Ben Tucker’s first bass violin arrived in a box with instructions on how to install the bridge, put on the strings and tune it.  The son of a landscape gardener, Ben paid $90 for that bass by saving quarters from his after-school job at a soda fountain in Brentwood, Tenn.  He was 13.

Ben had longed to play ever since he listened to jazz on the radio in his family’s living room.  He said he heard the bass “come off the airwaves and vibrate through my soul.’’  To Ben, the sound of the bass is the root of the song.  Playing jazz became Ben’s passion.

And Ben became Savannah’s jazz legend.

Ben plays bass for the same reason that he became a radio entrepreneur and jazz club owner: to communicate.  At 78, Ben still communicates through jazz.

But his current bass didn’t arrive in a box.  It’s 230 years old and weighs about 55 pounds.  Ben calls it “Bertha.”

Ben’s composed more than 300 songs, including the 1961 hit “Comin’ Home Baby,” performed by Mel Torme, among others.  Most recently, Michael Buble put the hit on his latest CD, “Call Me Irresponsible.” 

Ben wrote “Coming Home Baby” for Gloria, his wife of 41 years, when she was his girlfriend.  Ben was in his Brooklyn apartment practicing bass.  He had a pot of oxtails on the stove and was waiting for Gloria to return from work.

Ben’s also known for giving Savannah Hard-Hearted Hannah’s, a jazz club located at The Pirates’ House on East Broad Street that had a stage in the center of the room.  It was regularly featured on Georgia Public TV and was also a place musicians went to hear each other play.

Even after Ben became a successful jazz musician recording with such boldface names as Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich and Benny Goodman, he wasn’t satisfied.  Ben saw that blacks still had little control over the business side of their own music.

What the black community needed was a radio station, Ben said, that would inform people and help them develop economically.  Enter WSOK-AM black radio station — the reason Ben and native New Yorker Gloria moved to Savannah in 1972.  Ben became the 15th black station owner out of 9,000 radio stations nationwide.  He also turned WSOK into the No. 1 station in Savannah.

As general manager, Ben overhauled the format, providing more news and more diverse music.  He expanded the station’s album collection from 20 to 4,000.  Ben used the airwaves to inform the community on everything — from where to get the best deals on bread to where Vietnam GIs hooked on drugs could find help.

Running a radio station and being a community activist didn’t leave much time for making his own music.  After selling the radio station, Ben returned to playing the root of the song.  He hasn’t stopped since.