I was listening to Dick Buckley today (12 to 3 on 'BEZ Sundays) thinking about what a treasure this guy is. Well into his 80's, and narcoleptic I'm given to understand, Dick plays, like he says when he opens his show, "jazz records from 12 to 3".

Not just any jazz records. Jazz records from the 20's, the 30's, the 40's, the 50's, mostly. He was covering Dizzy today. The guy has impecable taste and a fantastic feeling for sequencing the rare originals, outtakes, and 'B' sides he pulls from his own collection. Not only that, he's been on this earth long enough to have blown with a lot of these people at the old-time Chicago venues. Dick doesn't just talk about the records: he talks about the people from the heart. He knows who was where, and in which group when. He talks about the lives of the musicians, no cover-up, who was, as he puts it, "fighting the battle of the bottle". He mixes in anecdotal banter from various live and studio sessions over the years.

Priceless. Sadly, I know he won't be with us much longer.