Big shifts are happening at New York’s public radio stations, 93.9FM and AM820. Most of the music programming is being folded into the classical programming of NYC’s tepid classical station, WQXR and moving to 105.9FM. So now we have three public radio stations. Fine.

What is not fine is that Jonathan Schwartz’s two awful shows, which occupy 8 full hours of weekend programming time at 93.9FM, will not be jettisoned with the rest of the music. And so every now and then, I will still be forced to accidentally stumble upon Schwartz’s shows. Which are terrible.

Jonathan Schwartz loves the “American Songbook.” He loves Sinatra. Great. But Jonathan Schwartz loves Sinatra in a way that makes you slowly hate Sinatra.

Maybe you have a friend who really loves The Beatles. When he (it almost always is a he) was 14 years old, listening to Let it Be, he had his first profound musical experience. It shaped him. He talks endlessly about The Beatles. Every track off of every Beatles album is something to ruminate on and turn over in his mind. The history of every recording session, every tour, every alternate take, the influence of every girlfriend—all of this is worthy of endless debate. When you listen to The Beatles with this friend, he plays the same track over and over again and makes you pay attention to the way that John’s voice breaks on a certain note. And you begin to hate The Beatles. You begin to think that maybe The Beatles weren’t that good (even though they were very good.) You think, “these Beatles wrote some pretty ponderous stuff, really. And a lot of it is full-on cornball. And a lot of it involves dumb studio trickery. Maybe The Beatles aren’t so good.”

The same is true for Sinatra when Schwartz gets a hold of him. The way Jonathan Schwartz coos and rhapsodizes over Sinatra is his whispery radio voice makes you think about all the things you never really liked about Sinatra. Schwartz makes you doubt Sinatra’s genius. A lot is made of Sinatra’s “phrasing,” but his phrasing is very showy and calculated. To my ear, it never feels like Sinatra’s vocal decisions are coming out of any real lived experience or spontaneous moment. He is there only to charm you—Sinatra never makes himself vulnerable. Instead, he endlessly theatricalizes the emotional moments of song, holding them at arms length, controlling the audience—showing the audience what a sophisticated guy he really is. Compare that to a truly genius singer like Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday’s vocal stylings never seem so much a “style” as an effortless extension of herself as a human being. When she sings, you are invited into Billie Holiday’s private world. Maybe that’s why it’s so embarrassing to hear someone do their “Billie Holiday” impression—they’re making something grotesquely inauthentic out of something so authentic. Even a singer like Chet Baker (who Schwartz hates) is far more emotionally sophisticated than Sinatra, because he is willing to dispense with the theatrics. But what is Sinatra without the theatrics?

The “American Songbook” is terrific. Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, etc.—they all wrote some great songs. But without America’s great black (and some white) musicians and vocalists—if Tin Pan Alley hadn’t transformed into “Jazz Standard”—not many people would be thinking about these songs anymore. They would seem hopelessly dated. And this is what Jonathan Schwartz doesn’t seem to get. Instead of reaching for a Dinah Washington, he inevitably reaches for a Mary Martin (or even worse, Bernadette Peters). And so we have to sit through these endless, drippy renditions of classic showtunes before we arrive at one good one. Also, Schwartz seems to think that Broadway music is still a very viable art form. As good as Steven Sondheim is (not good), he will never be a Jerome Kern, so why must we listen to a single song from Company? But listen we must. And it is painful.

I know Jonathan Schwartz must have a wide legion of fans out there, but I know of only one—improviser Michael Delaney.  And he is an anomaly. So if anyone from the WYNC brass is reading this, might I suggest you get rid of Schwartz now, if it’s not already too late. But please don’t replace him with “Breakfast with The Beatles.”