September 29, 1994: Vol26n4: Personalities: Lifetime Love of Jazz

By STEVE COX
Reporter Staff
You can't really call what Bob Rossberg does with his spare time a
hobby. He puts more time and energy into his avocational interest in
jazz music than many people put into their jobs.
	And, now that he's officially retired from his teaching
position at UB, he can spend even more time with his music.
	On Sunday mornings between 10 a.m. and Noon, you can share
Rossberg's love of jazz with back-to-back programs on WBFO-FM. "The
Sound of Swing," on between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., was first broadcast
in the 1980s on the American "Big Band era" of music between the 1920s
and the 1950s. Each weekly program focuses on a different band or
orchestra and examines the music in the context of "the evolving art
of jazz," according to WBFO Program Director David Benders.
	Between 11 a.m. and Noon, WBFO airs Bob's latest adventure in
broadcasting called "The Jazz Singers." This new series, which began
taping this summer, focuses on vocal jazz performers of the same era.
	Last Sunday's show featured the works of Jack Teagarden,
notable in the jazz world as one of its more famous white performers.
"Musicologists have always been fascinated by Teagarden's talent for
jazz," explained Rossberg, "Yet, Teagarden himself remained an enigma,
confessing at the end of his life that he really never understood what
the music he performed so eloquently was all about."
	Growing up in New York City in the '30s and '40s placed
Rossberg in the heart of the then-jazz capital of the country. "Harlem
was coming into its own. Jazz played a big roll in what was called the
'Harlem Renaissance' hosting some truly great nightclubs like the
Apollo Theater and the Cotton Club," recalls Rossberg, "and the clubs
of Greenwich Village were incubators for all sorts of new jazz
talent." As a teen, Rossberg hung around and snuck into enough clubs
to see almost every big band, soloist and singer of that period.
	"Once, when I was 13 or 14," explained Rossberg, "my father
confronted me and wanted to know what I was doing out on the streets
until midnight every night.
	"When I explained that I was sneaking into clubs to hear these
performers, he was actually quite relieved."
	Just what is jazz music? Although jazz is uniquely American,
Rossberg says its true roots can be difficult to trace.
Turn-of-the-century performers in the southeastern United States,
particularly in and around New Orleans, reflected influence from many
types of music.
	"Jazz really grew out of a confluence of cultural, political
and historical forces that came together at that time," says Rossberg,
"and reflects traces of West African, Caribbean and French grand opera
rhythmic music, the Blues, slave and sharecropper field songs and even
European classical music."
	Jazz was refined and popularized by performers like King
Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong, whom Rossberg ranks as
the "geniuses of the genre."
ossberg holds to the less than
	popular belief that jazz is less improvisational than it
appears. "Some purists argue that written jazz is an oxymoron," he
says, "but much of jazz music is built from a chorus structure with
some, usually well rehearsed, improvising in between."
	Jazz has been sporadically popular over the years, enjoying a
devoted although small audience of enthusiasts and occasionally
becoming widely listened. Wynton Marsalis and brother Branford, who
performs nightly on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, top today's jazz
elite, according to Rossberg.
	Many universities, like UB, now feature jazz ensembles and
vocal jazz among their music department offerings. This is producing a
sizable crop of trained, talented new jazz performers, said Rossberg,
including Buffalo's Bobby Militello among the big young talents in the
business. "Unfortunately," he says regretfully, "there are fewer clubs
or venues that showcase jazz talent today. Making a living as a
working jazz musician is very hard."
	Rossberg's broadcasting career began in 1976, with a show
called "Big Band Sound." In the early 1980s, the program developed
into "The Sound of Swing." After producing the first 13 weeks of "The
Sound of Swing," WBFO offered it as a "syndicated" series to other
public radio stations around the country with at least modest success,
recalls WBFO Program Director David Benders.
	"It was never a money maker for the station," recalls Benders,
"We used to charge $5 per show; just enough to cover the marketing and
satellite uplink time to distribute it." At any given time, up to 50
stations in markets from New York to Alaska would air "The Sound of
Swing." In all, Rossberg produced 170 shows over four years.
	Though deeply involved in jazz music, Rossberg made his
professional mark through a distinguished career as a professor of
counseling and educational psychology at UB. A professor since 1956,
Rossberg served as chair of the Psychology Department, dean of the
Faculty of Educational Studies, interim dean of the School of Health
Related Professions and vice president for academic affairs. In 1990,
he was named Distinguished Service Professor by the State University
of New York Board of Trustees. Today, he continues to teach one
course, Foundations of Counseling Theory, which he has taught for four
decades. And he almost never let his avocation get in the way of his
career.
	"Once, when then President Robert Ketter approached me about
becoming vice president for Academic Affairs," Rossberg remembers, "I
said there was just one condition: I wouldn't have to give up my radio
show.
	"Ketter just laughed and said 'No problem,' but if he had
answered differently, I probably wouldn't have accepted the
appointment."
	A graduate of The City College of New York with a bachelor's
degree in psychology, Rossberg obtained a master's from Columbia
University and his doctorate in psychology from New York University
without straying far from his music.
	"Columbia is not far from Harlem and NYU, of course, is near
Greenwich Village," says Rossberg.
	Rossberg has authored two books on counseling and has served
as a consultant to the U.S. Veterans Administration, the U.S. Civil
Service Commission and as an advisor to U.S. District Court Judge John
Curtin on integration of the Buffalo Public School System.