Behind The Mic: The Legacy Of Carlos Lando

First, theres the voice.

It's 23 before 10:00.

It's the morning set on KUVO Jazz for this Monday.

Then there's the laugh.

The radio is a big responsibility.

A big responsibility.

For over four decades, Carlos Lando has been a beating heart behind Denver's airwaves.

From soul music to jazz, from program director to president and general manager.

Carlos has dedicated his life to enriching Denver's cultural landscape through music.

My name would be Carlos Lando.

My mama's mama's name would be Adele Mira Mirabal I was born in Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, back in 1950.

It was an interesting upbringing because the military tries to set up a culture of we're all equals, so to speak, right?

But as soon as you step foot off the base, there's a lot of racism.

My father was always very cognizant of that, but he never let it spread into our family.

Every summer we would end up in New York City visiting relatives both on my mother's side and both on my father's side, who had all emigrated to New York City in the middle to early 40s.

My father was a man who held his cards very close to the vest, loved a good pa but also loved to live abroad.

He always felt that it was just it was just a better awareness, better upbringing for all of us.

I didn't know a word of English until I went to first grade in England.

The first two words I ever learned in English were I came home my mother asked me, what did you learn today?

That's better.

So those are the first two words.

My mother was a librarian at Brize Norton Air Force Base.

She was bilingual.

She'd be telling me things, my father was always speaking Spanish.

My father loved music.

Frustrated musician, I would call him.

He had a big Grundig console.

Every Saturday morning he put on the record player.

You would hear the music wafting through the house.

The old sounds, you know, from from the 40s and the the 60s, the salsa stuff.

But we always had music in the house.

So I think that that was a big influence on Carlos.

It was all all Latin music.

It was Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puente, Xavier Cugat was 9 or 10 years old, and so I'd kind of like, sing along with him.

First job in radio was actually as an intern.

While I was in high school in Puerto Rico, at Ramey Air Force Base on the north west point of the island where my father was stationed.

And by then I was listening to all kinds of music, soul music.

All the disc jockeys were I was just really, really fascinated by them.

I decided that, you know, I was probably going to do something in radio.

And what I needed was experience.

A lot of us, as we're growing up, we flounder, don't we?

We have to.

Well, I like this now.

I'm going to take this on as a hobby.

And then before you know it, you know, ten years go by.

That's not what I really wanted to do.

I feel like I wasted my time because I wanted to do this.

Not Carlos, Carlos is like he was deposited in there in that vein.

And his whole life has been that I wasn't really interested in college.

Father said, well, you should really consider college.

So instead, I went over to the Air Force Base radio station, Armed Forces Caribbean Network, Am 780.

As a junior in high school, I started overnights on the weekends.

You could not play anything that had not been approved by the Department of Defense.

But because I was coming on at midnight, my friends would sneak me 45s and albums, you know, the latest stuff by the Rolling Stones and all this kind of stuff.

Everything from comedy to country to to rock.

You know.

my father was well connected in the community, and he said, you know, you ought to go down to WABA WABA, La Grande and see if you could get a job there for a few months.

My first job in commercial radio.

Had my own show.

I was on every weekend at a real powerful station.

I worked for a few months, made a little bit of money.

I went up to New York and but bought a car, with a buddy and just took off across the country.

So I came to Denver.

I had to fly back to San Juan.

I ended up moving to upstate New York.

We ended up moving to Denver.

We had gone home to Puerto Rico briefly.

I keep thinking San Francisco.

So I moved to New York City, and I still didn't have enough experience to get back into radio.

I'm flying out to Denver every 2 or 3 months to spend a weekend, or four days with my daughters and turning on the radio when I get to Denver and I'm listening to all these stations.

If the job opens up, I probably would move here and they gave me a break at KDKO .

They hired me in 1980.

They put me on overnights.

General manager took a good liking to me.

Rob Loudon was his name.

He liked the way I sounded.

The culture that I'm most associated with, besides being Puerto Rican, was one with black music.

