Schnabel Leaving KCRW Post

Mornings may still be eclectic, but for many KCRW-FM (89.9) listeners, they’ll soon be very different. Tom Schnabel, the station’s music director and morning-show host for the past 11 years, will be departing Oct. 12 to take a job with A & M Records.

Over the years, Schnabel built a devoted following with his “Morning Becomes Eclectic” program, broadcast weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon, in which he lived up to the title by presenting music that spanned both history and the globe.

“It’s going to be tough to leave,” said Schnabel, who began working at the Santa Monica public-radio station in 1977 as a volunteer jazz-show deejay. “I feel a very close bond with everyone here. And yet it’s time to move on, to do something different.”

At A & M, he will be working on what he described as a special project, the nature of which he said he was not free to discuss.

Asked what he thinks he may have accomplished in his years at KCRW, Schnabel said, “Maybe I helped open up the ears of people to new music, helped enrich the musical aspect of their lives, got them more interested in different kinds of music, made them aware of other cultures, other ways of hearing things, perhaps even other ways of perceiving reality.”

Brent Wilcox, host of KCRW’s late-night “Nightland” program, will take over as acting music director and host of “Morning Becomes Eclectic” while a search is conducted for a permanent replacement.

Schnabel won’t be severing his KCRW ties entirely, however. Beginning in November, he’ll host a 90-minute program on Sundays at 11 a.m. “It will be an eclectic show,” he promised.