Ted Grossman

Ted Grossman (June 17, 1942 – August 16, 2025) was a former American radio personality. For nearly 48 years, from 1977 to 2024, he hosted the weekly big band, blues, and jazz music program Night Train on WLRN-FM in Miami, Florida, the longest-running radio program in South Florida history.

Early life Theodore Grossman was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City in 1942. His family moved to Miami Beach, Florida, in 1949. He graduated from North Miami High School in North Miami, Florida, in 1960 and was a speech major at Dade Junior College (now Miami-Dade College). Grossman left college at 22 to join the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War.

"The first live jazz I saw," Grossman told the Miami Herald in 1983,"was when my father and a friend of his took me to the Sir John Hotel in Miami, about 1962. [Count] Basie's doing an afternoon concert, three bucks. It was 'April in Paris' they played, and Sonny Payne, the drummer, got the solo. The band got up and walked off, had a drink, while Payne put on a wild show, throwing up his sticks and all. He did ten minutes, then the guys came back and finished it off with a bang. I don't care what kind of music you like, you see that, it knocks you out."

Career While still a mail carrier, Grossman approached public radio station WLRN in 1975 when the station expanded its jazz programming. He volunteered his talents. The station's syndicated big band radio show had gone off the air. He served as its sole regular host from its debut until his retirement and final broadcast on December 29, 2024. In the late 1970s, it was a three-hour show that aired on Friday nights. In the 1980s, it moved to Sunday nights and expanded to four hours. In later years, it was also simulcast live to the Florida Keys on WLRN's affiliate, WKWM.

In addition to playing the recordings on his show, Grossman supplied anecdotes and authoritative commentary about the bands and performers, including album notes and assorted trivia. He often peppered his show with mentions of the birthdays, deaths, or other anniversaries of jazz notables, past and present.

"As if you’re in my living room and I say to you, ‘Hey, come over here, I want you to listen to this.'"

Personal life Grossman lived in North Miami, Florida. He owned a recording collection numbering in the thousands that he “stopped counting years ago.”