Chuck Workman
Jazz Advocate & Radio Host
Inducted into the Indianapolis Jazz Hall of Fame in 2002
Chuck Workman
Charles “Chuck” Workman (December 1, 1932 – March 25, 2012)
Chuck Workman was a veteran of Indianapolis broadcasting, best known as a courtly, smooth-voiced spokesman for jazz.
Workman grew up in Lockefield Gardens and graduated from Cathedral High School in 1950. He was able to witness the Indiana Avenue jazz scene and got to know such scene staples as Wes Montgomery and David Baker. His broadcast career began as a Cathedral High School student in 1947, doing a show for the old WIRE-AM. After Air Force service during the Korean War, when he learned more about broadcasting, he returned to Indianapolis in 1956. He worked for the Veterans Administration, from which he retired in 1992, all the while gaining a growing reputation in local radio and TV.
His first radio job was in the inaugural year of WTLC-FM in 1967, the first radio station in town that was African-American-owned. He was the station's music director until he left in 1968 and joined WTTV in 1969 to be the state's first African-American sports director. While at WTTV, Workman joined WIAN-FM in 1970 as a producer and jazz host. He stayed with WIAN until 1990, while at the same time working at WTPI from 1985-2005.
He joined WICR in 2006, where he hosted the Saturday Evening Jazz Show and the Sunday Morning Jazz Show.
The Indiana Pioneer Broadcasters inducted him into its Richard M. Fairbanks Hall of Fame last fall. Workman helped organize the long-running "Animals and All That Jazz" series at the Indianapolis Zoo and worked with David Baker of Indiana University to put together an Indiana Avenue all-star reunion concert to kick off the first Indy Jazz Fest in 1999. He was also a Jazz columnist for NUVO.
