Alisa Clancy Served Cheer and Empathy with Her Morning Cup of Jazz During COVID, Then Signed Off

Bay Area jazz lovers were shocked to learn that "the voice of jazz" would no longer help them greet the day with her blend of jazz and good humor in a voice like no other.

After 35 years as KCSM's premiere host, Alisa Clancy announced her retirement after almost single-handedly keeping the radio station operating during the pandemic when most people were at home fearful and isolated.

In an article "KCSM's Alisa Clancy Signs Off" for San Francisco Classical Voice on June 28, 2021, Andrew Gilbert wrote, "Clancy is far more than a DJ. She conducts wide-ranging on-air interviews with musicians, who often come in to discuss their favorite albums on the consistently enlightening feature Desert Island Jazz. A tireless champion of the local scene, Clancy is always quick to play a new release by a Bay Area artist."

When the College of San Mateo closed down in March 2020, it was assumed the radio station KCSM, housed in the bottom floor of the main building, would also shutter. Clancy, program director and host, devised a plan whereby the station could continue operating safely and presented it to the college president. He accepted the plan, and the station stayed open. Alisa has said that year—March 2020 to July 2021—was the highlight of her career. But it was time to move on, and she applied for retirement on July 2, her birthday.

Here's how she tells it:

In the early days of the pandemic, I was the only one coming to the studio in the morning. I would get to the gate at about 4:30 a.m. and call campus police, who would let me into the lot. There were various animals on the grounds—skunks, deer, raccoons, and even a mountain lion. I kept my Mace handy and made a lot of noise with my keys as I walked five minutes from the empty parking lot to the station door.

Your Morning Playlist

I was alone until 8 a.m., when the next announcer or staff member came in—we had a skeleton crew of two or three people for about six months. Once inside, I read my emails and started to pull a show from the library and get all the "Your Morning Playlist" comments together. I loved the solitude and the solo creativity, building each day a program of music and community.

"Your Morning Playlist" was totally interactive. I would post something on Facebook or other social media on Sunday night about whatever was happening the week ahead. People could send me emails or post on social media with song suggestions. I would read on air the really good ones and put their requests in a set with others who were feeling the same way.

I'm Christine in Calgary, my mom is in the hospital with COVID, we've been listening to KCSM everyday over the internet for months. Thank youfor bringing us all together. Please play Cannonball Adderley's "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" (one of my mom's faves) and part of Keith Jarrett's "The Köln Concert" later this week if you can. Love You all!

I got dozens of emails and notes daily. It was old-fashioned radio and our community was global, and all feeling the same anxiety and dread about the pandemic and uncertainty about the government.

Here's another: I took a walk during "Orange Skies Day" (September 9, 2020) in the Bay Area and the whole time I listened to KCSM and cried. You were playing Aretha (the live one) singing "Amazing Grace.'"

Thousands of global listeners

Every morning, I would mention where people were listening. We had two streams with 1,400 people able to log on and listen, so 2,800 people most mornings from around the world. I would say things like, "Welcome to the three listeners in Abu Dhabi, and two people in Adelaide, Australia, our 22 people in NYC this morning, bonsoir to our two Parisians." Every morning, I would call out different cities.

Most mornings, especially during the pandemic, the streams were full. Here's a human, going through the same stuff they are, who traveled that morning to get to a place to play music, offer levity, joy, during the MeToo Movement, Black Lives Matter, and other protests.

The tenor of all the responses was basically, "Thank You for being there." People being locked down were so emotionally vulnerable and wanted to participate. It was like the New Yorkers who hung pots and pans every evening in honor of the COVID first responders and doctors and nurses but using jazz music instead of banging sounds as the community glue!

A Mirror of the Times

Jazz, ever evolving, was a perfect mirror of the times. I used this example in my documentary Jazz and Justice about the Ku Klux Klan Alabama church-bombing that killed the four little girls in September 1963. John Coltrane's "Alabama" was released four months later.

I believed our radio station—especially during the pandemic—was a social and psychological lifeline for many homebound listeners...

Jazz and jazz musicians react fast. And with technology, you can now put a project together in a couple of days or a week. All those jazz musicians that did live streams during the pandemic—such as Emmet Cohen from his Harlem apartment—made jazz meaningful around the world.

