Martin Perlich
Encyclopedia
Martin Perlich, born 1937 in Cleveland, Ohio
is an American broadcaster and writer. He attended Western Reserve Academy
in Hudson, Ohio
and Columbia University
where he studied music history with composer Douglas Moore.
After a one-off 1965 interview with Leonard Bernstein
for WCLV-FM in Cleveland he went on to become the first Intermission Host of the syndicated Cleveland Orchestra
radio broadcasts, working closely with Musical Director George Szell
. During his seven years as host, he interviewed hundreds of musicians, including Aaron Copland
, Darius Milhaud
, Arthur Fiedler
, Robert Shaw
, and Isaac Stern
.
In late 1966 Perlich debuted the Perlich Project on WCLV, a mixture of classical music with early selections of progressive rock, poetry, radical comedy and jazz, along with Perlich's own personal comments and editorials on events of the day. His show was one of the earliest such shows on commercial radio and a model for the progressive rock medium. Perlich later moved his program to noted Cleveland rock station WMMS
(100.7 FM
) during its early, pre-Buzzard days as a progressive rock
outlet.
In 1972, Perlich joined the staff of Los Angeles
progressive rock station KMET
— formerly a WMMS sister station (prior to Perlich's move, both stations were owned by MetroMedia
) — where he hosted Electric Tongue, a weekly interview show featuring major rock and arts figures. In 1975 Perlich became Creative Consultant of NBC-TV's weekly 90-minute show The Midnight Special (TV series)
, responsible for the acclaimed "Salute" segment, a regular documentary featuring artists including Jerry Lee Lewis
, Aretha Franklin
, Stevie Wonder
, Loretta Lynne and others, in addition to writing, rehearsing and assisting with editing the show.
Beginning at KFAC (defunct) in Los Angeles in 1988 his interview show Martin Perlich Interviews won the New York International Radio Festival for two consecutive years and was syndicated nationally by WCLV/Seaway productions.
Particularly notable are his eight Frank Zappa
interviews, along with Lawrence Ferlinghetti
, R. Crumb, Dexter Gordon
, Jackson Browne
, Pierre Boulez
, Tom Waits
, Lou Reed
, Bill Evans
, John McLaughlin (musician)
, Judy Collins
, and Roy Orbison
.
From 2000-2008 Martin served as Program Director of KCSN
, named “Best of LA” by Los Angeles Magazine in 2006. In addition Perlich hosted a daily classical and new music show, as well as a live daily arts interview show “ARF!!” (ARTS & ROOTS FORUM) featuring Steve Reich
, Murray Mednick
, Terry Riley
, Sandra Tsing Loh
, Stacey Keach, and others in a seven year run.
In 2010, Perlich's interview archive was acquired by University of California, Los Angeles
which intends to make available all recorded interviews, as well as personal memorabilia and papers. Debuting in 2010 will be a new series of video interviews with New Music artists, including Elliott Carter
, Zakir Hussain
, David Harrington.
His books include The Art of the Interview (2007, Silman-James Press), The Wild Times (2006, Empty Press), The Perfect Fool (2010, Empty Press), The Self-Pity Chronicles (2010, Empty Press).
Perlich was honored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in 1998 for his contributions to rock radio. A copy of his public TV documentary Citizen Artist is in the Smithsonian permanent collection (2007). As an actor he has worked with director Norman Corwin
and with Jeff von der Schmidt and Southwest Chamber Music
in Samuel Beckett
’s Cascando
at Zipper Hall
in Los Angeles.
Perlich is now 72. He lives in West Hollywood, California
.
Martin Perlich is the father of character actor Max Perlich
, KKJZ
host Miles Perlich and writer Neil Perlich-Porter.
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
is an American broadcaster and writer. He attended Western Reserve Academy
Western Reserve Academy
Western Reserve Academy is a private, mid-sized, coeducational boarding and day college preparatory school located in Hudson, Ohio.-History:...
in Hudson, Ohio
Hudson, Ohio
Hudson is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 22,262 at the 2010 census. It is an affluent exurban community and is part of the Akron, Ohio Metropolitan Statistical Area...
and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
where he studied music history with composer Douglas Moore.
After a one-off 1965 interview with Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
for WCLV-FM in Cleveland he went on to become the first Intermission Host of the syndicated Cleveland Orchestra
Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1918, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall...
radio broadcasts, working closely with Musical Director George Szell
George Szell
George Szell , originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer...
. During his seven years as host, he interviewed hundreds of musicians, including Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
, Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
, Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...
, Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw
-Arts and humanities:* Bob Shaw , Irish science fiction writer* Bob Shaw , co-writer for Seinfeld, A Bugs Life and others* Robert J...
, and Isaac Stern
Isaac Stern
Isaac Stern was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.-Biography:Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco...
.
In late 1966 Perlich debuted the Perlich Project on WCLV, a mixture of classical music with early selections of progressive rock, poetry, radical comedy and jazz, along with Perlich's own personal comments and editorials on events of the day. His show was one of the earliest such shows on commercial radio and a model for the progressive rock medium. Perlich later moved his program to noted Cleveland rock station WMMS
WMMS
WMMS — branded 100.7 WMMS: The Buzzard — is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, widely recognized as one of the most influential rock stations in America throughout much of the history of FM broadcasting...
(100.7 FM
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...
