Legendary broadcaster Leo Rayhill has died.

Leo Rayhill, the longtime Syracuse jazz broadcaster whose Sounds of Jazz became a fixture of Central New York radio, died July 2, 2026, he was 98. Born in Utica, New York, in 1928, he discovered jazz early, listening to piano players in the Black neighborhood where his father’s business was located play Fats Waller tunes. At Hamilton College, he hosted his first jazz radio program on the campus station, in the late ’40s, an experience that set the pattern for the rest of his life.

In 1962 Rayhill launched Sounds of Jazz, a show he would host for more than six decades. It began on WQSR, passed briefly through WPAW and WHEN, and settled at WCNY in the early 1970s, where it remained in the Sunday schedule into 2026. Virtually all of the music came from his own library, which eventually grew to more than 12,000 albums, stacked on shelves and within easy reach at his home.

Rayhill’s rule for the program was simple: he tried to play “all of the good jazz.” Over the years he mixed standards, big band sides, and newer styles, giving airtime both to Ornette Coleman and to the swing-era bands he loved. He included in his broadcasts many new artists on small labels who are now elder statesmen and frequent names in this paper. He interviewed Stan Kenton, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Buddy Rich, and many others; Armstrong, scheduled for only a few minutes, stayed for a two-hour conversation that Rayhill remembered as his most wonderful broadcast.

The show was always a volunteer gig—Rayhill kept a full-time job running a roofing and siding company—and his listeners sometimes didn’t realize that Sounds of Jazz was something he did for love rather than pay. That devotion earned recognition: a Lifetime Achievement Award from WCNY-FM, honors from Syracuse Jazz Fest, and a reputation as “a jazz broadcast legend” who introduced countless Upstate New Yorkers to the music.