Jazz DJ Leo Chears passes away

Leo Chears

Leo Chears, one of St. Louis' longtime favorite jazz DJs, has passed away after a long illness. KTVI Fox 2 has posted this on their Web site:

"Leo Chears, "The Man in the Red Vest" has just passed away Monday. He was at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in the ICU, when this occured. Leo Chears is survived by his wife of over fifty years, Betty, and three children: Kelvin, Terri, and Florence. He also had five grandchildren, and a host of other close relatives and friends. Leo Chears, a Jazz Hall of Fame inductee, was heard over the radio waves of WSIE up until recently."

Here's Chears' entry from the St. Louis Radio Hall of Fame Web site (Google cache), and here's a nice biographical article about him that ran a few years back in the student newspaper at SIU-Edwardsville, site of Chears' last radio home WSIE.

Chears was a smooth and steady presence on the radio who helped introduce a lot of St. Louis listeners to jazz over the years. He will be missed, and our condolences go out to his family and friends.

UPDATE - 11:56 a.m., 1/4/06: The Belleville News Democrat has an obituary for Leo Chears online from today's edition that includes this information about funeral arrangements:

Visitation will be from 4 p.m.-8 p.m. Saturday (January 7, 2006) at Nash Funeral Home, located at 144 N. 16th St. in East St. Louis. The funeral will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday (January 8, 2006) at the Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church, located at 3424 Lasalle St. in St. Louis. Burial will be at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.

In addition, the paper has once again made available a long profile of Chears that originally ran in 1995, and created a guestbook at Legacy.com where some fans are already sharing their thoughts about the late DJ.

UPDATE - 12:10 p.m., 1/4/06: The latest entry at Jazz at the Bistro's blog is an obituary/tribute to Chears. The item is not credited to a particular writer, but would seem to have been informed at least in part by the experiences of Bob Bennett, the Bistro's operations manager who also co-hosted a Sunday night radio program with Chears.

UPDATE - 12:15 p.m., 1/5/06: The Post-Dispatch's obituary for Leo Chears is here.

(Edited 1/4/06 to fix a typo)