25 Facts About Phil Schaap

Philip van Noorden Schaap was an American radio host, who specialized in jazz as a broadcaster, historian, archivist, and producer.

Phil Schaap began presenting jazz shows on Columbia University's WKCR in 1970, and hosted Bird Flight and Traditions In Swing on WKCR for 40 years, shows which are broadcast in archival versions to this day, beginning in 1981.

Phil Schaap received six Grammy Awards over the course of his career.

Phil Schaap's father was Walter Schaap, an early jazz historian, translator and discographer.

Phil Schaap's mother, Marjorie Wood Schaap, worked as a librarian and was a classically trained pianist.

Phil Schaap was friendly with many jazz musicians from a young age.

Phil Schaap was fond of the members of the original Count Basie Orchestra, knocking on Buck Clayton's front door, as well as visiting Milt Hinton's home unannounced.

Phil Schaap passed the test and when Jones offered to baby sit for him, his father dropped him off at Jones's Manhattan apartment.

Phil Schaap said the West End series was among his proudest accomplishments.

Phil Schaap booked modern jazz artists, such as Lee Konitz and Joe Albany, and blues artists, such as Percy France and Big Joe Turner.

Phil Schaap engineered sound for jazz events, including George Wein's Newport Jazz Festival.

From 1981, Phil Schaap hosted two shows on WKCR: Bird Flight, broadcast weekday mornings from 8:20 to 9:30, devoted to the music of Charlie Parker.

Phil Schaap continued as a radio broadcaster for a half-century, until 2020, when the COVID pandemic intervened.

Phil Schaap was commissioned by Michael Cuscuna of Mosaic Records around 1988 to rescue unissued decaying recording of Charlie Parker made by Dean Benedetti forty years earlier.

Phil Schaap's work saw the recovery of 461 recorded fragments from 18 nights of Parker's 1947 and 1948 nightclub appearances in Los Angeles and New York.

From 1984 to 1991, Phil Schaap was the archivist for the Savoy Jazz label.

Phil Schaap was involved with the re-issue of other recordings on CD by artists including Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington.

Phil Schaap taught jazz at the graduate level at Columbia University and Rutgers University, taught American Studies at Princeton University, and ran graduate level jazz classes for Jazz at Lincoln Center for The Juilliard School from 2006 until his death.

Phil Schaap gave guest lectures and spoke at special events at nearly every university in the area.

In 2009, Phil Schaap published the expanded reprint of Terry Waldo's "This is Ragtime", with a new foreword by Wynton Marsalis, under the imprint of Jazz at Lincoln Center Library Editions.

Phil Schaap was a distinguished member of the Board of Directors Advisory committee of The Jazz Foundation of America.

Phil Schaap was the inspiration for Woody Allen's on-screen character in Allen's film Sweet and Lowdown.

Phil Schaap later returned to her former passion of singing jazz professionally.

Phil Schaap was survived by his partner of 17 years, Susan Shaffer.

Phil Schaap died on September 7,2021, at a hospital in Manhattan at the age of 70 after living with lymphoma for four years.