs and it’ll revitalize this part of the city,” he says.
Giordano, a Republican and former student trustee for the MCC board of trustees, says he generally supports any development that would bring “jobs and money into the city.” But he has a few specific ideas: an Amtrak terminal and apartments in downtown’s former Art-Craft Optical Co. building, a grocery store and movie theater for Midtown Plaza, and the location of MCC’s proposed Tech Center to the corner of East Avenue and Chestnut Street.
Northwest District
Sure, Rochester’s manufacturing sector is shrinking. But not in Bob Stevenson’s district. The 16-year incumbent is proud of the efforts he’s made through the city’s zoning laws to help keep and attract manufacturing plants to the northwest, which contains 90 percent of the city land zoned for manufacturing.
“Jobs are the most important thing,” he says, referring to zoning changes he facilitated to help keep 127 jobs — and add nearly 20 more — at Upstate Milk.
The other big challenges, Stevenson says, are dealing with the downsizing of Kodak and using state money to address the many brownfields in his district.
“They’re taking down a quarter of a million square feet in warehouse space,” Stevenson says of Kodak. “They’ve taken an awful lot of property off the tax rolls. Rochester’s lost about $1 billion in the last 15 years off the tax rolls. Kodak’s a good share of it.”
While many local businesses in the Northwest District have suffered during long-term construction projects along Lake Avenue and elsewhere, Stevenson says “the traditional places down there have been fine.”
The arrival of a fast ferry will coincide with work Stevenson has done since 1986 on local waterfront revitalization programs.
Asked about crime and poverty, Stevenson refers to the work he’s done on the Fulton Avenue Revitalization Project.
“We’re very proud of that,” he says. “When we started five years ago, Fulton was in the pits. There was a hooker behind every tree every night.”
Through the revitalization project, Stevenson has worked to demolish deteriorated properties, construct new housing, and make street improvements.
But Stevenson says his work can’t stop there.
“Rochester is the socio-economic sump of Monroe County,” he says. “Monroe County is over 600 square miles. The city is 36 square miles. Ninety-one percent of the people on public assistance are concentrated within those 36 square miles. You can’t put that many people without a job in one place and not expect any trouble.”
Through his many hours spent walking through neighborhoods with Pac-Tac groups, Stevenson, a former city school teacher, has confronted much of this trouble first-hand. And he says most of it goes back to drugs.
The only way to lick narcotics, he says, is to take the profit out.
“There aren’t too many options,” he says. “I’m not saying legalization. All I’m saying is, you have to find a way of taking the profit out of it. Obviously, putting people in jail and throwing the key away doesn’t work.”
Luis Perez is a Republican with a master’s in social work. He’s a compassionate neighborhood leader who sees the value in helping the underprivileged. But he also wants city government to operate more efficiently, without increasing burdens on taxpayers.
He decries what he calls the city council’s “lack of a voice” when city water rates were hiked to help shore up a city budget.
“Why aren’t there a couple of people who pound on the table and say ‘we can’t do this’? They’re so in one boat,” Perez says. “There’s such a lack of ideas.”
Perez, an assistant pastor with Bethel Christian Fellowship, says he realizes that a balanced budget often means having to make decisions between raising taxes and cutting services. But the city, he says, must live within its means.
“It’s not a bottomless pit,” he says. “You have to come to the realization that this is the amount of money we have to spend. We have to make some tough decisions.”
Long-term construction projects in the Northwest District have brought local businesses to a point where “they need help,” Perez says. “We’ve been talking to those business owners, and I think there needs to be some reaching out to them in a tangible way. With the potential of major change or opportunity with the fast ferry coming, that there must be some outreach to them. We have to plan for it to be successful.”
Perez’s first priority, though, is dealing with crime.
“We have to have a police budget that reflects seasonal demands,” he says. “This year is a classic example. Once again, we’re two or three months into the spring and summer before they say ‘My lord, what are we going to do about all these murders?’ Why didn’t they strategize during the winter? It’s got to be about visibility. It’s got to be about relationships. We need to have police walking the beat in those high crime areas.”
