KCSM DJ serves up Ella, Louis and Miles with your joe

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jul 23, 2007 | by Dave NewhouseSTAFF

Rap is played all over the airwaves. Likewise hip-hop, country, Hispanic and new-wave music. Meanwhile, jazz is the very soul of American music, yet there is only one jazz radio station in the Bay Area, KCSM-FM.

And there is only one Alisa Clancy.

Clancy is the "Morning Cup of Jazz" hostess at KCSM, waking us up with Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis along with that first cup of coffee. Pure melodic sanity at 91.1 on your dial.

Clancy is as jazzy as the music she plays. For there is no local disc jockey any happier on the job than Clancy, who laughs instead of breathes, and who produces more self-giggles per minute than any other DJ.

"My glass is half-full all the time," she said. "I am a very happy person. And this is a really great-feeling place."

Clancy, 46, has spent 20 years at KCSM, in the basement of the College of San Mateo library. Her bubbly personality, and her eclectic music, touches all sides of the Bay. To those of us who exercise in the morning, Clancy is our constant companion, playing Dinah Washington with our bench presses.

Clancy's on the air from 5:30 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. But her work shift continues until 1:30 to 2 p.m. because of operational duties. Remarkably, she's on her feet the whole time she's announcing, because she feels more involved when she'smoving, or "cooking."

She arranges her music through both preparation and inspiration. When the weather's warm, she'll play more Brazilian sounds. When it's a famous musician's birthday, she'll play his or her music. She even plays vinyl records.

Clancy is from San Diego, but went to college at Western Kentucky and earned a master's degree in theater at Wake Forest. She was teaching theater at San Francisco State University when she got the night shift at KCSM.

She had a background in jazz, listening to it as a youth. She also played the drums in her high school marching band, and the piano in jazz bands. She dabbled in radio in college, so KCSM wasn't getting a novice.

The theater remains a part of her. She wrote a play on songwriter Dorothy Fields, "The Sunny Side of the Street," which appeared on the College of San Mateo campus in 2005.

She also is the mother of 6-year-old twins, Ramona and Riley. Her husband, and daytime Mr. Mom, is Clint Baker, whose New Orleans jazz band plays around the Bay Area.

"The mom stuff really fixed up the other stuff," she said. "I was a workaholic. Having kids sort of prioritized a lot of things. It makes you very present; it's the best thing ever. It's made my work and everything better."

She's compensated like a teacher because she's paid by the San Mateo County Community College District.

Clancy was asked what is her favorite music to wake up to, to go to sleep with, and to hear during a romantic sunset on a veranda in Bora Bora?

She picked, in that order, Louis Armstrong, Keith Jarrett and Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald or Lester Young at sunset.

With the decline of jazz stations throughout the country because of the growth of less meaningful music, what exactly is the health of jazz?

"There's absolutely great music being made," said Clancy. "Jazz is just a tool. You know the tune, you play the head, and then you improvise over it. It's a democracy on the bandstand.

"So it's a good tool, especially with young people who are sick of hip-hop and stuff that doesn't have any progress. They want some social harmony. And if you're listening to jazz, and you got the ear and you're 15 years old, you can get all your aggres sions out on this horn.

"It's coming-of-age music."

And jazz is becoming even more international.

"It's going around the world and picking up all these great flavors," Clancy said one day last week. "I played Brazilians this morning and these new guys from Israel, Palestine.

"Jazz is very healthy."

So how many days out of a five-day work week is this happy person happy?

"Four days out of five," she said. "Some days is just tedium, too much administrative crap. I'm not a paper person."

Even then, she offered a slight smile.

Dave Newhouse's column appears Monday, Thursday and Sunday, usually in the Metro section. Know any Good Neighbors? Phone 510- 208-6466 or e-mail dnewhouse@angnewspapers.com