CHICAGO �� Before you read the words written here about the life and times and accomplishments of a man named Ken Nordine, who died Saturday at his North Side home at the age of 98, it would be a good idea for you to listen to whatever you can find at www.wordjazz.com.
What you will discover is the voice of Ken Nordine, one of the few people in the history of radio to use the medium to its fullest potential, rather than as a forum for blather, confrontation, inanities and noisy nonsense. He made a kind of vocal music as the voice of thousands of commercials and as the force behind a new art form he created and called "word jazz."
You may never have heard Ken Nordine's name but there is no doubt you have heard him. He was often referred to simply as "The Voice" and you will read elsewhere that he possessed "the voice of God." As complimentary as that may be, it is hyperbole. Nordine's voice was as distinctive as any, but it also carried a palpable and unforgettable humanity. For the Chicago Blackhawks, he gave voice to these four unforgettable words _ "Cold steel on ice" _ that remain firmly embedded in local minds.
Those many hockey commercials were crafted by Chicago's Coudal Partners advertising-marketing firm through the 1990s and into the next century. Kevin Guilfoile, now a successful novelist and screenwriter, was intimately involved in the process.
"Working with Ken was a thrill and an inspiration," Guilfoile said Saturday. "He was a one-of-a-kind master poet, performer, and producer_one of those rare people with a brilliant singular vision and also the creative and technical chops to make that vision a reality all by himself. There was something so pure about his art."
Ken Nordine was born on April 13, 1920 in Cherokee, Iowa, the son of Theresia and Nore Nordine. His father was an architect and builder, some of whose work sparkled along the lakefront during the 1933-34 World's Fair in Chicago. This is where the family settled and where Ken attended what is now Lane Technical College Preparatory High School and the University of Chicago.
He started work in 1938, making $15 a month running a mimeograph machine at the studios of WBEZ, when the public radio station was programmed exclusively for the public schools. He then moved on to announcing jobs at stations in Florida and Michigan before returning here to become a staff announcer for WBBM-FM and to start making radio commercials.
One writer described his voice as an instrument that "muses and oozes like molten gold."
In 1945, he married Beryl Vaughan, also a talented voice artist on such radio programs as the "Lone Ranger" and, for a time, a Hollywood actress.
They settled into a home on the North Side and raised three sons.
"My father loved Chicago, deeply," said eldest son, Ken Jr., who worked for many years as an engineer and producer alongside his father. "He was ever turning down opportunities to work in New York or Los Angeles."
As successful was Nordine's announcing and commercial work was, he was creatively restless and drawn to more adventurous vocal avenues. One night in 1956, he was reciting the poetry of T.S. Eliot and Edgar Allan Poe at a Wilson Avenue club called the Lei Aloha. He ran out of poems and started to improvise. Thus was born what he called "word jazz," a concept that would go on to spawn a dozen record albums and a syndicated radio show that made him a legend.
In 1990, Nordine accepted an invitation from Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead to perform with them at a New Year's Eve concert. He would also collaborate with David Bowie, Tom Waits and many others in a late-life career that compelled one writer to call him "an underground hipster for the ages."
None of this went to his head. "He was just the loveliest guy," Guilfoile said. "And surprisingly for someone of his generation he was fascinated with new processes and technology.
Shortly after celebrating his 85th birthday with a party at the Chicago Yacht Club in 2005, he sat in his home and excitedly showed off his brand-new DVD, his first. It was titled "The Eye is Never Filled," a phrase that he remembers his mother saying to him repeatedly when he was very young. He said, "This is word jazz in morphing pictures" and described it as something that "looks like it was done under the influence of LSD."
Nordine lost his wife in 2016 and 18 months ago suffered a stroke. "That kind on inhibited his ability to create," Ken Jr said. "He was no longer able to use a computer but he kept modestly active. He just slowed down a bit.
"You hear so much about my dad's special voice but the thing was he knew how to use it. He also had such a special mind that enabled him to deconstruct the world and put it back together in the most compelling ways."
Nordine is also survived by sons Kristan, a musician, and Kevin, a filmmaker, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