South District
Three political newcomers are running for the South District seat being vacated by Tony Thompson.
The Democratic Party’s nominee is Adam McFadden.
McFadden says he’s campaigning on three major issues: the lack of commercial development in the southwest portion of the district, the increasing murder rate in the district, and improving city schools.
He sees the South District as holding plenty of potential for local businesses, some of which are already thriving. But parking is a problem, he says.
“When the commercial strips in the South District were created in the early 1900s, it was more of a horse-and-buggy operation,” McFadden says. “There wasn’t any adequate parking, so there’s no adequate parking right now for a lot of commercial strips because no one ever thought that cars would come into play.”
McFadden, a controller with SofiTEC, Inc, doesn’t think city council can reduce violence. “But what council can do is put the necessary pressures on the police department to make sure it has a policing plan that helps address some of the nonviolent crimes that potentially lead to violence.”
Regarding the city school district: McFadden supports pending legislation that would give more power to the superintendent and would require the school board to get the mayor’s approval of the district’s budget format.
“I don’t mind a school board providing oversight, I don’t mind the school board setting the policy of the district,” he says. “But I do mind the school board putting its nose in the hiring practices of the district.”
Opposing McFadden are write-in candidate Harry Davis and Republican John Smith.
Davis’s campaign has focused mainly on opposing the downtown transit center and proposing that the city fill the Inner Loop. He is a proponent of workers’ rights and regenerative development and green design.
“Green design and making cities livable by building in them again is huge,” he says. “People need to know we have global warming now. Sprawl exacerbates global warming. If sprawl goes out toward the virgin countryside it devalues rebuilding the infrastructure in the city.”
Smith, a bus driver with Laidlaw, is concerned with what he calls “the lack of businesses throughout the city.”
“I really don’t have the magic touch to put it right back on track just like that,” Smith says of the city’s business climate. “If we get back on track it’s going to take a while. But I think it’s really going to have to start from the leadership.”
When addressing violent crime, Smith says it’s important for offenders to “know the Lord.”
“That there is a savior, and people should not continue to do wrong and think it is always OK to do wrong,” he says. “I think people that are sitting in jail should really be given a Bible.”
Jennifer Weiss contributed to this report.
Jul 31 2006
10 September 2003
City Newspaper
by Ron Netsky
If you’ve had trouble tuning in jazz on WGMC 90.1 and 105.1 FM in recent weeks, it’s not your radio’s fault. The station has been off the air for a while during the installation of its new tower. WGMC is now back on the air. And the tower that’s been the focus of countless fund-drives is now a 199-foot-high reality on the reinforced roof of Greece Athena High School.
But that doesn’t mean the fundraising is over. The $35,000 tower was Phase I of a plan to make the station’s signal reach across the entire metropolitan area. During Phase II, WGMC needs to raise another $30,000 by the end of December (when its permit expires) to purchase a transmitter. The transmitter, along with a $20,000 antenna (to be purchased with funds already in the bank) will complete the station’s goal.
“We’re just one step away from truly becoming Rochester’s Jazz station,” says station manager Jason Crane. “The support from the community has been outstanding.”
The station’s future also involves the recent addition of well-known local jazz DJ Forrest Cummings. Rather than accept an inconvenient new timeslot at his long-time home, WRUR 88.5 FM, during a recent shake-up to allow collaboration with WXXI 1370 AM and 91.5 FM, Cummings has brought his show to WGMC and can be heard Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m.
Jul 31 2006
21 August 2002
City Newspaper
By Ron Netsky
It’s been on the radio dial for 30 years and it’s been playing jazz for more than a decade. But WGMC has just recently found its groove. Station manager Jason Crane can tell you exactly when it happened.
