Willis Conover

Voice of America

Conover came to work at the Voice of America, and became known to jazz lovers via the hour-long program Voice of America Jazz Hour. His slow delivery and the use of scripts written in Special English made his programs more widely accessible and he is said to have become the first teacher of English to a whole generation of East European jazz lovers. Conover was not well known in the United States, even among jazz aficionados, as the Voice of America did not broadcast domestically except on shortwave, but his visits to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union brought huge crowds and star treatment for him. He was a celebrity figure in the Soviet Union, where the Voice of America was a prime source of information as well as music.

In 1956, Conover conducted a series of interviews with jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Stan Getz, Peggy Lee, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Art Tatum. His interview with Tatum is reputedly "the only known in-depth recorded interview with the pianist". These interviews were selected by the Library of Congress as a 2010 addition to the National Recording Registry, which selects recordings annually that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Death

Conover died of lung cancer on May 17, 1996, at the age of 75. He had been a smoker for 57 years. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

In 2001, on the fifth anniversary of his death, US Embassy in Moscow and Moscow jazz society co-organized a commemorative concert in Moscow.

Legacy

Conover's broadcasts influenced a wave of Russian and Polish jazz musicians, among them Leo Feigin and Adam Makowicz.

In 2015, the University of North Texas announced that its Willis Conover Collection would make digitized copies of Conover's programs available online.