by Jack Thomas, Globe Staff, 10/31/96

At the Colonial Theatre one night a few years ago, between acts of a play, I turned from the bar with a glass of wine in hand and saw a man I had admired since I was a teen-ager, Norm Nathan.

From 1957 to 1968, he had hosted an all-night jazz show on WHDH-AM, ``Sounds in the Night,'' that nurtured Boston's music community and kept a lot of us awake into the wee hours.

Beginning in 1984, his all-night talk-show weekends on WBZ-AM attracted night owls who loved his wry humor and his grand knowledge about the Boston experience.

Like a boy face to face with Roger Clemens, I approached, introduced myself and rudely gushed what a fan I was.

He thanked me, but seemed uncomfortable.

``I used to do my homework while listening to your jazz,'' I said pompously, ``and now, I keep the radio on all night to listen to you. My wife complains that I laugh so much I wake her up.''

``Well,'' he said, ``my dream has always been to leave the world a little sillier than I found it.''

Norm Nathan left the world a little sillier, all right, but when he died Tuesday at age 70, he left a lot of fans who will miss his genial presence, his gentle voice and his droll humor.

``What he'd want to be remembered for is that jazz show,'' said his friend Ron Della Chiesa of WGBH-FM.

Indeed, in the 1950s and 1960s, ``Sounds in the Night'' on WHDH was as popular among college students as rock music on WBCN-FM a generation later.

The program featured not only great jazz, but also Nathan's knowledgeable interviews with such musical legends as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan.

As Nathan recalled years later, ``In the beginning, management pressured me to play sloppy stuff, like Mantovani and Percy Faith. But I'd sneak in Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald, and gradually, people got to like it.''

For 41 years, he was married to Norma Nathan, author of the Boston Herald's Eye column, until her death from cancer in 1991.

Although he engendered admiration and affection among listeners, Nathan was a modest man, without pretense.

``I always found radio a glamorous way to show off to all the girls who wouldn't go out with me in high school,'' he said.

From 1984, the program he hosted through the night on WBZ drew listeners from Canada to Florida, and Nathan was able to discourse with knowledge and wit about a range of subjects: food, literature, old actors, new music, the perils of escalators, lightning bugs, roguish politicians and the merits of large knots in neckties vs. small.

``I don't want to sound like I'm sucking up to WBZ executives,'' he said not long ago, ``but what I'm doing now is a lovely part of my life. I can stay up all night, act like an ass and no one says anything.''

One night, he took a call.

``Hello?'' he said.

''Hi, Norm,'' said the caller. ``It's Lorraine from Maine.''

There was a pause.

Nathan said, ``I'm resisting the temptation to ask if Lorraine from Maine stays mainly in the plain.''

Last winter, a caller complained about the weather.

``We've had so much snow,'' she said.

``Well,'' said Nathan, ``I guess somebody up there hates us.''

Calling from her hilltop home in Kentucky at 4:30 one morning, Martha spoke for many of Nathan's listeners when she blurted, ``God, I love you!''

Without him, radio now will be less fun.

Who will note the less than grand events in life, as Nathan did a few years ago in alerting listeners that New York was host to a convention of accordion players, and that 1,000 of them were performing in Central Park.

``It boggles the mind,'' said Nathan. ``Imagine, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of accordion players.''

This story ran on page e1 of the Boston Globe on 10/31/96.

2. Norm Nathan, radio disc jockey and talk host for 52 years dies at 70

By Tom Long, Globe Staff, 10/31/96

Norm Nathan, a disc jockey and talk show host who was a fixture on Greater Boston radio for 52 years, died Tuesday at his home in Middleton. He was 70.

A Boston native, Mr. Nathan began his broadcasting career in 1944 on WCOP. The job lasted only four weeks. His next job, at WESX in Salem, lasted a bit longer - five months. Station owners told him he had a speech impediment and mispronounced the letters ``r'' and ``l.''

It wasn't until 1954, when he broadcast ``Barn Dance Jamboree'' on WMEX live from the Cameo Room at the Hotel Avery and other Boston nightspots, that his career began to take off. From 1957 to 1969, he broadcast the ``Sounds in the Night'' show at WHDH, which replaced the recorded music previously played overnight on the station. When he moved to WEEI in 1974 to become a reporter at the all-news station, it was his choice: College students had dropped jazz for rock and he was unhappy about the music he was forced to play.

After a stint at WMEX, Mr. Nathan started a local newspaper with his wife, Norma, who later became a gossip columnist for the Boston Herald. Norma Nathan died in 1991.

A few more switches led him to WBZ, where he had hosted an overnight show since 1985.

Mr. Nathan had been a resident of Middleton since 1958. He served that community as president of the historical society, a member of the board of trade, and town moderator for the past 19 years.

``I don't think someone could last this long again,'' Nathan told the Salem Evening News in an article on his 50th anniversary in radio in 1994. ``Now there is so much with television, cable and FM. Back then there was no FM. There was no television and just a handful of AM stations.''

In May 1994, his golden anniversary in broadcasting was celebrated at the Daniel Fuller House in Middleton. At the affair, Helene Beck of Belmont, a longtime listener, met Mr. Nathan for the first time. ``I'm a frequent caller to Norm,' she said. ``I feel we're good friends, we've talked so much. Even on politics we see eye to eye. I find myself looking forward to weekend nights. It's like a friend coming to visit. The best thing is, I can entertain him in bed and I don't have to look my best.''

He leaves two daughters, Sonia Nathan Bradstreet of Danvers and Sarah J. Nathan of Middleton; and a sister, Barbara Coven of Randolph.

A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. tomorrow in Temple Beth Shalom, Peabody. Burial will be in Oakdale Cemetery, Middleton.

This story ran on page F7 of the Boston Globe on 10/31/96.