Phil Elwood, 79; Influential Bay Area Jazz Critic, Radio Host

Phil Elwood, 79, a leading jazz critic in the Bay Area for nearly half a century, died Tuesday of heart failure. His wife, Audrey, died of cancer four weeks ago.

Elwood spent most of his career from 1965 to 2002 covering the region’s jazz scene for the San Francisco Examiner.

He was also among the first to broadcast jazz on the FM dial on his weekly “Jazz Archive” program that aired on Berkeley’s KPFA-FM radio from 1952 to 1996.

He was born and raised in Berkeley, where his father was an agricultural professor at the University of California. As a teenager, Elwood began building a large jazz record collection by haunting thrift stores.

With a master’s degree in history from Stanford University, Elwood also had a second career teaching American history and American music history at the high school and college level.

“Phil knew the music as well as loved it,” jazz great Jon Hendricks told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Phil loved it all, from Bunk Johnson to Louis to Bird, up through Coltrane and into the avant-garde. He was the complete critic.”