Charles “Chuck” Workman, a veteran of Indianapolis broadcasting who was best-known as a courtly, smooth-voiced spokesman for jazz, died Sunday at his home.
He was found after having failed to report to WICR-FM, where he hosted two weekly jazz shows, for three days. A station employee, not getting a response Workman’s address Sunday afternoon, called police, who forced entry and discovered the body. Born in Terre Haute on Dec. 1, 1932, Workman was a jazz fan from his teens, by which time he’d moved with his family to Indianapolis, where he became familiar with the storied Indiana Avenue scene.
His broadcast career began as a Cathedral High School student in 1947, doing a show for the old WIRE-AM here. After Air Force service during the Korean War, when he learned more about broadcasting, he returned to Indianapolis in 1956. He worked for the Veterans Administration, from which he retired in 1992, all the while gaining a growing reputation in local radio and TV.
He got in on the ground floor of radio station WTLC-FM in 1967, then joined WATI-AM as an engineer with a sports show on the side. He moved into TV with Channel 4 in 1969, becoming sports director in 1974 — the first black man in the state to hold such a position.
Workman spent 19 years with WTPI-FM, broadcasting jazz every Sunday morning, until a format change in 2005 idled him. Several months later he was hired by WICR-FM, where his “Saturday Evening Jazz Show” continued until his death. He had been with the old WIAN-FM (predecessor to WFYI-FM) from 1970 to 1990 as a jazz radio host.
The Indiana Pioneer Broadcasters inducted him into its Richard M. Fairbanks Hall of Fame last fall. He was also a member of the Indianapolis Jazz Hall of Fame.
“He was certainly a driving force on-air for promoting jazz and giving a perspective on jazz to the local community,” said David Andrichik, owner of the Chatterbox Jazz Club, a Mass Ave. mainstay of the music for nearly three decades. “He truly loved music, from the way he spoke about it, and he had that great radio-style voice for jazz.”
WICR-FM colleague Ralph Adams, who knew Workman from when both worked at Channel 4 in the 1970s, said: “I’ll miss him — he was my argumentative buddy” on music and other topics.
“He was the soothing part of our history when he spoke about jazz in this city.”
Workman helped organize the long-running “Animals and All That Jazz” series at the Indianapolis Zoo about 25 years ago, and worked with David Baker of Indiana University to put together an Indiana Avenue all-star reunion concert to kick off the first Indy Jazz Fest in 1999.
Funeral arrangements through Flanner & Buchanan are pending
Source–Indystar.com
