Meet the Radio Host Who’s Been Bringing Jazz to Cleveland Airwaves for 53 Years

Jim Szabo went on the air in 1973 with five jazz records to his name. Fifty-three years later, he’s still on Friday nights. 

Szabo hosted his WRUW-FM 91.1 show “Down by the Cuyahoga” throughout his college years at Case Western Reserve University and kept it up during his professional career. His weekly visits to the studio have never come with any paycheck.

“Yes, it’s a volunteer job,” says Szabo, “but I like what I’m doing.”

Growing up in Warrensville Heights, Szabo studied alongside his AM radio, hunting for stations across the country until he landed on Dave Hawthorne's show on Cleveland's WJW-AM. The jazz Hawthorne played enraptured Szabo, and he soon found more stations, even one from New York. Each radio station exposed him to new artists and new sounds — along with giveaways and contests, where he won his first five jazz records.

Those five jazz records eventually made up Szabo’s first hour of programming on WRUW.

Before he started at CWRU in the fall of 1973, Szabo discovered a radio program students could join that allowed them to assist a DJ with their show. Anticipating his involvement, he got a radio license that was, at the time, required by the Federal Communications Commission, and signed up. After a few weeks, Szabo was given an hour slot on a show, and then got more time on air until he programmed the entire slot, using a plethora of jazz records in WRUW’s collection.

“It was definitely a ‘Throw him in the pool and see if he could swim’ kind of a moment,” Szabo says. “And the funny thing about it is, I think I learned a lot by doing it that way.”  

After graduating with a degree in mathematics, Szabo started his professional career working for the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland and later KeyBank — but his Friday nights always belonged to WRUW. 

“The beauty of some of the college radio stations around town is they are a mix of students and what we call ‘community volunteers.’
So I immediately leapt from one category to the next. I didn't get bored with it, and they didn't get bored with me,” Szabo says.

Continuing with his radio show, Szabo found other ways to contribute to Cleveland jazz culture. In 1977, he joined jazz writer and broadcaster Willard Jenkins and several others to create the Northeast Ohio Jazz Society. The group began holding local concerts before offering memberships. Grants allowed for the society to expand its concert series and a collaboration with Cuyahoga Community College in 1980 led to the first Tri-C JazzFest.

While the local radio landscape has shifted in the last 53 years, Szabo believes in sticking with it. WRUW’s signal reaches across Northeast Ohio, western Pennsylvania and southern Ontario, meaning anyone in those areas can tune in to FM 91.1 and hear Szabo’s show. WRUW also streams its shows from its website, which allows a whole new audience to listen. Often Szabo will tell his listeners what time it is for him, as portions of his audience are in different time zones. 

“The beauty of doing the program now is, on a particular Friday night, I'm being listened to by people in Ohio, seven other states and two foreign countries. And so that has a different kind of a kick associated with it,” he says. “I'm not just talking to the people across the street.”

Some of Szabo’s traditions have changed. In the past, before every show, he researched local jazz concerts to tell his listeners about when he went on air. He also sent his list of events to The Plain Dealer, which included them in its Friday Magazine. While he no longer sends his lists to newspapers, he still reads them out to his listeners every week.

In 2021, Szabo was meant to be honored for his contributions to Tri-C JazzFest by being named a JazzFest Legend. However, he felt there were others more deserving of the recognition and respectfully declined. He was honored again in 2026, and this time he accepted.

“It's nice to be so recognized. It does also acknowledge that segment of college radio, which not a lot of people think about all the time. Commercial entities, be they clubs or stations or whatever; they come and go,” Szabo says. “But the college is a bedrock that always has good music in mind or good programming that's needed in the area. And so I'm happy to carry the banner for that.”

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