KDKO was powerful.

I mean, if you wanted to hear black music, you would come to KDKO.

You heard it on soul radio KDKO And don't you forget that.

KDKO (singing) None of the FM stations here would touch hardly any black music unless it was a crossover record.

I was the one Latino on the station.

Next thing I know, I'm doing happy hour at the Aurora lounge and all this kind of stuff.

Dr.

Daddy-O was the chief salesman selling a lot of commercials at KDKO in those years, and he was trying to get the program director to put him back on the air.

He didn't do it.

Daddy-O ended up buying everything and moving the station to the points and put itself back on the air.

I wanted Carlos to take me down memory lane.

Here he reflects on some of those conversations that he had with people that he's encountered over the course of his long career in radio.

This is me and Cal Jader.

About four months before he died at KDKO, and that's where I met Poncho Sanchez for the first time.

Poncho was a young conga player with with Cal, and after Cal died, he started his own band.

Charles Brown, the legendary Merry Christmas, Baby R&B king in the 40s.

It was 1987 or 88 and I was interviewing him, and by the time we got done with that interview, I was opening the door to let him out and there must have been 7 or 8 women dressed to the nines with chilis on.

It was like 1948 all over again.

High heels.

These women were in their 70s, man.

They were like,whoa Charles,man This heres Ruth Brown.

When I met Ruth down and out after Bonnie Raitt took them on tour, Charles and Ruth together, they both took off and were working big halls.

One time I was in L.A.

with Ruth Brown at the Roosevelt Hotel.I went over there and it was like, they treated me like royalty.

This man here, you know, boom, whatever you want, you know?

So I never forgot it.

This here is Smitty from Smitty's Play Room, & Lounge.

Right, right.

Yeah, man, we really hooked up well, man.

Little Milton when he was little Because, you know, after he got back on top brother, this guy just got was huge, you know what I mean?

He was.

And, I mean, I saw him years later when he was carrying a whole orchestra.

And he I don't know if he was at the Paramount or where he was, but man what a show he put on as well, you know, and these guys never forgot me.

You know who he is?

Of course.

Oh, yeah.

Gil Scott.

Yeah.

Gil Scott, this was at the Rainbow Music Hall in November of 81, and I had known Gil since before I came to Denver.

I had met him in New York City when I was living there in 1979.

So after I got to Denver and I got to KDKO every single time he came to Denver, he would look me up and we hang and everything else.

Lou brings Dizzy Gillespie to his jazz club there.

It was off of Sherman Street.

I'm on the air.

And Lou says, I'm going to bring Dizzy by.

I said, yeah, man, that's great.

And dizzy comes in and hes just smiling and away we just start talking and every other thing that he had to say, he would laugh.

He laughed at his own story.

You know, he was he was a funny dude.

And he had a very close friend who was white.

That guy brought him to the station, and he also brought his daughter, 19 or 20 years old.

She's going to take the picture of us.

And just before this young lady takes the picture, Dizzy yells out, okay, baby.

He goes, which one of these?

And he use the N-word.

He goes, which one of these did it?

I look at Diz, I start cracking up.

But that was Diz.

Yeah.

My tenure at KDKO ended in January of 85.

They hired a new general manager, African-American gentleman named Calvin Booker.

So he wanted a different sound.

Calvin Booker said, we're going to break up the team.

And I said, I can't do that, Calvin.

I can't do that to them.

I'm not going to fire Kevin Brown.

I'm not going to fire any of these people.

I said, but what I will do is I'll get out of your way.

I will step down.

I walked away, end the January.

I decided, well, if I'm going to stick around this business, I better learn about the business of radio.

I had a lot of fun on the air, but I got tired of somebody walking in and saying, we're changing the format.

We don't need you anymore.

KBCO job opened up and I worked for them for one year.

That's where I met Steve Chavis.

Steve was a young news guy and he said, Carlos, look at this.