) during its early, pre-Buzzard days as a progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
outlet.
In 1972, Perlich joined the staff of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
progressive rock station KMET
KMET
KMET was a Los Angeles radio station originally owned by Metromedia that first took to the air in June 1968 at 94.7 MHz and signed off on February 14, 1987...
— formerly a WMMS sister station (prior to Perlich's move, both stations were owned by MetroMedia
Metromedia
Metromedia was a media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and owned Orion Pictures from 1986-1997.- Overview :...
) — where he hosted Electric Tongue, a weekly interview show featuring major rock and arts figures. In 1975 Perlich became Creative Consultant of NBC-TV's weekly 90-minute show The Midnight Special (TV series)
The Midnight Special (TV series)
The Midnight Special is an American musical variety series that aired on NBC during the 1970s and early 1980s, created and produced by Burt Sugarman. It premiered as a special on August 19, 1972, then began its run as a regular series on February 2, 1973; its last episode was on May 1, 1981...
, responsible for the acclaimed "Salute" segment, a regular documentary featuring artists including Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...
, Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
, Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
, Loretta Lynne and others, in addition to writing, rehearsing and assisting with editing the show.
Beginning at KFAC (defunct) in Los Angeles in 1988 his interview show Martin Perlich Interviews won the New York International Radio Festival for two consecutive years and was syndicated nationally by WCLV/Seaway productions.
Particularly notable are his eight Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
interviews, along with Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...
, R. Crumb, Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
, Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
, Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, John McLaughlin (musician)
John McLaughlin (musician)
John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...
, Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
, and Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
.
From 2000-2008 Martin served as Program Director of KCSN
KCSN
KCSN is an FM radio station licensed to Northridge, Los Angeles, California, and a service of California State University, Northridge. Broadcasting at 88.5 MHz, KCSN previously featured classical music, AAA and Americana music, and in-house news broadcasts by the CSUN broadcast journalism students...
, named “Best of LA” by Los Angeles Magazine in 2006. In addition Perlich hosted a daily classical and new music show, as well as a live daily arts interview show “ARF!!” (ARTS & ROOTS FORUM) featuring Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
, Murray Mednick
Murray Mednick
Murray Mednick is an American playwright and poet. He's best known as founder of the Padua Hills Playwrights Workshop/Festival, where he served as artistic director from 1978 to 1995...
, Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, Sandra Tsing Loh
Sandra Tsing Loh
Sandra Tsing Loh is a Los Angeles, California-based writer, actress, performance-artist, pop-culture analyst, and radio commentator.-Biography:Loh is the daughter of a Chinese father and a German mother...
, Stacey Keach, and others in a seven year run.
In 2010, Perlich's interview archive was acquired by University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
which intends to make available all recorded interviews, as well as personal memorabilia and papers. Debuting in 2010 will be a new series of video interviews with New Music artists, including Elliott Carter
Elliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
, Zakir Hussain
Zakir Hussain (musician)
Zakir Hussain , , is an Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer.-Early life:Hussain was born in Mumbai, India to the legendary tabla player Alla Rakha. He attended St...
, David Harrington.
His books include The Art of the Interview (2007, Silman-James Press), The Wild Times (2006, Empty Press), The Perfect Fool (2010, Empty Press), The Self-Pity Chronicles (2010, Empty Press).
Perlich was honored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
in 1998 for his contributions to rock radio. A copy of his public TV documentary Citizen Artist is in the Smithsonian permanent collection (2007). As an actor he has worked with director Norman Corwin
Norman Corwin
Norman Lewis Corwin was an American writer, screenwriter, producer, essayist and teacher of journalism and writing...
and with Jeff von der Schmidt and Southwest Chamber Music
Southwest Chamber Music
Southwest Chamber Music is an ensemble of 15 musicians based in Los Angeles County, California. The organization was founded in 1987 by Artistic Director Jeff von der Schmidt and Executive Director Jan Karlin...
in Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
’s Cascando
Cascando
Cascando is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in French in December 1961, subtitled Invention radiophonique pour musique et voix, with music by the Franco-Romanian composer Marcel Mihalovici. It was first broadcast on France Culture on 13 October 1963 with Roger Blin and Jean Martin...
at Zipper Hall
Zipper Hall
Herbert Zipper Concert Hall is a 415 seat music venue located on the campus of the Colburn School in Los Angeles, California, United States. In addition to serving as a performance space for the school, it also is home to Monday Evening Concerts, Southwest Chamber Music, Piano Spheres, and Musica...
in Los Angeles.
Perlich is now 72. He lives in West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, a city of Los Angeles County, California, was incorporated on November 29, 1984, with a population of 34,399 at the 2010 census. 41% of the city's population is made up of gay men according to a 2002 demographic analysis by Sara Kocher Consulting for the City of West Hollywood...
.
Martin Perlich is the father of character actor Max Perlich
Max Perlich
-Biography:He was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His mother was a teacher and his father, Martin Perlich, a writer and radio programming director and announcer, worked for a time with the Cleveland Orchestra. The Perlich family moved to Los Angeles, California when Max was four...
, KKJZ
KKJZ
KKJZ is a non-commercial public radio station in Southern California broadcasting from the Long Beach State campus. The station is one of several public radio stations in Southern California presenting jazz and blues....
host Miles Perlich and writer Neil Perlich-Porter.