Al “Jazzbeaux” Collins (born 1919 at Rochester, N.Y.; died September 30, 1997), hipster saint, radio legend on two coasts, jazz icon. Originally “Jazzbo.” Theme song: “Blues In Hoss’ Flat,” written by Frank Foster and performed by the Count Basie Orchestra.
In the Bay Area, Jazzbeaux was beloved on KSFO, KMPX and KGO in San Francisco, Marin County’s KAPX and the College of San Mateo’s KCSM for four decades, splitting for the East Coast in between, but always returning to majuberize us to the very end. (Majuberize yourself right now by raising your left hand and proclaiming “No tengo que enseñarle ningunas chapas malditas” – the first of two steps toward becoming a full-fledged member of “the second most popular club in America.”)
For his outstanding contributions to local radio, Jazzbeaux was elected to the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in 2006 as a member of the first class to be inducted.
With the kind assistance of his friends, fans and colleagues, including Jon Hammond, Gene Sculatti and Herb Gardner, the Bay Area Radio Museum presents this loving tribute to a one-of-a-kind radio genius, Al Collins.
It’s late. In the background, a piano plays a drowsy blues. Then a voice:
“People ask me what it looks like down in the Grotto, and I haven’t really said too much about it lately, I guess, but one of the main things is that in order to get here you’ve got to come down a long kind of underground tube that leads in from street level. At Forty-second and Third. You crawl in on a tube over which there’s a burlap sack hanging down. That’s to keep the wind and cold air from blowing in. And then you are immediately in the main cave room, which is hemispherical and looks almost vaulted at the highest point…about twenty feet above the Grotto floor, which is flat and dry.
“And the Big Ben stalactite, which is the largest one of several, comes down fifteen feet from the ceiling. And then there are smaller ones growing up from the floor of the Grotto (and one is about five feet, six feet high) and those are stalagmites. If they ever connect, they’re called columns, and we have three of these, where a stalactite and a stalagmite have…grown together. It’s very rare, but we have ’em.”
The piano shimmers. The voice resumes. “And at the top of the Grotto, it’s very dark purple, almost black. And then it starts getting progressively light as it goes down the side, [piano] getting into the various shades of purple, mauve, magenta, taupe, and all those. And then if you look over to the left side you will see a mushroom patch growing there of the Purpulus grottus variety, and they’re about four feet in diameter. They’re huge. And that’s where I got the idea to have Purple Grotto-burgers. I was gonna have a series around town underneath the ground where you go in and have a Grotto-burger. ‘Cause mushrooms …are very much like steak (filet mignon)…if you get a good mushroom. And these are the best…
“Over on the extreme right there’s a pit of fluid that’s almost like a small lake. And it’s a fluid that has not been analyzed as yet. It’s thick, and we’ve plumbed the depths to about two hundred fifty, three hundred feet with lead weights and wire, and there’s no sounding the bottom. So that’s one of the reasons no people are allowed down in the Grotto. I just can’t get insurance for a place like this…”
What? Where are we? For all the sense it’s making, it might as well be Mars in 2856, or maybe 7680. But we’re in New York City, in 1982. It’s four in the morning; we’re tuned to radio station WNEW, and the piano, the voice, and the way-out word jazz belong to Al “Jazzbo” Collins (or “Jazzbeaux,” depending on how whimsical he feels…)
Cool may not even be the word for Collins. He’s of it, inside it, beyond cool. Just ask the Jazzbo multitudes, Al’s Pals (they must number in the hundreds of thousands by now) gathered around radios in San Francisco, Salt Lake, and L.A., where they’re waiting for him to return, as if to ask, “Did it really happen?” It did. It does, weeknightly, midnight to 5:30 a.m. now in New York, just as it did from 1950 to 1960.
Back then they turned to Jazzbo for jazz. He was in the clubs, at Birdland and the Hickory House, down at the Downbeat office, digging, and he was on the air laying a taste on the ears (Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Sinatra and Shearing and Peggy Lee, and Slim Gaillard doing that whole “mello-roony” rap about “Ce-ment mixer, putty putty”).