He handed me a Colorado Broadcast Assosciation newsletter and it said, Kuvo looking for a program director they had been on the air for less than a year and a half.

I looked at it and I said, this is my job.

This is my job.

This is me.

We were putting together jazz, salsa and blues, and our program director at that time was my sister Mercedes.

She couldn't even work with the radio on.

She had to have absolute silence to focus on her task.

Flo was a little weary at first because she knew about me, you know, reputation, big jock, all this kind of stuff, you know.

The music and the people is what drove me, the challenge.

They were really, really trying to establish themselves with a lot of bilingual programing.

Being bilingual myself, I wanted to immerse myself more in public radio.

He said we have to take advantage of the fact that KADX just went off the air and we have to play a lot more mainstream jazz.

And I, knowing nothing about music, jazz music, said, whatever you want, Carlos.

I got the job in March of 87.

Still here.

Carlos, being the music aficionado that he was, was able to take and shape that format a lot.

The station I was with W DNA was underperforming.

We were one of five stations in the country chosen to improve our lot because they deemed us as under producing for being in such a major city like Miami.

Carlos was one of the five members of this blueprint committee.

We hit it off immediately.

He trained me on how to become a music director.

Every time I was in a difficult situation or didn't know what to do.

I would call up Carlos, hey, what would you do?

So he was my mentor and my advisor.

And in 2003, Carlos gives me a call, says, hey, I need a music director.

I was on the next plane out the next day in the morning, and I was hired.

It's the best thing that ever happened to me in my life.

Since I've been here in 2003, everything has been a bed of roses.

Thanks to Carlos L ando.

My full name is Manuel Rolando Rojas Garcia.

Mom's maiden name is Rojas, and I grew up on the border between Arizona and Mexico, literally three blocks from the fence.

We lived on third Street.

I moved to Denver in 86 and was listening to KUVO My thought was to be on the air with Consumer Mexicana, and I went and met Flo in 96 and I said, hey, I'd like to be on Consumer Mexicana.

They say you know, that's that's a closed it's a closed thing.

There's a lot of people.

She goes, but what you can do is go down the hallway and talk to our program director, Carlos Lando.

I said cool.

All right.

And from the moment that we met in 96, we clicked just like that.

He had that same passion for radio, you know, coming up in Arizona in a border town.

He has shared so much with me about aging, about going on through life and things that I've shared with other people.

So he's also been kind of like a coach and a mentor.

Professionally, a lot of respect for the icon that he is in radio and here.

I've learned a lot from Carlos.

Yeah.

Rolando.

He's my he's my brother.

Hes my closest friend.

You know what?

The show's almost over.

I'm glad.

What happened?

The fastest three hours in the business.

Best part of my day.

Steve is a remarkable man.

The most positive man I've ever met in my life.

Never has a bad word to say about anybody.

I've gotten to know him pretty well.

I know a little bit about his family.

Humility, man.

Humility.

I'm so proud to have him by my side, which even I know that one.

That one's got a cool, like, space age kind of jazz vibe.

So I picked, rendition of Tank by John Wassons We used to broadcast every Thursday night from the Pec.

El Chapultepec, from the early 90s.

It is two minutes after 11: 00.

This is Kuvo Denver.

You're Oasis in the city.

Our broadcast will continue for at least another hour.

We're at El Chapultepec at 20th in market.

There's, plenty of parking, around here.

There.

So we hope to see you out here.

All right, let's take it back up to the stage.

We're back.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our second set.

And in just a few minutes, we'll be bringing up our special guest, Javon Jackson.

Lily That's my grandmother.

My mother was Janice Frazier, and I'm Javon Jackson.

I'm a saxophonist, musician, educator, composer.

Well, with Carlos, like, Carlos is in the family, so it's not even.

How do I feel about him?

He's part of the family.

He loves the music as much as I do.

He always supports the musicians.

He show up to concerts as a fan, and he gets the same Gleam in his eye talking about Eddie Palmieri that I have when I talk about an artist like that.

