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October 6, 2007
Professor Emeritus to Discuss New Book on Jazz Broadcaster
Terence Ripmaster, a William Paterson university professor emeritus of history, will speak about his new biography of jazz broadcaster Willis Conover during a program in the Cheng Library Auditorium on the University’s Wayne campus on Tuesday, October 23 at 12:30 p.m. Admission is free.
Ripmaster’s new book, Willis Conover: Broadcasting Jazz to the World: A Biography, chronicles Conover’s life and work, from his beginnings as a broadcaster in Washington, D.C. in the mid-1940s, to his work as a jazz promoter for musicians such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, to his role as an ambassador for jazz during his four decades at Voice of America, through which he brought jazz music to the world, including the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations that were then behind the Iron Curtain.
“While the superpowers were building nuclear weapons and confronting the world with possible extinction, Willis Conover was sitting in a windowless studio, producing programs that would ultimately create an international understanding of jazz and bring people from hostile nations together to enjoy the fun and excitement of America’s greatest cultural contribution to the world—jazz,” says Ripmaster.
A jazz aficionado, Ripmaster is the author of A History of Jazz in Paterson, which featured interviews with legendary jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli and other notables, and served as producer of Jazz in Paterson, a thirty-minute documentary on the city’s jazz heritage. He is also former president of the New Jersey Jazz Society. He retired from the University in 1997 and currently lives in Florida.
For additional information on the lecture, please contact Bob Wolk, reference and special collections librarian in the David and Lorraine Cheng Library at William Paterson University at 973-720-2289.
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