A Podcast Conversation with...Glen Woodcock

By Bill King

The year was 1976 when Frank Sinatra brings Jerry Lewis’s former partner Dean Martin onstage, unannounced, at the 1976 Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon in Las Vegas, reuniting the comedy team for the first (and only) time in over 20 years. Toronto Maple Leaf Darryl Sittler scores the winning goal in the 1976 Canada Cup for Canada to win over Czechoslovakia in overtime, to win the first Canada Cup, which stayed in Canada. The semi-legendary 100 Club Punk Festival ignites the careers of several influential punk and post-punk bands, arguably sparking the punk movement’s introduction into mainstream culture. Irish rock band U2 is formed after drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. posts a note seeking members for a band on the notice board of his Dublin school. American singer Stevie Wonder releases his hit album Songs in the Key of Life. The same month today’s guest on FYIMUSNEWS.ca Conversation in All Keys–Glen Woodcock, began a 45-year run on CJRT -FM now Jazz. Fm91 in Toronto with his Big Band Show.

Woodcock is a journalist, music curator, and automobile specialist -championed the current Iron Man of Toronto radio who grew up in the city and fell in love with big band music as a teenager at the rock’ n’ roll craze height. He bought as many big band and jazz LPs as he could afford, first at Sam’s original store on College Street, then at Sam’s and A&A Records’ Yonge Street locations. He also frequented antique and junk stores to buy every 78 rpm big-band record he could find.

Those LPs formed the basis of the collection he still uses on The Big Bands with Glen Woodcock and will celebrate its 45th anniversary on JazzFM.91 in September 2021.

During his years as a broadcaster and entertainment editor at the Toronto Telegram, he met some greats in the world of Jazz – Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Torme and many, many more.

In November 2017, Woodcock was awarded the Ken Page Memorial Trust’s Lifetime Achievement Award at a gala, star-studded jazz dinner at the Old Mill in Toronto.