US3 "Cantaloop"

In my early days in radio, I worked for a small independent station in Virginia, an AM/FM combo.

I generally worked on the FM side, where we played Pop music in the daytime and Alternative music at night.

On the AM side, sometimes we'd just rebroadcast the FM. On Sundays it was all Gospel music (with live Preachers!). And we'd carry local high school sports and Virginia Tech Football.

And there was the Jazz guy.

He'd come in on Friday nights to do his thing. A nice enough guy. Odd fellow, I suppose.

He loved Jazz. He had absolutely no understanding for anyone else's love for any other kind of music. Listening to anything that wasn't Jazz, was as foreign and as bizarre as listening to your toaster for music.

I'd be on the air in the FM studio, and he'd wander into my space to see what I was up to.

Invariably, he'd ask for the name of the band I was playing, and invariably, he'd shake his head at how utterly ridiculous he thought the band name, the song and the whole genre was (the whole genre being, "everything that is not Jazz").

But one day, I got him, with this song.

I played it for him, I watched as he got ready to dismiss it out of hand, only to recognize the riff.

"That's from a Jazz song!" he said.

"Yep, Cantaloupe Island," I replied.

He was impressed that I knew a Herbie Hancock song (though, truth be told, I had just read about it), and he was impressed that modern, mainstream music could connect to something he could understand.

"I like it," he said.

"Me too."

"Who is it?"

"US-3."

Cue the ridiculous conversation . . .


Hear US3 on Youtube.


Hear the Herbie Hancock song on Youtube.