News

“Travel with me musically and discover new melodies as old as time …” began the late Leo Chears as he eloquently shared a poem during one of his jazz radio programs on WSIE (88.7 FM) in the 1990s.

Chears, known as the “Man in the Red Vest,” broadcast at WSIE from 1987 until shortly before his death in 2006. During his nearly 40 years working in radio, he acquired an extensive collection of jazz recordings, most of which he stored in the basement of his East St. Louis home, located only blocks from where legendary trumpeter Miles Davis once lived.

SIUE Fine Arts Librarian Therese Dickman recalled the day in May 1999 when she first saw Chears’ record collection. He had invited several staff members from Lovejoy Library to his home to see the collection as he was trying to decide what to do with it in the future.

It was truly an impressive sight. Lining the walls of Chears’ basement studio were hand-built wooden shelves filled with jazz 12-inch LPs and albums with additional sections for CDs. A bookshelf near the stairs held reel-to-reel tapes with interviews of jazz musicians he had conducted through the years.

“A lot of magic is on those tapes from those years,” Chears commented. “I’m glad somebody [recorded] them.”

He drew extensively from his personal collection for his radio shows. Stereo turntables and other equipment to record segments for his radio shows were within easy reach of his recordings. Chears would often take a couple bags of jazz music, CDs, cassette tapes and LP albums from home to the station.

In 2000, SIUE music student Bob Bennett, Chears’ protégé at WSIE, interviewed his mentor for the National Ragtime and Jazz Archive (NRJA) oral history project. The Leo Chears statements included here are from that interview.

When Chears was asked what it was like to host his jazz show, he reflected, “When you’re doing a show, it’s like a canvas and you’re an artist. You begin painting that picture from midnight, and that picture is completed at five.” Regarding his midnight-5 a.m. time slot, Chears commented, “It’s a helluva time of day to come to work, but still it’s a great and gratifying day and time.”  It allowed him to work in the jazz format that he enjoyed and knew so well.

Chears noted, “My goal is to get the music out to as many people as I can. If someone walked up to me and said, ‘Hey, I want to put [your show] on a satellite’ or enable people to ‘hear you all across the country,’ I’d like that.”

Chears was proud “to have stayed in this town, in this area, and be somebody that people listen to, want to hear and want to be associated with.” He realized that WSIE was likely to be the last radio station at which he would work, but that didn’t deter him. When arthritis prevented him from going to the station during his final months at WSIE, he continued broadcasting the show from home with Bennett’s assistance.

Terri Chears Long, the eldest daughter of Leo and Betty Chears’ three children, inherited her father’s extensive collection of recordings in 2006. She wanted to honor her father’s wishes regarding how his record collection would be shared and distributed.

In August 2015, after careful thought and consultation with her siblings, Long decided to donate 500 jazz music CDs, 250 selected jazz LP 12-inch records and the reel-to-reel tapes with her father’s jazz musician interviews to SIUE.

Other recordings went to Harris Stowe College. Long attended both universities, and her daughter now attends SIUE. The remaining nearly 6,000 albums not kept by family members were sold to Euclid Records and offered for sale in September during a “Red Vest Sale.”   Some other materials, including one of Chears’ legendary red vests, were donated by the family to the St. Louis Radio Hall of Fame.

On November 7, 2015, Long, her brother Kelvin, sister Florence Chears-Lawrence and other family members met in Lovejoy Library to commemorate the donation of their father’s recordings to SIUE. The close-knit siblings noted that January 2016 would mark the 10th anniversary of their dear father’s death.

The donated CDs are now being cataloged. They will soon be available for students, faculty, staff, alumni and those with a guest library card to check out in accordance with the family’s wishes. The LPs and historic reel-to-reel tapes have been added to the National Ragtime and Jazz Archives maintained at SIUE’s Lovejoy Library.

Chears’ reel-to-reel tapes with the jazz musician interviews are silent for now until the tapes can be professionally cleaned and reformatted. Once reformatted, the historic recorded interviews will be made available or heard by request in Lovejoy Library. These may also be loaned for future WSIE programs and thereby shared again with the St. Louis jazz radio listening audience. Thus, Leo Chears’ jazz music legacy can continue for generations to come. 

For more information about the Leo Chears Collection at SIUE or to make a tax deductible donation to preserve and improve its access, see the Leo Chears Collection webpage or contact Dickman at tdickma@siue.edu.

Photo: Leo Chears at WSIE Radio.