The Sale of UDC’s Radio Outlet Raises Concerns About the Future of Campus Stations
Last fall, Davey Yarborough, jazz studies director at the Duke
Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., was prepping the
members of his youth orchestra for an upcoming performance. He was
trying to teach them a little-known Duke Ellington tune called
“Daybreak Express,” but the students were missing the expressive
nuances the great composer intended.
Yarborough knew that the sheet music wasn’t enough. He had to find a
recording of the piece. He called the Smithsonian Institution and found
that it had transcribed the music, but didn’t have a copy of the
recording.
In fact, he couldn’t find a copy of the recording anywhere in the
city until he called WDCU-FM, Washington, D.C.’s all-jazz public radio
station housed on the campus of the University of the District of
Columbia (UDC).
WDCU, whose mission is to play jazz and report on local public
affairs, has the fourth-largest Black audience of any public radio
outlet in the country, according to the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting.
“Without WDCU, I’m not sure we’d have performed the piece,” says
Yarborough, a saxophonist, who has gained international accolades as
both a musician and educator. “I always say that 35 percent of teaching
jazz is listening. With WDCU, my students have unrestricted access to
one of the best listening libraries in the country.”
That’s important, says Yarborough, because neither the school –
which is part of D.C.’s cash-strapped public school system – nor the
majority of his students have the resources to purchase music on their
own. Over the past fifteen years, the station has become a hands-on lab
for students to develop broadcasting, programming, and business
management skills.
