The first music Jeff Kellam heard as a youngster was from his parents’ 78 rpm records, the pop music of their youth: big bands. His very first interview assignment took him to the college music conservatory to interview the renowned jazz pianist George Shearing. “I started at the top,” he says, “and I’ve coasted since then.” Later Jeff was a student at Richmond’s Union Presbyterian Seminary when its former radio station WRFK became a charter member of NPR, and after being the voice of classical music programming there, he was asked if he wanted to play some jazz on Saturday nights. “Headset Jazz” became a fixture on Richmond airwaves. A local adult contemporary station recruited Jeff to host a Sunday morning “Jazz Brunch.” Jeff considered the best perk in radio: emceeing jazz fests and concerts. “I’m no musician, but there I was one night on stage with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, and Herbie Mann. Very cool.”

During those years he also produced and hosted a “lightly syndicated” program “The Spirit of Jazz.” It combined jazz tracks with brief meditations on life themes, combining his favorite music genre with his vocation as a Presbyterian minister. “We only had a handful of stations, but they were in some large markets.” 

Besides jazz programming, Jeff may be better known locally for his long-running (we’re talking 20 years here) “Celebration Rock” show. Expanding from its Richmond roots, that rock and inspiration show was syndicated to some fifty stations. “We were coast-to-coast,” Jeff smiled. “From Tampa, FL to Salem, OR. 

Now in retirement, Jeff and jazz are still media-oriented. He and jazz pianist Bill Carter co-host the “Spirit of Jazz” podcast, and Jeff has rediscovered the hundreds of jazz LPs in his attic and shares the music he once played in Richmond on several community radio stations. “I call the show ‘Classic Vinyl Jazz,’ but basically it’s just a chance to hear those old plastic records in my attic.”