But if it’s music that brought ’em in, it was Jazzbo who kept them coming back, with an announcing style so laid back it was four winks west of Sominex, but so hip. Snooze and you lose, ’cause what he’s saying at that crazy half-speed is twice as gone as any other disc jockey you’ve ever heard.
It all started at the University of Miami in 1941 with the line “What’s new at the ‘U’? This is Al Collins, and here’s Professor Hoo-ha.” Subbing for a fellow student, Collins made his radio debut on the college station by accident. No matter. After reading the line, standing for the first time in the studio control room “with the lights, the ‘On the air’ signals, the engineer, the mike, the drama of the thing hit me with a bursting brilliance. And I said to myself, ‘Hey. Whew! What a scene. I think I would like to do this.'”
At Chicago’s WIND a few years later, his engineer suggested Collins use something with the word “jazz” to title his program, which was, after all, a jazz show. A product of the day, a clip-on bow tie called Jazzbows, did the trick. “I went on the air that night,” Collins remembers, “and said, ‘Hi, this is Jazzbo here with some really fine music.’ And the phones started ringing and everybody wanted to know ‘Who’s Jazzbo?’ I said, ‘Heck, it’s a really good handle.'”
The handle helped get Collins to WNEW in 1950. He recalls a night there, too.
“I started my broadcast in Studio One which was painted all kinds of tints and shades of purple on huge polycylindricals which were vertically placed around the walls of the room to deflect the sound. It just happened to be that way. And with the turntables and desk and console and the lights turned down low, it had a very cave-like appearance to my imagination. So I got on the air, and the first thing I said was, ‘Hi, it’s Jazzbo in the Purple Grotto.’ You never know where your thoughts are coming from, but the way it came out was that I was in a grotto, in this atmosphere with stalactites and a lake and no telephones. I was using Nat Cole underneath me with ‘Easy Listening Blues’ playing piano in the background.”
For fun, Collins gave the Grotto its own bestiary — Harrison the Tasmanian Owl, who dug Paul Desmond and Brubeck; Jukes, a female chameleon who went for swing; Clyde, a Dixieland-digging crow; and a flamingo named Leah, who, Jazzbo told his listeners, liked “music to fly by.”
The combination hit hip Manhattanites like a saucer from the spheres; within days, fans began showing up at ‘NEW demanding to be taken downstairs to the Purple Grotto.
Collins capitalized on his radio fame in 1954, cutting a series of “Great Moments in Hipstery” bop-talk records for Capitol. “Little Red Riding Hood” was his hit, but “Discovery of America” had some choice lines. On Columbus, “hanging out at the royal court in Spain”: “Chris has been on the scene for months and there’s one thing on his mind: boats. It was then that he met Queen Isabella, who had only one thing on her mind: (ahem).
In short, she had bulging eyes for our man. In fact, she was verily flipping her coronet for Mr. C…”
Jazzbo split for San Francisco in 1960 (where he was to stay until 1969). He kicked things off at KSFO there with the “Collins On A Cloud” show. To the accompaniment of dreamy harp music, Collins “floated” over the city, looking down and grooving on the bridges, ships, and scenes.
From ’60 to ’62 he had his own TV show on the local ABC affiliate, mornings at 8:30 right after the Crusader Rabbit cartoons and before Jack LaLanne’s warm-ups. Many viewers (this one included) couldn’t quite believe their eyes or ears. Here was Collins, in sky-blue jumpsuits, interviewing celebrities, politicians, sheiks, musicians, and Third Street bums as they sat in a barber chair. Here were impromptu studio performances by the entire Count Basie Band, Louis Prima, Jackie Mason, and others.
“The producer of the show and I would drive down the street in San Francisco. If we saw anybody that looked like a character — or anybody that looked different from everybody else — we’d yell at them, ‘Seven o’clock tomorrow morning at Channel Seven. Be there!’ We got great guests — one pirate-looking guy with a wooden leg who walked around like Captain Hook.”
A central part of the TV program was the (sometimes multiple) screenings(s) of the scene from “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” where Mexican actor Alfonso Bedoya tells Bogart, “Badges? [pronounced botches] I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!”
