Well, well my FB friends…I am simply privileged, honoured and a bit excited that I write something about a person who was one of my first connections and “windows” to jazz music, a man who did an incredible educational and introductory job, teaching me and giving me the first lessons of jazz music, history, styles…He is also responsible for the bigger part that I got infected with the virus called jazz music and the foundation of my knowledge and appreciation is due directly to the education I got from Mr. Conover and the music he played through his broadcasts. Thus I admit I owe him my life-long dedication to jazz.
During the beginning of 80’ in my teenage days while I was living then in Yugoslavia, a country that was not behind the iron curtain but something “in-the-middle-of-the-road”, every night on my grand daddy’s radio “Nikola Tesla” (equipped with tubes, valves, les lampes, röhren, лампе, valvole… J J ), through frequent motorboating, fading and sometimes weak signal on short waves, with my “Ears Wide Shut” I used to listen to that “dangerous weapon and product of capitalism” – jazz, brought with the magic, unique, incredible and unforgettable voice of Mr. Willis Conover which became and remained his recognizable trademark all around the world. His sonorous, resonant, meticulous, serious, almost hypnotically deep and very forceful basso brings back many melancholic memories of this great emissary of jazz music and although he is not any more among us will stay in my heart forever.
On this day in 1996 Mr.Conover died. In the memory of this great person, a man who captured my heart and spirit forever with this music and a disk jockey who was the greatest Jazz’s Voice to the World, I decided to pay homage with this little contribution on FB.
Americans and all jazz world should be proud of this man !
From Skopje, East Berlin, Warsaw and Prague to Leningrad, Moscow and Vladivostok…..c’mon friends…just “Take The A Train”…. and enjoy…nothing more, nothing less !
Thank You and Rest in Peace Mr. Conover…..you did an extraordinary job!!!!
Yours truly,
Porfirio Rubirosa
EN 
MK