Wes Bowen, Utah's voice for jazz music, gained an appreciation for the genre when he was just 11 years old.
"I grew up in England," Bowen said with a smile during an interview at the Eccles Broadcast Building at the University of Utah. "I remember walking past a record store and hearing this music that I'd never heard before. I stepped into the store and asked the lady who was playing this music."She said, `Some Yank named Count Basie. But if he's really a Yank, he can't really be a count, now can he?' "
Bowen has always loved music. He was in the school band but was reprimanded by the music director because of his interest in jazz.
"He didn't like how I was playing, or what I was playing," Bowen said. But the young music lover couldn't get his mind off jazz.
However, Bowen found his love for jazz went far beyond his talent. "I was never very good. That's why I never played professionally."
Instead, he spent his time studying jazz, classical and ethnic music and garnered a large knowledge of music history.
"European classical music was a composer's art," Bowen said. "Many composers were employed by churches, archdukes and others like that. But jazz was the assertion of the individual because it was a player's art.
"The performer took the structure of the music and said, `This is the way I play this song,' " Bowen said.
Bowen, who served as a troop commander of a parachute regiment during World War II, began his broadcasting career at KNOB after moving to the Los Angeles in the 1950s.
In the early '60s, Bowen landed a job with a Salt Lake radio station called KSL.
"I was with KSL for about 17 years," Bowen said. "I was the vice president of public affairs. But from about the first day with the station, I did a jazz and classical show. It was just a way of placating me because I wanted to do a show. But it had a huge audience."
One reason for the listenership, said Bowen, was the way he programed the show.
"In order to do a good jazz show (you have) to program it the same way you would program a classical show," Bowen explained. "Unlike the pop-music scene where the drive is to make a buck and play the most recent things, if you forget the classical and jazz past, you lose your audience. I mean you'd never hear Bach, let alone recent composers such as Stravinsky and Copland.
"Jazz is similar," Bowen said. "If you continue to play only those recent artists who push the envelope, you lose your audience. I make sure after playing a difficult selection I put on a more accessible piece. That way, the listener learns to trust you."
Bowen also promoted jazz concerts in Salt Lake City. He brought in guitarist Charlie Byrd and was involved with bringing Andre Previn and Shelly Manne to Salt Lake City.
He had an intimate one-on-one conversation with Duke Ellington at the Monterey Jazz Festival and again in 1963, after President John F. Kennedy named Bowen a member of the People to People music program.
"I went to Washington and met with the Duke again," Bowen said. "That was the last time I talked with him."
Bowen left KSL in 1978. In 1988, the jazz man returned to the airwaves at KUER, 90.1 FM, where he's been ever since.
Last April, Gov. Mike Leavitt declared April 15 (tax day of all days) as Wes Bowen Day for his contributions to jazz in Utah.
"Let it be recorded that for once, Wes Bowen is speechless," Bowen said after receiving the honor.
"The thing with jazz is the music has to be the star," Bowen said about his experiences. "I can talk a bit, but the music needs to speak for itself."