The line has delighted Collins for twenty years. He liked it so much, in fact, that in 1970, while at Los Angeles’ KFI, he convinced city fathers in suburban Sierra Madre to help him stage a festival for the faithful. Twenty-five thousand showed up to nosh with their hero, attend art exhibits, and enjoy round-the-clock showings of the movie at the town’s Humphrey Bogart Theatre.
Late in 1981, Jazzbo left Frisco’s KGO to return to ‘NEW. Re-ensconced in the Purple Grotto, he’s once again mild and woolly in New York — fading out a Coleman Hawkins side to deliver an impromptu dissertation on the virtues of egg-drop soup (“A lot of people misunderstand it. It’s best when it gets into a gelatinous kind of feeling, if you know what I mean”), plugging a small-press poetry mag, inviting character-callers like the Baron of Bleecker Street to phone in.
The Baron is the head of Società Mangione (“the society of people who love to eat”), the first New York Chapter of Al’s Pals, more than three hundred individual special interest clubs formed by Jazzbo buffs across the country.
“That whole thing started in San Francisco,” says Al. “We were having a bad drought, and one night this lady called up the show. Her name was Olga, and she talked like Zsa Zsa Gabor. She was off the wall, to put it mildly. She’d go out in the morning in Bodega Bay, where she lived, and greet the tide with a sign that said, ‘Welcome In, Tide,’ and she’d perfume some of the flowers that had no original scent. She went out with a pitch pipe and gave the hummingbirds the right note so they wouldn’t be out of tune. So she called one night and said, ‘Jazzbo dahling, if you want to have water, you must have frogs. Everybody knows that where frogs are, there’s water, so if everybody gets a pair of frogs and puts them in their back yards, soon we’ll have water.’
“So, I said, ‘Gee, that’s a great idea, Olga.’ And I hung up. About ten minutes later a guy named Mike calls and says ‘Al, I have an albino frog with pink eyes, and I’d like to be a member of the frog club.’ So I said, ‘Listen, Mike, if you’ve got a pink frog with red eyes or whatever, I think you should be the president of the Frogonians.
He agreed. I gave his address, and in a week he had about forty-five letters from people. And today it’s still going and he’s got over ten thousand registered members.”
Jazzbo seems pleased just to keep it all spinning, from behind his pickle barrel in the Grotto. The calibrated candle’s white and purple rings tick off the minutes in a slow burn beneath Forty-second and Third. On the turntable, something cool from the West Coast spins. The lights dim.
“…And then there are three lesser caves that you can see in the background if you look straight ahead in the Grotto. These are occupied by Doctors Hunyati, Cherumbolo, and Caligari. As a matter of fact, Caligari is up tonight, sanding down some of the small cabinets he’s making. Dr. Hunyati, of course, is the famous piano tuner who developed that pinkie cream for pianists, and Dr. Victor T. Cherumbolo you know as the fellow who helps out at the planetarium … and shows people where the different planets are, ’cause he’s from there.”
POSTSCRIPT: At the end of the ’80s, Jazzbo left New York to return to the Bay Area. As if in a dream, California members of the Collins cargo cult — who’d despaired of ever grokking the Grotto again — awoke one morning (May 1990) to find A.C. on the A.M. (KAPX, 1510 kHz., Marin County). He was as good as they’d remembered: kibitzing on the phone with anyone who called (to a local chef: “Yeah, I wanna get the recipe to that special meat sauce. Let me find a pencil and we’ll take it from the top”), spinning choice sounds (“Man, can we ever have too much Errol Garner?”).
By 1993, Jazzbo had moved to KCSM, the jazz station at the College of San Mateo (’60s comic-prankster Mal Sharpe also does a show there), where he’s been ever since: Saturdays, from 9 p.m. to midnight. If you’re in Frisco, loose your lobes on him (FM 91).
EDITOR’S EPILOGUE: Al “Jazzbeaux” Collins passed away from cancer on September 30, 1997. He was 78. In 2006, he was elected into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame as a member of the first class to be inducted.