“The moment that brought tears to my eyes was when I was at the Sonny Rollins concert at the Eastman Theatre, and Tom Pethic was introducing Sonny. He said, ‘I’m Tom Pethic from WGMC’ and this cheer went up from the crowd. My wife and Steve Greene, the guitarist, we all just looked at each other. I personally felt we had just stepped on to the Rochester stage for the first time, literally and figuratively. Here we were in the most hallowed hall in Rochester and, introducing the lifeline back to what many people consider the golden days of jazz, is Tom, a guy who’s been on the radio for 20 years, plugging away at music that’s not popular on the radio. We, and everybody else there, seemed to be realizing for this moment that, ‘Oh, yeah, there is a jazz station here.’ That was just magical.”
Despite a broadcast tower that doesn’t project very far and a staff dominated by volunteers, WGMC (90.1 and 105.1 FM) has built itself into a full-service jazz station broadcasting interviews with jazz stars, hosting Meet-the-Artist concerts and, most importantly, offering some of the last unpredictable radio to be found on the dial. All this from a station operating on the third floor of Greece Apollo Middle School.
A major force behind the station’s success is Crane, a 28-year-old jazz lover who took over the top job at WGMC last year. Crane held a dozen jobs, from Japan-based business news reporting on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition to playing saxophone in a Latin jazz band, before landing at WGMC.
The station has been playing jazz since the early 1990s, when Lee Rust (who now runs WJZR 105.9 FM) took it in a smooth jazz direction. Eric Gruner became station manager in the mid-1990s and steered WGMC into a more straight-ahead direction. When Gruner took a job as station manager at CJRT 91.1 FM in Toronto, Crane was hired.
WGMC is entirely member-supported. One tangible sign of the station’s improvement is the fact that there are now 1,300 members, 270 more than last year.
The largest group of listeners is in the 55-to-75 age range, the second largest is 45-to-55, and there’s a large drop-off in listeners under 45.
“Those are not just our demographics, those are jazz demographics,” Crane says. “The jazz audience never goes away but it never grows because each group ages and dies and another group of exactly the same size ages into its place. That, to me, is unsupportable.”
Those demographics also make it difficult to sustain the station financially. WGMC has operated on the same budget since 1990: $90,000 per year.
Crane sees the age demographic as a dilemma that perplexes jazz programmers around the country. Do you satisfy your base with comfortable music or reach out to younger listeners with more eclectic music?
“OK, I know I have to reach out to a younger audience,” Crane says. “But right now it’s these older people who pay the bills. You have to have a little bit of courage there. The new Soulive record is not for the older fans but is a connection for younger listeners.”
Like the Kinko’s employee Crane recently met.
“The guy who was handling my order at Kinko’s said, ‘I’ve never been a jazz fan but one day after the 15th play of a Nickleback tune, I turned the dial and found WGMC and I haven’t changed it since.’ He’s hearing music he’s never heard before and the thing he really likes is he doesn’t have to listen to two morning jocks talk about what they did over the weekend. He hears intelligent commentary on quality music.”
WGMC has recently added some younger DJs and new programs designed to reach a younger audience.
“I grew up on jazz,” says Toni Attardo, one of the station’s newest DJs. “That was sort of my version of The Beatles. My dad always played jazz and I always loved it, especially the World War II era.” Attardo, 19, studies acting at New York University. She’s been a paid DJ since her vacation began in May. “It’s definitely possible to reach my age group but it is harder. The whole hiphop thing came from jazz, which is important to remember.”
Perhaps the single most radical thing Crane has done since assuming his position is hand over a Friday daytime slot to Josh Rutner and Red Wierenga. (Show times tend to change, so check the station’s website: wgmc.greeceny.org.) Both are Eastman School of Music students and excellent musicians who play in the Respect Sextet and the Dave Rivello Big Band.
On the radio they turn into Abbott and Costello meet Stockhausen. They’re genuinely funny the way only real people can be, and they are extremely knowledgeable about the music. Their taste is eclectic, to say the least. Reactions are predictable.
