Welcome to the first of the ten podcast episodes in The South Coast Artists Index Jazz Series hosted by Dave Reis. This first-ever series is underwritten and brought to you by Fiber Optic Center and Whaling City Sound.

In episode one Dave Reis takes a trip down memory lane. He recounts the lives and careers of the artists featured on The Jazz Mural in the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park in downtown New Bedford by Kat Knutsen, which was also sponsored by Neal Weiss’s Fiber Optic Center and Whaling City Sound. Kat has been our guest on podcast episodes 73, 131, and 180.

Jazz podcast series host Dave Reis spent nearly 26 years as a Jazz radio show host among his many other accomplishments. He was one of the original longtime DJs who worked at the former WUSM which became radio station WUMD, 89.3 FM, on the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth campus.

Dave Reis, AKA David Domingo Reis, was our guest on In-Focus Podcast 154. and In-Focus Podcast 181 and returns once again as the host of our first-ever podcast series. Our thanks to local businessman Neal Weiss, the founder of the Fiber Optic Center, a jazz aficionado, and entrepreneur, for underwriting this ten-part jazz podcast series.

There is no better host for this series than Dave Reis, a walking, talking jazz encyclopedia and local legend himself. Dave grew up surrounded by and hanging around with many of the jazz greats he will be presenting his new jazz podcast series.

PLEASE NOTE: The New Bedford Historical Society worked with Neal Weiss to fund the mural and managed the process of contracting the mural artist and selecting the jazz innovators depicted in the mural. The Society also wrote the Wicked Cool Places grant proposal that funded the mural, worked to get it installed, and managed the marketing and publicity. The Jazz Mural is a great public art collaboration. It identifies the importance of the South Coast’s jazz performers. The mural defines New Bedford’s Cape Verdean community and African American performer’s contributions. They are an integral part of America’s Black History.