Gene Sculatti followed the Catalog Of The Cool with “The Cool And The Crazy” radio series, which he co-hosted and produced with Ronn Spencer, over Santa Monica’s KCRW-FM from 1984 to 1987. In 1993, St. Martin’s Press published Too Cool, his sequel to the Catalog. As Vic Tripp, he currently hosts Atomic Cocktail, which runs from 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays (California time) on the online radio station Luxuria, playing vintage pop, surf, garage and lounge music in classic 1960s Top 40 style. Jazzbo … On The Radio was reprinted with the generous permission of the author. Mr. Sculatti also authored A Valentine To KYA which accompanies our tribute to the beloved “Boss of the Bay.”
Special thanks to Steve Kushman of the California Historical Radio Society for the images of the red KGO “I Don’t Got To Show You…” sticker and the rare Jazzbeaux belt buckle from his private collection.
Al “Jazzbeaux” Collins
Class of 2006
“Jazzbeaux’s Time Of Night” Theme Song Excerpt (40 seconds)
Although he opened his shows for many years with Count Basie’s “Blues In Hoss’ Flat,” Jazzbeaux was celebrated in this theme song composed by Herb Gardner and performed by the Smith Street Society Jazz Band. The complete version of “Time Of Night” is included on Gardner’s “Groundhog’s Day” CD. Courtesy of Herb Gardner.
The Swearing In Of The Bandidos (2 minutes)
Included as the final track on the “A Lovely Bunch of Al Jazzbo Collins and the Bandidos” LP (Impulse A-9150), the swearing-in ceremony — during which you declare “No tengo que enseñarle ningunas chapas malditas” — was the first of two steps toward becoming a full-fledged member of “the second most popular club in America” according to the album’s liner notes. The second step: sending in your name and address to the record company, which would in turn mail you “a free membership card and window sticker for your wheels!”
Jazzbeaux on KGO Newstalk 81, February 6, 1976 (55 minutes)
The nighttime is the right time for Jazzbeaux, up and down the Pacific Coast on 50,000-watt KGO.
Jazzbeaux on 560/KSFO, December 13, 1983 (14 minutes)
At midnight, as Golden West Broadcasters turns the station over to King Broadcasting, KSFO embarks on a new era with comments by general manager Fred Schumacher and program director Ken Dennis before Al “Jazzbeaux” Collins makes his return to Bay Area airwaves from WNEW/New York. In addition, KSFO’s new midday personality, Russ “The Moose” Syracuse, makes a surprise guest appearance by phone. Courtesy of Ben Fong-Torres.
Jazzbeaux on 560/KSFO, April 26, 1984 (45 minutes)
Jazzbeaux presents a tribute in words and music to Count Basie on the day that the celebrated composer and pianist succumbed to cancer at the age of 78.
Jazzbeaux on KCSM/San Mateo, May 1991 (90 minutes)
A rollicking Memorial Day weekend broadcast from San Mateo’s Jazz 91 featuring Jazzbeaux in fine fettle. Courtesy of James Eason.
Jazzbeaux on KCSM/San Mateo, 1997 (2+ hours)
Following his death in September 1997, KCSM re-broadcast several of Jazzbeaux’s broadcasts from earlier that year, portions of which are presented here. You may also partake in Part 1, Part 2 and/or Part 3 individually. Courtesy of Alan Kline.
BONUS TRACK: “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1 minute)
This brief excerpt from the 1948 Warner Brothers classic, starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston and Tim Holt, features Alfonso Bedoya (as “Gold Hat”) delivering the famous line in which he respectfully declines Bogart’s polite request to display his badge.
