Allan Berland

Allan Berland’s first dream was to play the jazz sax. When that failed, he switched to jazz piano. When that failed, he decided to open a classic downstairs jazz club in North Beach — until his wife, Joanna, reminded him that he was 75, so he dropped that, too.

She is now paying for that advice because Berland, now in his 80’s, has attained his fourth choice for a life in jazz. He’s the host of The Jazz Lounge, a weekly show on KCSM, and he’s drafted Joanna as his director and recording engineer.

On Tuesday at 9pm you can hear Berland play jazz from the 1950s and ’60s and explain the cultural significance of each cut and artist.

“Welcome to ‘The Jazz Lounge,’ where there is no cover and no minimum,” he says at the top of his show in a voice that he admits he has been struggling to make less lawyerly (he an attorney by profession) and more folksy. “I’m Allan Berland, and I’m serving jazz straight up. … So sit back, relax and let the cool, elegant sounds of jazz wash over you and melt away all of your worries and cares.”

“The Jazz Lounge” is a one-hour, prerecorded show that takes six to eight hours of sweat and patience to record. “I don’t just want to be a DJ,” he says, “I want to share with people my love for jazz and to help them understand and appreciate the music as a very rich art form.”

For each show Berland comes up with a single artist or style of jazz, then spends six to eight weeks researching and listening and curating. Then he selects up to 10 cuts and spends another two weeks writing his script, which can run to 14 pages, triple-spaced. He rehearses the script and times it and rewrites, right up to the moment when he goes on air.

“I was on the editing committee for the Marin County civil grand jury,” he says. “I’ve had lots of practice.”

Great jazz DJs have a gift for introducing a song with just the right tone and words to make the listener feel it as much as hear it. The late Bob Parlocha was the master on his nightly show “Dinner Jazz” on KJAZ-FM, the now long-defunct commercial station in Alameda.

The Jazz Lounge is miles behind Dinner Jazz, but Berland is picking up listeners one by one – and he hope you’ll become one too!

(Excerpt from 2019 SF Chronicle Article)