Ken Malden at the WVDA microphone, 1953-54
WBMS disc jockey and WILD program director Ken Malden died in Miami on May 1, 2009. Malden was a part of that long-ago scene when commercial stations on the AM dial programmed jazz.
Ken Malden started in Boston radio in the late 1940s. By early 1953 he was on the air on WVDA-AM, playing jazz and blues, and sometimes spicing it up by reading poetry. His real name was Milton Tokson, but early on he decided that Malden, the name of his suburban Boston home town, was more radio-friendly. I don’t know what inspired him to pick Ken.
WVDA in 1953 was one of Boston’s top music stations for jazz. They had Malden in the evenings, longtime Boston radio personality Sherm Feller on overnights, and Bill Buchanan with a weekend big band show. That summer Bob “The Robin” Martin arrived from WMTW in Portland, Maine to host an afternoon show. In terms of broadcast hours per week, the only station with as much jazz as WVDA was WBMS.
WBMS-AM was the first station in Boston to focus on the African-American audience, and not just in its choice of music. Norman Furman became general manager of Boston’s WHEE in April 1952, and he immediately converted the sleepy day-timer into a station featuring jazz, gospel, and R&B. He changed the call letters to WBMS (perhaps standing for “World’s Best Music Station”), hired Boston jazz icon Sabby Lewis as a disc jockey, and then hired his out-of-work friend, the celebrated New York deejay Symphony Sid Torin. In late 1954, Furman lured Ken Malden over from WVDA.
Malden played some jazz, but more R&B. As a gimmick in 1955, he sent some records to a convalescing President Dwight Eisenhower, hoping that he’d appreciate the music of America’s youth, and “look alive and dig the jive.” As far as I know, Ike never responded.
WBMS changed ownership in 1957, and Furman and Torin returned to New York. In September, Bartell Broadcasting changed the call letters to WILD. Malden stayed on as deejay, and in 1958, became program director. He remained at the station, sometimes on air for six hours a day, until mid-1960, when he headed to Miami. He reunited with Bob Martin there at WGBS.
Malden turned his attention to news, and much later to talk, and as late as 2008 was still broadcasting sports on Miami’s WQAM. When he died of cancer in 2009, his Miami colleagues remembered him as one of the good guys. I like to think he was one of the good guys when he worked in Boston, too. Anybody know?
You might have exited Torin from Boston a bit early. I’ve read that he did remotes
from the Hi Hat or Storyville for WCOP before he was able to return to NYC.
Hello Dave, I think 1957 is right for Sid’s Boston exit, he left Boston after emceeing the North Shore Jazz Festival in Lynn that August. His return to NYC was noted locally and in Down Beat. The Sid story is here: https://richardvacca.com/sabby-symphony-sid-and-wbms/. I don’t know if Sid resumed his broadcasts from the Hi-Hat after the Dec 1955 fire that shut them down for most of 1956. Those broadcasts were on WCOP, but the station changed formats that year and he moved over to WMEX.
In the liner notes to Herb Pomeroy’s Jazz in a Stable, Tom Wilson writes that Bob Martin “was martyred by anti-jazz radio station WVDA.” I wasn’t able to figure out what was this is referring to–any idea?
Bob Martin, until late summer 1955, had a daily show on WVDA. When WVDA changed formats, Martin was out. Possibly given the choice of staying on and playing rock and roll, or maybe he just got fired, I don’t know. In any event, he was on WCOP-AM by Jan 1956. So not quite martyred. One guy who remained on WVDA was Joe Smith, who in later years became the president of Capitol Records. And WVDA did bring back some jazz with Speed Anderson on the overnights, but that ended when WVDA was sold in Dec 1957 and changed its call to WEZE, and flipped to easy listening.
That’s right, Sid came on BMS right after Ken Malden. It wasn’t a jazz program, it was spirituals— the opening theme was “Milky White Way.” As the station went off the air at sundown, Sid’s show time varied with the season. (The only jazz-related DJ i knew about at that time was Bill Marlowe on BZ)
I remember Ken (“like the city”) Malden so well. When I discovered rock n roll/pop music i would listen to all the DJs— Norm Prescott on WBZ, Arnie “woo woo” Ginsberg on some tiny station at the end of the dial, then WMEX, Joe (“hey hey José”) Smith on WVDA… But Ken was my favorite. He played the whole rock range from rockabilly through jazz to R&B, but not the soft-beat stuff like Guy Mitchell. He spoke out a lot too, in defense of our music against the folks who were literally holding burn-and-smash street rallies against it. I do remember when i was listening he would ID as “Ken like-the-city Malden” — “The Hawk Talks” was his daily program opener…. Today i’m a fan of Japanese rock music. Wonder what Ken would have thought of that
And Symphony Sid. You must have listened to Symphony Sid! Thanks for your memories of the days when all the good stuff was on AM radio.
Yes. My 94 year old dad Paul Segal, and Malden were childhood friends. He said Misty married Gerri and he had a heart shaped birthmark.