[…] Al “Jazzbo” Collins (a/k/a “Jazzbeaux”) […]
I was between 8-10 years old during those years and remember the TV show so well, especially Al in the blue jumpsuit and the Treasure of Sierra Madre “Badges” routine. Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems I would have been watching him on Saturday mornings (?) If not, it could very well have been during summer vacations when I would have been able to tune in. In any case, I can distinctly recall hearing Mahalia Jackson perform “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands” and learning it on the guitar when I was first starting to play. On the “badges routine” I can recall absolutely his running the clip and having a time with it, and then it was maybe the next day or so when he showed up in the studio with a jumpsuit covered in sewn on “badges” (patches) and just on fire with the whole deal. Really, really funny. Such a fun show it was, and Al Collins was so wonderful. I heard him for years on radio all the way through working as a parking jockey downtown at Kearney and Washington Sts. while in grad school at SF State, the late Saturday night “Purple Grotto”. I can clearly remember him closing it out one night with Sinatra’s “One For My Baby”, one of my favorite tunes, must have been 1980. Thanks for the opportunity to acknowledge him here. One of the true greats of all time.
I loved this article. It really did A C justice. I was in high school when he was on KGO in the mornings. Myself and others would watch before it was time to catch the bus and then meet up at a local coffee shop and discuss that morning”s show.
I do have one question, if indeed there is an answer. During the “Mystery Hand” segments, was the music that played Count Basie’s April in Paris?
Up in Quebec, some 500 miles away, we used to get the WNEW signal at night. Many a night I’d be in bed, waiting for Jazzbeaux to start up the Milkman’s Matinee. What a trip! You’re in my heart forever, Al.
I first heard of Count Basie and Jazzbeaux around 1961, when my best friend turned me on to them. He used to watch Jazzbeaux’s TV show before school, so I checked it out. I did get to meet him three times, and finally on the last time I remembered to have me swear me in as one of his bandidos.
I became friends with Dan Sorkin at KSFO in ’66, began hanging out at KSFO and eventually met up with Al…we became instant close friends. I spent a lot of time with Al and his wife Patti at their fabulous A frame on Mt. Tam. Al had never tried LSD and wanted to know what all the fuss was about, so the three of us arranged an evening at their groovy pad where Al and Patti had brought home all sorts of goodies for their first time—cherry tomatoes, grapes, chocolate, cookies…the lot. Once the drug kicked in and we were enjoying the yummies and being silly, we decided to head into the City, crammed into Al’s purple Porsche with the faucet on the bonnet to see “Blow Up” at the Union theater on Union street. The critical part of “Blow Up” is a scene where you zoom into a grainy photo in a north London park to reveal a man with a gun hidden in a hedge…but because our vision was swimming with shapes and colors, we couldn’t make out what we were supposed to be seeing, but we KNEW it was critical to the story, and we began giggling at how silly it all was. So we decided to stay for the second showing (those were the days!) when we had sobered up enough to see what we couldn’t see the first time around. Al was the loveliest man, and the dearest friend. I have so many wonderful memories of him and Patti, and think of them both often. Hard to believe he left us 24 years ago as I write this. Always in my heart.
Glad to have surfed in here! Hearing Al Jazzbeaux Collins voice brings back many memories of listening to Swing music on KMPX back in ’76/’77. I miss radio from back then, thanks for keeping the memories alive on this site!
[…] is a good tribute web page to him from the Bay Space Radio Corridor of Fame right here. There are additionally 10 of Al’s “Summer time within the Grotto” applications […]
In the late ’70s I listened to Jazzbo on a little battery-powered transistor radio that sat on the windowsill of the barn, in whose hay I was sleeping in, about 10 miles from Hwy 101 up the Yachats River in Oregon. I remember when the “majuberized” process was changed to “majuberated”, and the process was performed in English. (I think there was a woman who called in and asked to be ‘majuberated’.. & rather than correct her, he went along with her word… and I think he stayed with that in future shows.)
I loved the eclecticism of this man… the sci-fi broadcasts that he would sometimes run from old radio shows, the people from all over that he interviewed, or just hung out with, on-air. His shows ‘put me to sleep’- in a GOOD way- many nights.. and I’d wake up there, in my sleeping bag in the hay, with the radio going…
Thanks for a chance to mention this incredible fellow! ^..^
I used to listen to Jazzbo back in the late 1950’s when I was at CCNY. What a surprise it was to find him again at KCSM after I moved out the SF Bay Area.