“Josh and Red are very polarizing. There’s a ‘please remove them today’ camp and there’s a ‘this is the hippest thing to happen to radio in this town in a long time’ camp. The fact that they’ve created such passionate opinions means they’re doing their job right. They sound like nothing else on jazz radio. To me, having three hours of that a week is like a shot of adrenalin for the station. They bring in some obscure stuff: Ken Vandermark, Watts Prophets. That kind of stuff would not be heard anywhere else and it would not be heard on this station, but it needs to be. They can do it intelligently enough to bring people along for the ride.”
(We should mention that avant-garde jazz can be heard on another local radio station, 88.5 WRUR FM, on shows run by Peter Badore (Saturdays), Talik Abdul Basheer (Sundays), Rick Petrie (Mondays), and others. Visit www.wrur.org/schedule for show times.)
WGMC has four DJs under the age of 30 and several more in their 30s. DJs under 40 are unusual for jazz stations. With demographics — and, as always, music — in mind, Crane has added Soul Jazz Spectrum with Chuck Ingersoll and is planning a Medeski, Martin and Wood-style jam band show for the Friday midnight slot. Judging by the 3,000 fans who showed up for the MMW concert at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, this should bring a substantial new audience to the station. And it might hang around for more.
These are the kinds of decisions station managers must make if jazz is to survive, according to Crane.
“In the average week we get 30 new records at this station. Twenty are titled with the name of a standard and feature some either long-established or new artist doing 10 standards and two originals on their instrument of choice, which is usually their voice. That’s just so boring. That is not what is going to help jazz survive. Those are valuable history lessons and I’m a huge fan of that music. But I’m also a huge fan of people who have the guts to try and bring in two turntablists and a guy playing a Fender Rhodes and a rapper and three trumpet players and see what we can make. And if it stinks, they acknowledge that it’s a failed experiment but keep trying in that direction. But if it succeeds, we’ve got a new thing.”
Still, Crane believes, there are limits to new forms.
Verve Records, at one time a great jazz label, recently released an album, Verve Remixes, consisting of classic tracks by some of the greatest vocalists in jazz history — Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan — remixed by dance DJs. Even though it is almost impossible to imagine, one of the remixed cuts is Billy Holiday’s haunting description of a lynching, “Strange Fruit.”
You won’t hear Verve Remixes on WGMC.
“You’ve got to have some intelligence and taste to make those things work,” Crane says.
Tony Gasparre, the station’s music director, selects most of the music played. Choices are determined by the music he loves, not by what the record companies happen to be pushing.
“If you are not a huge station receiving payola from an independent promoter to play these things, the difficulty of picking a rotation is that it’s a judgment call,” says Crane.
He’s alluding to a recently exposed practice rampant in the popular music industry. To avoid charges of payola (paying for a song to be played on the radio) recording companies routinely pay large sums of money to independent promoters, who, in turn, pay radio stations for the privilege of taking an early look at their playlist. These promoters also happen to have some songs to push. In other words, it’s old-fashioned payola, like the kind that caused scandals in the 1950s, but this time it’s legal because it’s done through a middleman.
There’s not enough money in jazz sales to make any form of payola worthwhile, but the fact that this practice exists is the main reason why radio, in general, is so unimaginative.
About half of what’s played on WGMC is new music; the other half is from the station’s library. In any given week there are 50 CDs in the rotation and nine in heavy rotation. If this sounds like a Top 40 approach to jazz, Crane has an explanation.
“One of the biggest problems in jazz is, if you go to a record store you can buy John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, or Miles Davis, or you can buy the newest CD by insert-new-artist-name-here. But the chances you’re going to be able to insert a new artist’s name are really small if you listen to most jazz stations. Most people listen to a radio station seven percent of their time. If you play a CD once a week there’s no chance they’re ever going to hear it again. So you’ll hear something in our heavy rotation three times a day.”
Playing all of those new releases is one way WGMC helps to keep jazz a living art form.
“GMC is a rarity around the country,” says Ed Trefzger, a WGMC DJ who is a 20-year veteran of radio. “KPLU in Seattle is the most popular jazz station on the Internet. It plays one new track an hour. GMC plays six.” He knows how unique the station is because, along with Tony Gasparre, he runs Jazz Week (www.jazzweek.com), a service for jazz stations that tracks who’s playing what.