So he's in the family for me.

My mother felt, really was very fond of him.

My father was very fond of, Carlos in the family.

So he's a person that really, very special to me.

My name is Menomonie.

Rene Marie.

On Friday the 13th of May, 2005, Susan Gadget Reese played one of my songs on the radio.

I was at home listening, and I called the station.

I was so excited, you know, and grateful.

I mean, this is what musicians hope for.

And I think that was when she told Carlos that I had moved here.

My favorite memory of Carlos is when I felt like I was fine, was completely embraced by the jazz lovers in Denver.

We went to this.

They invited me to come with them to a bar.

My brother's bar.

And, I remember sitting there, Donny, and looking around and thinking, wow, I'm hanging with the big dogs.

You know, I really felt completely wanted and included.

Like, I was part of the fabric of jazz in in Denver.

I'm honored to congratulate and induct KUVO Florence Hernandez Ramos and Carlos Lando into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.

39 years ago But we signed on in 1985.

KUVO never dreamed that this kind of honor would come our way.

I would like to, thank, my lovely wife and partner in this, amazing journey.

Because without her, KUVO would not have made it either.

Tina, is the MVP of KUVO.

She ran the whole thing.

Development, underwriting, membership.

She raised the money, and I spent it.

Flo really valued her.

I got the KUVO in 87 Tina came in 90.

Tina had been divorced, raising two boys, and I went through a divorce as well.

Because we had worked together so closely, we realized that we really liked each other a lot, and it's just kind of grew from there.

It's been amazing.

We had been at five points 25 years, and we did not have the resources to grow any further.

The facility was old.

We needed technical upgrades.

RMPBS wanted to get into the community that supported us.

Merging with a Latino controled station, with strong ties in the African-American community appealed to them.

For us leaving five points, It was, for me, it was really, really hard.

First place I hung out when I came to Denver was five points.

I was all over five points being an old R&B guy.

So leaving it was tough.

But you know what?

We're getting used to it.

We have two studios.

The musicians love it.

I have to tell you right now, we are in a new renaissance for jazz in Colorado.

I mean, these young musicians, it's totally different than it was 30 years ago.

Now Denver is starting to put its own mark on the music because the music has evolved, you know?

So you're hearing there's these hip hop elements, you're hearing these Latin and Latinx stuff, you're hearing all this mix.

So we got it all here, and the talent's here as well.

I've spent half my life with KUVO in this fantastic community.

My greatest achievement is knowing that, this will continue and will continue maybe at even greater heights because of the culture that we've established, that everybody brings something to the table.

Everybody has value.

Everybody has an opportunity to lift and to better themselves If they have passion for the work that they do.

You know, and get credit for that work.

It's not about me.

It's never been about me.

It's about KUVO.

What 3 words would you use to describe Carlos?

Gosh, am I really only limited to three words?

For this, yes.

Okay, I'm going to use up two of my words.

Musical genius.

And great programmer.

Thoughtful.

Funny.

Funny as hell.

He really is funny.

And I would say very loving.

He's a loving guy.

Solid.

Solid in many ways.

Solid as a person and solid as a professional radio man.

Second word I would describe is, a warrior.

He's like me, always out for social justice, always looking out for the betterment of our fellow, persons, man and woman.

And third is a great friend.

What I'd say to Carlos, I love you.

Always have.

Always will.

Im indebted to the things that you've done for me and for other musicians.

Thank you, Carlos, for everything that you've done for the station.

You've made it so enjoyable to listen to.

You've made it so enjoyable to work at, and you have made it along with all of your team and all the people that support the station, nationally recognized and well established.

Boy, I wish we could celebrate more people like this.

You know?

I just love him.

I thank him for being there before me and taking care of me.

I love you, Carlos.

I just love you.

I love you to bits.

This show is over ladies and gentlemen, I hope you got all the Carlos Lando you can stand.

Come on back.

Tomorrow we're going to do it again.