Last night was bittersweet for jazz fans — it was the last weeknight broadcast by DJ Bob Perkins on Temple University’s WRTI (90.1 FM), where he held down the 6-9 p.m. slot for the past 25 years. Now 88 years old, Perkins will continue to host his Sunday jazz brunch from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Perkins’ only nod to his semi-retirement came a few minutes before the end of his final shift, when he told listeners that after 57 years behind the microphone, “BP with the GM (for good music) needs a little rest.”
One of the last songs he played was Donald Byrd, recorded live at the Blue Note in 1960, playing “A Portrait of Jennie,” the theme song to a 1948 film that Nat King Cole had a hit with the year it debuted. Byrd died in 2013 in Dover, where he twice served as a distinguished artist-in-residence at Delaware State University.
