Word is out that the only jazz station in Boston is being changed to talk f@cking radio !!! Smoothjazz 96.9 will have Imus on next Monday am. Gimme a break. An fm talk station. Who the hell is going to listen to an fm talk station? What idiots the people are that run the radio business. So no more jazz radio in beantown folks at least for awhile.

KennyK . . .

This is happening all over the country. It's a proof that "smooth" music is continuing to lose its audience. A bit surprising for a metropolitan like Boston.

I think that some of these stations would do better if they spent some of their money hiring quality, innovative people like our own poster and successful DJ, Shannon West!

Damn.
That sucks!! Well, at least you have these internet radio stations popping up all over.
And don't forget cable and satelite radio. My brother-in-law lives in Lynchburg, VA and has cable radio. You just pick 'contemporary jazz' and just sit back and relax.
Just my 2 cents.

I'm going to give another perspective on this..it may take patience on the part of those of you who are losing your local SJ stations, which were basically only offering you a "better than nothing" presentation of your favorite type of music in the first place. As the fulltime stations, which were basically programmed in a monolithic/corporate manner at a national level, leave the format there will be room for local air personalities to start doing specialty shows in these markets again. You will get less hours but better music selection overall and it will be chosen and presented by a real human being who lives in your market since specialty shows don't encompass enough hours to justify budgeting the hiring of a consultant to remove all the entertainment passion and joy from them..
Hopefully these shows will start to regain the type of visibility and influence we had before and this will widen the types of sounds listeners become accustomed to within
the genre of contemporary jazz it will open up a bit and new listeners will come into the format. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the Paul Brown sound, as a matter of fact those songs sound very tasty when mixed in with a variety of other CJazz "sounds"..but hearing hours on end of this specific sound with nothing else mixed in has caused all but the most hardcore listeners to lose interest in the format, and limited its ability to catch the interest of new listeners.
Actually I would rather hear Imus than a generic smooth jazz music mix(hours on end of Boney Cloneys)..at least Imus wakes you up, makes you think, and moves you *out* of a state of complacency or corporate relaxation mentality (as opposed to a spiritual relaxation mentality which is something entirely different from what the SJ format is trying to sell you). But I would not rather hear Imus than a mix of say..Spyro Gyra/Rippingtons/Acoustic Alchemy/Bamboo Forest/David Sanborn or pre smooth era Richard Elliot/Craig Chaquico..
support locally programmed Contemporary Jazz shows and hang in there, things get worse before they get better and this format has reached the point where better is the only place to go!

Shannon,
Well said as usual. You have given me a better perspective of the Jazz offerings by Houston radio stations. 9 hours of quality Jazz radio listening on the weekend is better than nothing. I can get by with my ever-increasing Jazz CD collection during the week.

I agree with Shannon wholeheartedly; in fact, I just had this conversation with a friend who happens to prefer to settle for quantity over quality. I don't. We have about two and a half contemporary jazz stations here in a small to medium-sized market, and my favorite is the "half" station. It is actually a "listen at work" station which devotes three hours in the evening to contemporary jazz. It is a little laid back, but not bad after a hard work day. HOWEVER, they have an outstanding brunch show on Sunday mornings where the host plays a wider range which would not be found on the other two "smooth stations". I also find the radio personalities on the other stations to be devoid of any. (how many times can they say the word "smooth" in a 15 second soundbite?--is it a contest or something?) So I am very happy to have a few hours on Sunday where I am exposed to a lot of new and different music to help me add to my collection which will then get me through my week. If you don't have a local brunch show to support, however, you cannot miss with Shannon's show.

[This message has been edited by redhead (edited 08-15-99).]

Hey, thanks for the kind words. For years my station had 4 hours of CJazz every evening and the Sunday morining show. When the fulltime smoothie went on the air the powers that be cancelled the night show without even giving it a chance to compete. In retrospect it is obvious we could compete and the listeners who were used to our sound got disenchanted with the smoothie pretty rapidly (although the Smooth station does do well with the urban A/C crowd here since we don't have a soft RnB station in this market)
The way formats are fragmenting these days I see room for both approaches..In Adult Contemporary you have "Hot A/C's" that play Alanis Morisette and Sugar Ray and "Lite" A/Cs that still play Streisand and Bolton.
Smooth Jazz is the "Lite" version, It's time for a "Hot" version of the format to emerge..(I'm workin on it..grin..)
BTW the thing that unnerves me more than the number of times the SJ air talent says "SMooth and relaxing" is the amount of commercials the one here runs for funeral homes pushing prepaid burial plans. Guess they know their demographic
as we say on my show "we're not smooth and relaxing because you're not old and tired"

YEAH, LET'S HEAR IT FOR "HOT' JAZZ! (or real jazz you should call it).

