Alan Grant

Alan Grant, world famous jazz DJ, producer and musician, passed away after an amazing 93 years on earth. After buying his first saxophone as a teenager in Brooklyn with money won from a craps game, he went on to play in the Army band in WWII, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, was an Honor Guard for General Patton's funeral and later became an iconic jazz disc jockey who basically brought jazz music to the masses in the 1950s and 60s. As the founder of the WABC New York "Portraits in Jazz" radio show, and producing live recordings from Half Note and Birdland he came to know ALL of the leading names in jazz. He hosted a Friday night show at the Village Vanguard club in New York City where every jazz musician that even sort of mattered played on a regular basis. He was friendly with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Billy Holiday, Stan Getz, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery and just about anyone else who was involved in Jazz between the 1950s and 1990s. He later spent over 15 years in Las Vegas, hosting shows that broadcast live jazz to over 150 public radio stations worldwide bringing the best talent known to America's desert playground. On top of his amazing professional career which took him from NYC to Las Vegas to Miami to New Zealand, he loved his eccentric New Zealand-born wife, Gigi, and his four children, all of whom became artists to some way or another- three directly in jazz music! His son, Stu Grant, a jazz fixture here in South Florida since 1972 has his dearly beloved father Alan to thank for turning him on to America's true art form and will always remember being at some of those monumental jazz moments in New York during a groundbreaking period for many jazz greats. Dad, I'll miss more than you know you but you'll always be in my heart... All my love always! -Stu