I also think since we weren't going out to shows, we were introduced to new players via their live streams. There was a sense of equity because those that couldn't pay a lot of money to go out to see a live show could see someone who lives and plays in Berlin for the small cost of a Venmo or PayPal fee. I learned about all kinds of new artists and introduced them to KCSM listeners.

Desert Island Jazz

I started Desert Island Jazz—based on the BBC's Desert Island Discs—25 years ago and it ran live or taped every Friday morning at 9 a.m. We interviewed nearly 1,000 artists over that time.

During the pandemic we ran Encores from the archive. When I left, they dropped it.

Huge upheaval

2020 was a time of great upheaval—COVID, George Floyd's murder, MeToo and Black Lives Matter, and it all played out at KCSM, matching those extraordinary moments with music. The music that people chose all through that time included "Empowerment" or "Solace," Ray Charles singing "America the Beautiful." A lot of women artists during MeToo, such as Nina Simone, Artemis, Lil Hardin Armstrong and Cecile McLorin Salvant. A lot of protest music from the 1920s such as "Black and Blue," all the way to the 2020s.

I was astounded at the history our listeners knew and were sharing about jazz and its players. And musicians themselves met the times with home recordings that I shared, Zoom recordings that they did. Musicians here in the Bay Area would make their requests also. I believed our radio station—especially during the pandemic—was a social and psychological lifeline for many homebound listeners and as vital as the proof was the thousands of listeners expressing their gratitude and pleasure daily for our shows.

Jazz and Justice

I put together a 10-part, 10-hour documentary for a fundraiser in spring 2021, a decade-by-decade look at jazz through a social-political lens. The documentary included black musicians who were exploited or ripped off; women like Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland, Peggy Lee, Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone who made prominent records of female empowerment; Max Roach and protest music of the '60s; John Coltrane's "Alabama."

On the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre, May 31, 2021, I revisited the facts in that case. I was very proud of the reaction and response.

Going to an empty campus every morning at 4:30 to prep for my 6-10 a.m. live show was hands-down the most creative and rewarding human experience of my life.

That time period was from March 12, 2020, when the college shut down, to July 5, 2021, Alisa's last day on air at KCSM. In October (Listen to her final show), she started work at San Francisco's KCBS as news anchor and reporter.

About Alisa Clancy

All About Jazz: As a child, what was your exposure to jazz?

Alisa Clancy: My maternal grandfather was a pianist in the Ohio Territory bands in the 1920s, so I used to hear him playing standards and band charts. My second big exposure to jazz was my high school band director. He took extra care to expose us to Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and the modern guys at the time when everybody but me, turns out, liked the Brecker Brothers!

AAJ: When and how did you learn to play piano?

AC: I'm mostly self-taught, but I did have formal piano lessons when I was 8 with Mrs. Fennel who smelled like Tabu and cigarettes. I couldn't wait to hear my dad's motorcycle coming up in the drive to pick me up.

AAJ: And what about drums?

AC: That was high school. I played piano in the jazz band and drums in the marching band. I was one of two girls in the Baron Marching band in Chula Vista, California, in 1978-79. We were total badasses. We're still friends, she became a writer and editor.

AAJ: What made you select those colleges to attend?

AC: My parents split when I was 12 and when I left for college, I went to live with my grandparents—the piano playing grandpa—in Bowling Green, Kentucky; and enrolled at Western Kentucky University. I worked two jobs, played lounge piano in restaurants, and got a ton of financial aid. I also joined the Speech and Debate team and traveled around the South. For a kid from California, that was eye-opening. I feel like it helps me make sense of all the crazy stuff that's going on right now. I saw a variety of human conditions.

AAJ: You received a Master's in Theater. Can you talk about that a little?

AC: Doing radio is just soft-core theatre for me; it fulfills my showbiz urge. The real reasons I went to Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina were, I got a full ride scholarship and I got to work with Maya Angelou, who I adored. That department was truly special, and Wake had a radio station where I worked nights and weekends, WFDD.

AAJ: After college, you spent a few years doing theater. Did you direct, act, produce, what?

AC: I acted and directed in summer stock theatre for several years. In Illinois, just outside of Springfield, there is an outdoor theatre in an historic park that did three plays in repertory about Illinois history. And I toured with a group out of Rockport, Texas, doing three Neil Simon plays in repertory. We played at colleges and military bases and the Texas Petroleum Club, which was full of very wealthy people.

