From Civil Engineer to the “Nighthawk” of Radio Clyde
Duncan Birrell, Archive Assistant, takes a closer look at the James Waugh Collection of Jazz Records.
James Waugh (1941-1995) was the immensely talented but always self-effacing presenter of ‘Nighthawk’ on Radio Clyde, the late night Jazz show which aired from Glasgow throughout the 1980s.
The collection of over 2,300 vinyl records of Jazz music collated during Jimmy Waugh's career, was donated to the University of Strathclyde by his widow Genevieve Waugh in 1998. It spans Jazz from its origins in Gospel and Blues, and the inception of rag-time and Dixie-land (or Traditional Jazz) at the turn of the 20th century; includes the Chicago style of the 1920s; follows the Swing of the 30s, the Big Band Jazz and Bebop of the 40s; charts the arrival of Free Jazz in the 1950s, and scopes the avant-garde experiments and break down of Jazz convention which followed in the 1960s; also tracking Jazz fusions incorporation of funk in the 70s and 80s.
All the Jazz legends are here too: from drummers like Buddy Rich, Max Roach, Art Blakey, to percussionists like Bobby Hutcherson; double bassists like Charlie Mingus and Dave Holland; trombonists like Fred Wesley; guitarist such as Grant Green and Kenny Burrell; Jazz organists like Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, and Charles Earland; pianists like Andrew Hill; and Jazz violinists like Stéphane Grappelli. The recordings of legendary trumpeters like Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Lee Morgan, are joined by those of all round performers such as Louis Armstrong, and celebrated female vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday and Jean Knight.
Waugh would broadcast through the night, from midnight until 3am a show, which as the journalist Andrew Gray describes, would “tell the solitary driver, the insomniac, the invalid, the shift worker: You are not alone.” Using the handle ‘Nighthawk’, Jimmy Waugh shared with listeners his love and encyclopaedic knowledge of the international Jazz scene, with its diverse range of complex talents and larger than life personalities to entertain his loyal, nocturnal fan base.
Less well known is that the ‘Nighthawk’s’ early career was in civil engineering, a fact that no doubt would have come as a surprise to many of his late night listeners. In fact, Scotland’s foremost Jazz broadcaster was also responsible for a number of very large civil engineering projects in the UK and Middle East. Perhaps it was this spirit to construct and make new which first attracted Waugh to Jazz, or maybe it provided the perfect counter balance to his chosen profession.
Check out this playlist selected from albums held in the collection or visit the Archives and Special Collections reading room on level 5 of the library to discover if the spontaneous, improvisational aesthetic of Jazz might inspire you.
Search for titles in the James Waugh record collection in the SUPrimo library catalogue.
