Tribute to Willis Conover VOA Jazz Hour

The version of Take the "A" train used by Willis Conover as the intro to his show was sourced from the album "Ellington Uptown" but slowed down and with the vocal parts removed. Two individual sections of the song are used and spliced together.

I attempted to recreate this with my remix.

Thanks for your kind words of support.

Willis Conover lives on!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• VOA
• Jazz
• Russia
• Cold
• War
• Communism
• Shortwave
• Radio
• Voice
• America
• Duke
• Ellington

[sweetviolet79]

thats my great grandpa. I wish I had known him... instead of known of him.

[crooner2007]

Thanks for your comment and it's a pleasure to meet you!

[charmingguy78]

I remember it very well,his broadcact was on short waves.He is trully icon.

[crooner2007]

Oh yeah, definitely, the finest baritone radio announcer ever. And a walking jazz encyclopedia to boot!

We were fortunate the VOA aired him for so many years!

[aksa8c]

The voice that has echoed around in my head since the 70s when I discovered the Conover magic on VOA.

[slajda4012]

Proč nejsou k disposici jazzové resp.swingové nahrávky vč.komentáře Willise Canovera?

[777ALS]

This clip header is subtitled "The man who helped end the Cold War with jazz, the ultimate American musical expression...” I was a teenager in the 1950s in Leningrad, USSR. They tried to jam the VOA. My older brother and I knew no English and in spite of all that we enjoyed jazz. Fast forward 55 years in USA. I was driving my car with the radio on and suddenly I heard that catchy tune so familiar from my childhood. It was a joy to meet that tune again and to learn its name "Take the A train".

[j222ess1]

@sweetviolet79 Interested in your comment. Willis is my Great Uncle, pleased to meet you!

[999ONLYJAEGER]

ty ..this is nostalgia...after 25yrs..it is[was] tough to get jazz music in INDIA , in smaller cities...my life saver used to be jazz hr...but it used to be aired for 30 mins out here...kids surely are very lucky now !!!

[allensteinerr]

In April 1965 (yes! sixty five!) I queued up for five or six hours to buy tickets for Ella Fitzgerald concert in Warsaw, Poland. About the end of concert Oscar Peterson began with well known Duke's chords. Great storm of applause... Than Ella passed through at least a dozen of most popular jazz themes and finished with "Take the A-train". It was great.......

[Ephistrophy]

In England, as a kid in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I listened to Willis Conover every night, Monday through Friday. I couldn't afford to buy jazz records and jazz wasn't well represented on the BBC, but Jazz Hour on the Voice of America! And that wonderful enunciation of Conover's! It's still magic to hear his voice and the Duke's recording.

[vova47]

Thank you! I used to listen to him faithfully as often as I could. It was a different era- so many great musicians, so much great music

[Musicseeker100]

Thanks for the memories. I grew up in Zambia in the 1970's and listened to the Voice of America frequently, the VOA Jazz Hour was my favorite show and I remember Willis Conover's voice to this day and listening to the "Take the "A" train" signature tune. There was many a night I spent in bed under the African skies listening to Jazz music and dreaming of this place called America. And now I am here in the U.S.!