Jazz radio legend Chuck Cecil calls Ventura his home
Chuck and Edna Cecil recently sat in with the “Secret Garden Dozen” a group of local professional musicians, who meet weekly in midtown Ventura at A Secret Garden Florist Cafe on Main Street to talk music and life. The group has been playing music for over 500 years, most starting in high school and some in military bands. They all are still actively playing in many bands in the area.
On occasion Breeze Publisher Sheldon and Alfred Lewis, who make the Breeze pretty joins them (by invitation only).
Venerable DJ and jazz guru 92 (or is it 93?) year old Chuck Cecil of Ventura has been on the air for 60 plus years, and is still going, but more slowly.
Although his show “The Swingin Years” is legendary among jazz lovers everywhere, WPPB in Long Island, N.Y. is the only station broadcasting his show. The show can be heard streaming on-line at http://peconicpublicbroadcasting.org Sundays from 5-9pm. The glory days of jazz has pasted but hopefully will return soon because many high schools have great jazz and swing bands.
He began as filler for an empty Saturday morning slot on Hollywood’s KFI station in 1956 and was later syndicated to more than 300 stations nationwide and broadcast internationally, to 240 ships and 170 military bases, by Armed Forces Radio Network.
Cecil has interviewed many of the greats of the jazz age including Tony Bennett, Harry James, Artie Shaw, Bing Crosby and Peggy Lee, just a few of the interviews he has conducted over the past 60 years.
He says that perhaps his funniest interview was Peggy Lee who he interviewed in bed (only her not him).
And he never interviewed Frank Sinatra but did shake his hand.
