Despite federal funding cuts, KUVO's Andy O'Leary continues to reach 'across the galaxy'
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Disclosure: Rocky Mountain PBS receives funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. KUVO JAZZ is a sister station to Rocky Mountain PBS. This article was not reviewed by anyone at Rocky Mountain PBS outside of the journalism team prior to publishing.
DENVER — On Sunday nights, Andy O’Leary, sits alone in an empty building on the corner of 21st and Arapahoe. An amber glow emanates from the second-story window of the Buell Public Media Center. The rest of the building is dark.
DENVER — On Sunday nights, Andy O’Leary, sits alone in an empty building on the corner of 21st and Arapahoe. An amber glow emanates from the second-story window of the Buell Public Media Center. The rest of the building is dark.
The building is silent from the street. But turn the dial to 89.3, and you can hear a fantasia of jazz and poetry coming from the KUVO studio, where O’Leary has worked for nearly 40 years.
For more than a decade, 70-year-old O’Leary — known on the air as Andy O’ — has hosted “The Nightside” show for KUVO, spotlighting poetry and jazz with an emphasis on the history of the two artforms. In the wake of public media’s defunding, Andy O’ is doubling down on the human side of broadcasting.
Video: Peter Vo, Rocky Mountain PBS
O’Leary joined KUVO on Labor Day in 1989, just four years after the station first went on the air. In his 36 years at the station, O’Leary has worked every possible radio shift, from early morning to late nights.
Hosting overnight shows means he is often the only one in the studio.
“I don’t really feel alone because I’m broadcasting,” O’Leary said. “When I’ve got this platform, I’m reaching across the galaxy frankly.”
From 1997 to 2003, he served as the station’s music director at KUVO. “The Nightside” show stemmed from O’Leary’s love of poetry and jazz. Because of the show’s focus on avant-garde music, it airs late on Sunday nights, when O’Leary said people can listen to more “challenging” music.
In his show, you might hear the methodical boom of Max Roach’s drums in “Driva’man” or Haki Madhubuti's afrocentric poetry over Nicole Mitchell’s “Rise Vision.”
Most of the time, O’Leary is in the studio when the show is broadcasting. He sits in the production chair, nodding his head along with the music. Here, O’Leary is in his element.
“I like the city lights, the vibe. I leave the window up, and I turn down the lights so I can see out there,” O’Leary said while pointing down Arapahoe Street. On his hat is a pin celebrating KUVO’s 40th anniversary.
KUVO turned 40 years old in late August. The celebration came just over a month after Congress approved President Donald Trump’s rescission package, which stripped more than $1 billion from public media stations across the country, including KUVO.
Prior to the Trump administration’s clawback, Rocky Mountain Public Media, which includes KUVO, THE DROP and Rocky Mountain PBS, received about 10% of its annual funding from the federal government.
“Loss of federal funding would hinder our work, especially in serving our neighbors in every corner of our state with journalism and programs that are freely accessible to all,” KUVO’s parent organization, Rocky Mountain Public Media, said in a statement earlier this year.
Before “The Nightside”, O’Leary spends meticulous hours at his desk, cultivating setlists and gathering information about artists on the shows. Through biographies, song lyrics and interviews, O’Leary scours his database and the internet, making sure his listeners know the context of the songs that play throughout the night.
His setlist is often dictated by the passing of a prominent artist, or a musician’s birthday. On September 7, O’Leary created a setlist to celebrate the birthday of jazz saxophonist, Sonny Rollins, featuring him more than 10 times throughout the night as he interjected with Rollins’ life stories and his own personal recollections of seeing Rollins live.
In an era of AI DJs, O’Leary’s show is personable and something of a throwback.
“It’s a blast with Andy,” said KUVO’s Abi Clark. “It’s easy to get carried away because we’re both so passionate about the music.”
Until September 2, O’Leary and Clark co-hosted a show called “Influenced” that aired at midnight. The show highlighted music that is a cross-pollination of jazz and other genres. O’Leary and Clark hosted the show together for three years.
Their collaboration focused on bridging the gap between their generations. Oftentimes, Clark would surprise O’Leary with a throwback track while O’Leary constantly looks for new music.
Clark, 32, said that the lessons she learned from co-hosting with O’Leary have solidified, to her, the importance of radio hosts in a musical landscape that trends towards streaming algorithms.
Curated playlists, knowledgeable hosts and community interaction are all things that a live radio station brings to its listeners. Clark said that an algorithm or artificial intelligence could never do that.
“It’s too important to fail — it’s too big to fail, it’s in the culture,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary continues to preach about poetry and jazz, hoping to educate audiences about American music.
“This is who I am,” he said. “It’s important for me to get [music] out there to the public. It’s history, American history.”
Andy O’ is on-air every Sunday evening from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. on 89.3 FM Radio.
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.