Alex Stein; Jazz Radio Pioneer

Alex “Sleepy” Stein, 81, the founder of KNOB, the Signal Hill station that was the first all-jazz radio station. Born in Savannah, Ga., the son of a news service executive, Stein grew up in Miami and Havana. He graduated from the University of Havana with a degree in languages before moving to New York, where he went to work for CBS radio in the 1940s. From New York, he took announcing jobs in Chicago--where he got the name “Sleepy” when he replaced an all-night disc jockey named Wide-Awake Widoe--and then Phoenix, where he was the station manager and program manager at KARV. From there he moved to Southern California, where he began broadcasting from KFOX, an AM station in Long Beach. Stein, a jazz fan, often did remote broadcasts from the Lighthouse, the legendary jazz club in Hermosa Beach. In 1957, he bought KNOB, an FM station in Signal Hill, and began all-jazz programming. His on-air personalities included famed jazz announcers Chuck Niles, Jim Gosa and Alan Schultz. Stan Kenton helped him finance the station by contributing the profits from his band’s appearance at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa. In the early ‘60s, Stein hosted a radio show three nights a week from Strollers, a club in Long Beach, with live performances by players like Chico Hamilton. He sold the station in 1966 and started a firm called Group LA, which sold time on several FM stations in the Southland. He eventually left the broadcasting business and became a stockbroker. On July 27 of cancer at his home in Rancho Palos Verdes.