Can we talk lame? We have a radio station that call themselves "Smooth Jazz", but what they play will turn your stomach. For one, "jazz" to them is Kenny G, Sade, and/or Basia once an hour, with some other artists thrown in, and some 80's throwbacks. And then (hold on) they toss in R&B junk that is heard on another station across town (is Toni Braxton a jazz artist? NO! NO! NO!) Then, the kicker, this station has the nerve to dredge up an ancient Joni Mitchell song, and play it like it's the hottest thing out! ("Help me, I think I'm falling....") THE 70's ARE OVER! WAKE THE HECK UP! And by far the worst part of this station is cover tunes. If you have a jazz version of a pop tune, they'll play it, and several others in a row. Barf.

This station does pull through with a few contemporary gems, but you have to wade through all the other muck to hear them.

Thank God for CD players, I'm fed up with listening to this station. BTW, the lame station is WNND-102.9FM "The Wind" in Raleigh, NC. Luckily, the local college stations kick butt with a few hours of jazz that is far greater than and entire day of "The Windbag".

The reason 96.9 SJZ is going talk is because the owners of the station(which also own 4-5 other stations in Boston) were bamboozeled by the Imus/radio talk people that they could make more $$$ with a talk format. No other reason. Imus was just dumped by our AM sports talk station so their people had to find a market. When they convinced the owners of SJZ to pick them up and it was decided that SJZ's format would change despite being hugely popular and successful in Boston. Free summer concert series for 4 years(Spyro was in last week), all kinds ticket giveaways, giveaway trips to Jazz festivals etc. It makes no sense. The only jazz format in Boston and they decide it goes.The other stations they own have formats that can be found elsewhere in Boston. Not to mention how it disrupts life for 1000's of people who can't listen to the other crap that's out there. Sure there was a bit too much (to me any is too much) easy listening ie. Phil Colins, Gloria Estafan, Micheal Bolton etc but the Richard Elliots, Rips, Spyros,Rick Brauns etc more than made up for it. I'd much rather have the SJ format than no format at all. I did find a great smooth jazz station out of San Diego. It's 'The Breeze' 98.1 at http://www.kifm.com
and sounds great with my cable modem and with
using the msmedia link. Good quality audio and they're heavier on the 'jazz' and light on the 'smooth' stuff. Peace and keep groov'in to that good jazz.

Oh my God, they killed Kenny's radio! You Broadcasters!!

(Sorry - couldn't resist doing that)

[This message has been edited by djley (edited 08-31-99).]

Hey not just my radio but the radio of a lot,a lot of people. Think of the many people who listen to the smooth jazz format during their workday. Now what? They gotta chose from the rest of the crap being broadcast these days. Pop,e-z listening,20 year old rock that you've outgrown and are sick to death of. No thanks.

I hear ya, KennyK. I seem to be at an awkward age for music. I'm getting tired of Rock, can barely stand the alternative stuff, try to stay clear of rap and C&W and use Classical as a sleep-aid. Jazz fits me perfectly in my middle-age craziness. I think a Jazz radio station can thrive in most metropolitan area if given a chance. When Houston had a Jazz station, it was pretty decent, but just didn't advertise enough. I hardly saw any billboards for it and nothing on TV about it. Oh well..I can get by on 9 hours of Jazz shows on the weekend...for now.

That KiFM link in an earlier post is pretty damn good. That'll keep me floating at home.
And there are a couple jazz shows on other stations here that have jazz but they're only on once a week for a few hours. Looks like the cd changer in the car is going to be getting a good workout.

I think perhaps the worst ramification of not having a jazz format in a market is that it's going to be much harder to get the big names to come to perform in the city if they don't even play the format. SJZ was extremely instramental in bringing the biggest names in smooth jazz over the last few years. And there is nothing better than seeing these guys live. Richard Elliot did a free show a couple of weeks ago and he blew me away. Over the last couple of years I've been able to catch some of the best jazz. Now I feel like it's just been cut off. I just hope there's a radio station owner out who'll recognize the void here now and fill it in the not to distant future. What really kills me is that last year Boston had 2 SJ format stations. One then went to Frank Sinatra type music because SJZ was dominating the ratings. Now they go talk after having a monopoly of the format. Crazy.

Hang in there folks..when you lose your "better than nothing" smoothie a vacuum is being created and as they say nature abhors a vacuum. Contemporary jazz will not permanantly leave the airwaves and what could happen is you could get a specialty show that becomes successful and spawns a fulltime station that is (gasp) locally programmed and does not program as if they are scared of the music. Fear of CJazz has been the reason for diluting the format with pop/AC hits that are overplayed elsewhere. The one thing the betterthannothing stations have done is given the instrumentals more legitimacy so in the next round programmers don't have to be as afraid of them, and can actually base programming on hit instrumental trax. Also more energy and variety is inevitable. The current state of the NAC/Smooth Jazz format is similar to Adult Contemporary right before Hot A/C evolved. A/C used to play Streisand and Diamond, now we play Matchbox 20 and Alanis Morisette. Actually SmoothJazz is the only format that has not evolved beyond the way it sounded 10 years ago. The relaxation service approach is simply outdated at this point.