DJs usually adhere to the rotation during the day; at night things get looser. There are, of course, exceptions. Crane himself can’t help breaking the rules.
“During drive-time I’ll occasionally throw on an Ornette [Coleman] tune. That invariably makes the phone ring.”
Crane tries to control himself. He realizes that just because people are stuck in a traffic jam and they’re listening to his show, called “Traffic Jam,” they don’t necessarily want to hear music that sounds like a traffic jam. That may seem like an obvious call, but it’s not easy for a man who attends every avant-garde jazz concert at the Bop Shop.
“I clamp down on myself because I know I’m not programming for the hard-core jazz fan. The hard-core jazz fan has a better record collection than we do. They don’t need us. I’m programming for everyone else. I want the people who think jazz is for elitist wankers to be able to listen to this station and say ‘That’s pretty cool.’”
At its best WGMC may remind you of the free-form radio that occupied the FM airwaves in the 1960s. Back then, you never knew what a DJ might play or say.
“Today Toni [Attardo] played a Ray Vega tune. She said on the air that the tune reminded her of a Latin poet she’d heard in New York. I looked him up on the web, printed out one of his poems, found a Giovanni Hidalgo [Puerto Rican Conga player] track in the library where he’s only playing conga. I brought that in, cued up the track and said, ‘After this set ends, just open up the mike and read the poem over the conga track. Don’t just tell them that it reminds you of that poet, let’s show them. Let’s make good radio.’ So she did that. At the end she just turned the mic down and let the conga recording finish. It was four minutes of great radio.”
There are only five 24-hour jazz stations left in the United States. Most of the other jazz stations devote a large portion of their day to National Public Radio shows. Consequently, many people search the Internet for jazz radio. And when they type “jazz radio” into Google, the fifth choice on the list is WGMC. Just over the last few weeks, the station has received e-mails from Portugal, Hong Kong, and England. A DJ recently complained on the air that the station had no Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band CDs; a man listening through his computer in Wisconsin sent two.
Building an international audience is nice, but Crane doesn’t want to lose sight of the local listeners.
“The thing I think that will keep radio alive in the face of large companies like Clear Channel Communications and XM and Sirius Satellite Radio is that we are a local station. We’ve got local people. We play a lot of good local musicians. And we invest ourselves in this community and do educational programs in the community.”
But Crane is painfully aware of how weak the station’s signal is in much of the Rochester area. WGMC currently broadcasts at 2,050 watts. It has FCC permission to expand to a 15,000-watt signal. Everything is ready to go. The station has $50,000 in the bank and needs $70,000 more to buy a new radio tower. Crane can only imagine how many members the station would attract if the signal was significantly boosted.
“Getting that tower is the difference between black-and-white and color for this station,” says Crane.
He’s optimistic about acquiring the funding and ambitious when it comes to the station’s future.
“At heart what this is all about is this amazing music. I love this music. I love the radio as a medium. I have 25 of the greatest human beings I can ask for and we are going to turn this station into hands-down the premier jazz station in the United States. I have no doubt that we can do that.”
WGMC already has the talent. Just listen to Tom Pethic, who’s now back to his original show, Artistry in Jazz, on Sunday mornings. Or Andy Heinze and William Middleton’s excellent Thursday night show, Phil Dodd’s big band show, or Dave Moskal’s blues show.
Crane and his wife are expecting their first child in November. Prenatal Mozart may be good enough for many children, but Crane’s child is expected to come out well versed in Monk, Miles, and Trane. In the meantime, Crane is digging his job.
“I’m a 28-year-old kid with the keys to one of the only 24-hour jazz stations on the face of the planet Earth. That’s amazing.”
Jul 31 2006
A collection of articles featuring Jason Crane.
Jul 07 2006
News & Views
Places
Politics & Activism
Science & Rational Thought
