Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ernest Hood was born on June 2, 1923 in Portland, Oregon. During the 1940s he was a jazz guitarist in the Portland, Oregon area in the 1940s. He played with his brother Bill and saxophonist Charlie Barnet.

Hood contracted polio in the 1950s, which confined him to using a wheelchair for the rest of his life. No longer able to hold a guitar, he started playing the zither. He played zither on some of Flora Purim’s early albums.

His only studio album, Neighborhoods, was recorded and self~released in 1975 and is a work of ambient music that explores the soundscapes of Portland, Oregon suburbia through a collage of field recordings layered with Hood’s zither and synthesizer melodies. Only one thousand copies were pressed during its original production run. After remaining in obscurity for over 40 years, it was reissued by Freedom to Spend in 2019.

Hood, who often went by Ern or Ernie, was a major figure in Portland’s music scene. He helped found KBOO, a nonprofit FM radio station that still exists today in the city. The radio show he hosted, Radio Days, on KBOO and KOAP, aimed for the same kind of audience his record Neighborhoods did, one that wanted to relive the serenity of the past.

He was also involved in launching the city’s first jazz club, The Way Out. Avant~garde zither and keyboardist, and radio host Ernest Hood, passed away in 1995.

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