As a young person, I walked into WPKN and was accepted into this wonderful, sometimes eccentric, but endlessly interesting community. Had I not met Harry Minot when I did, my musical taste, which now angles toward Duke Ellington, would be much less interesting, and so too my life.

WPKN taught me that jazz is more than music, and radio is far more than programming- it is a tapestry. This is Harry’s thought, but I know he won’t mind me borrowing it.

WPKN is not just for open-minded people, but also opening minds, expanding musical taste, and ultimately to remind us all we live in a community, a diaspora, a world that, to my mind, jazz perfectly illustrates.

I have worked at some of the most distinguished nonprofits (on earth); including most recently: Southern Poverty Law Center, CARE, Covenant House, and Teachers College, Columbia University. And with a deep respect for all these organizations, my happiest moments are sitting in the WPKN programmer’s chair playing jazz.

After 16 years of being a volunteer programmer, I made, in hindsight, the foolish decision to move away. And, although; I left WPKN, it never left me. So… my first step when returning to NYC was to volunteer for station fill-ins.