Dick Buckley, a jazz radio icon and Chicago jazz treasure passed away this morning July 22, 2010 at the age of 85...more details will be forthcoming on services in the next few days. Growing up in the Chicago area, my fondest memories of listening to jazz on the radio are the shows that were hosted by Dick Buckley (as well as Count BJ a.k.a. Ben Massarella and Yvonne Daniels on WSDM)...Dick Buckley was on WBEZ radio from 1977 to 2008...other stations he hosted jazz shows on were WAIT, WNIB, and WAAF.I finally met Mr. Buckley while I was in highschool attending the Midwest College Jazz Festival hosted by Elmhurst College where he was the master of cermonies...a very congenial and approachable man...I always enjoyed his encyclopedic knowledge of America's only true art form (jazz) and loved listening to him on Sunday afternoons on WBEZ when he and his radio listeners would explore together the early recordings of jazz that were derived from his personal collection of treasured albums...some shows he would play several different takes of the same tunes that were recorded, leading up to the final commercialized recording, diligently pointing out the subtle differences between all the takes that were done in a recording session. I have been missing his voice on the radio since his “forced" retirement in 2008 when WBEZ changed its format and did away with Chicago's only premier jazz radio station...his Wikipedia profile is here and more information can be viewed about him here on articles from The Examiner and Chicago Tribune