AAJ: And you worked at the college radio station.

AC: Working at WFDD, Wake Forest, was really a one-person job during my weekend shifts. One story, we ran the Chapel service every Sunday morning—one morning I fell asleep and when I woke up the service had been over for about a half hour, and they were folding up and stacking chairs. No one called. That's how popular WFDD was.

AAJ: Is it fair to say that you were introduced to both theater and radio but chose radio as a career?

AC: I still feel like I'm doing both. Theatre and radio have similar skill sets. And you throw in debate, public speaking, jazz, and playing music ... all passions that have become a career. I'm damned lucky. I had the same radio job for 35 years? That seldom happens.

AAJ: And you were in the college faculty band The Bulldogs.

AC: Yes, I played rock piano. It was a quartet with an occasional saxophone. We played rock 'n roll at college events. I loved it.

AAJ: Before KCSM you worked at another station. What was that like?

AC: I worked at KFOX a classic rock format. I like classic rock, Pink Floyd, The Doobie Brothers, Jethro Tull, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, The Moody Blues ... all my era.

AAJ: So your musical tastes are not limited to jazz.

AC: Oh, I like any kind of music, so long as it's authentic.

AAJ: When you came to the Bay Area, you applied at KJAZ and faced sexism. Did you find that radio was a man's world at that time?

AC: Hell, yeah! The reply I got was..."we already have a woman on the air." This was the mid-'80s and women were still expected to sound breathy/sexy on radio. The women on NPR—Cokie Roberts, Nina Totenburg, Susan Stamburg—really changed that paradigm for me. There was a lot of misogyny at KCSM from male callers in those early days. I didn't sound like anyone else, and I was a woman talking passionately about jazz. Some men couldn't handle that. You should write about it.

AAJ: What is it like delivering the news at KCBS instead of jazz?

AC: This second radio career in news at KCBS comes in my 60s and I'm wholly digging into it. We live in a very tumultuous time with a dangerous re-working of democracy happening right now—that's a fact, and facts matter. Every day I get to take my love and knowledge of history and fact-checking into a newsroom with a plethora of diverse, smart, and curious people who are just as dedicated to getting out truthful information to the public as I am.

I love learning about contemporary pop culture, music, trends, memes, and life from the Gen Zs...and how they got that "Gen Z Stare"! And anytime there's a jazz or history question I love being the expert the young'uns turn to. The exchange of ideas is extraordinary in our newsroom, and it gives me hope that we come out on the other side of this a stronger and empathetic humanity.

AAJ: You still teach a class in jazz history at the College of San Mateo. What is that like?

AC: The jazz class evolved from the radio show and now it's a community. They go to shows together, they follow each other's lives. And some take the class every semester. It's been going on for 30 years. It is a mix of evening-school adults and undergraduates. Having a mix of ages is great! Much like the cross-generational newsroom I'm working in now, it's the old guard sharing stuff from their generation and the younger ones hipping the older ones to their generational likes, passions, and such.

Sometimes I'll show YouTube videos, or DVDs, but I always play music, and we discuss. I learn something new every class. Somebody's mom used to know Hoagy Carmichael. One woman waited on Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow. I love these people; many are now friends.

AAJ: You married a musician, had twins, and now both are musicians. What's it like to have a family of musicians?

AC: I live with a trumpet player, a cornet player, a banjo player, a guitarist, a drummer, a saxophonist, a tuba player, a pianist and a bassist. And that's only among three people! My husband Clint Baker leads a traditional jazz band and plays multiple instruments—up to 10. Our daughter Ramona is a ragtime pianist and historian. Her twin Riley plays tuba, bass and trombone, and I play piano and drums. Clint and Riley have a band called the Baker Boys. Ramona does ragtime jazz concerts, and I sometimes play with my husband's trad band.

AAJ: It's been five years since you left KCSM. After all you've been through, do you still think there's a future for jazz radio?

AC: The world would be a little more peaceful and evolved out of its protracted adolescence if jazz education happened in elementary school. And people knew that Louis Armstrong wasn't the guy who went to the moon. But was the guy who taught the world to swing!

Alisa Clancy (drums) and her husband Clint Baker (cornet) join the incomparable Jeff Hamilton on piano in 2010.

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