John Birchard

I was born and raised in Vermont. I followed high school by joining the U-S Air Force. It was in the Air Force, in Fairbanks, Alaska, that I found my career. I began broadcasting with Armed Forced Radio and moonlighted with KFRB-AM radio and KTVF-TV as a news anchor. After my discharge, I attended the University of Alabama, earning a bachelor's degree in Radio & TV. Upon graduation, a radio job took me to Hartford, CT and a full-time role as a jazz disc jockey. I worked at WCCC-FM for five years, then moved across town to WTIC-AM-FM where I was a producer (and host of a weekly jazz show) for two more years. The next seven were spent in New Haven, CT on WELI-AM as a talk show host and emcee of the annual Quinnipiac Intercollegiate Jazz Festival.

Wherever I went, I maintained my love of jazz. I served as emcee for jazz concerts and festivals at Yale University (the Gil Evans Orchestra, The CTI All-Stars, Ella Fitzgerald) and other venues - and was master of ceremonies for the Hartford (CT) Jazz Society's 20th birthday festival (Dizzy Gillespie, Marian McPartland, Jaki Byard, Herb Ellis/Barney Kessel).

During the 1980s, I was the auto racing reporter for Enterprise Radio, the first-ever all-sports radio network. And I worked as play-by-play announcer for auto racing telecasts on ESPN covering IMSA sports cars and the Can-Am series in 1984-85.

From 1986 through 1989, I returned full-time to radio as news director for WAVZ-AM/WKCI-FM in New Haven. The Voice of America in Washington, DC was home for the final fifteen years of my half-century in broadcasting. And at VOA, in addition to being a news broadcaster and automotive editor, I hosted a combined salute to the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. State Department international tour featuring Dizzy Gillespie's band and to the memory of VOA's beloved jazz voice Willis Conover.

In retirement since 2008, I wrote and published a book, "Jock Around the Clock", the story of Enterprise Radio. Now on the internet, I created and am host of CYBERJAZZTODAY, a weekly hour-long jazz show found at www.cyberjazztoday.com.