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I was surfing the FM dial yesterday to discover 98.7 changed its format as of 5 pm yesterday from the smooth jazz they'd played for at least 10 yrs. to what seems to be a Top 40 95.5 imitation station. :[[ I went to the Smooth Jazz website where it was indicted that Smooth Jazz would be available online and on HD2 only. The new station is calling themselves "The 987 Takeover". I guess another reason to pay for satellite radio.
Radio is awful in Detroit. It's bad everywhere, but Detroit seems to be particularly bad. I like classic R&B... There is just no station to listen to that you aren't turning off within 5 min.
Thank God for the ipod.
98.7 smooth jazz? When did that happen? That was always a hard, hard rock station, WABX, then WLLZ [[Whole Lotta Led Zepplin).
As a lover of serious jazz, I detest "smooth jazz" [[although if Jackie enjoys it, I respect that, and I am sorry for her/his disappointment,) but that's not why I'm posting; I just want to ask Meddle where he, or she, has been for the last, oh, ten years.
If you love jazz, Ed Love on WDET usually spins good stuff. Granted, it isn't 24-7 jazz.
600+ miles away.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ravine
But I did find out one day by accident that WABX is being used in Evansville, IN and is still a rock station.
While I was up there, WJZZ was one of the better Jazz stations.
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Originally Posted by jackie5275
I'm disappointed in the format change. When I was driving around Friday they were screaming that they were in their van or truck whatever it was, riding around to different locations, a we've arrived, come find us thing. I forgot where they said they were but no way I'll be listening! No way!
I've always had 98.7 on in my car but I don't have satellite radio,[[I have an older model car) and I won't be buying one either. I'm sure it's nice to have the variety on satellite radio but it's another bill I don't need.
Well, then!! Asked & answered!!
You mentioned WJZZ. They had their moments, but [[in my opinion) what Detroit's airwaves really need is an FM station that plays real jazz-- not soft-core "smooth" jazz-- 24 hours a day. One can find it, at night, on 90.9 [[WRCJ, I believe) and, on week-nights, 101.9 WDET [[Ed Love's show,) but nowhere during the day.
I suggest a Hostile-- and I do mean Hostile-- Takeover of one of the "Young Country" stations by a horde of bop-loving programmers.
I suffered culture shock for years after W4 went hillbilly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ravine
Not sure how Ed Love got into a thread about an ex-"smooth jazz" station. Ed Love plays real jazz; he talks too much, but the music is excellent so I put up with the banter.
WVMV was not a jazz station; I'm not sure where the term "smooth jazz" originated, but "smooth jazz" isn't jazz. The first song they played after the format switch from hard rock was "Smooth Operator" by Sade, also the last song they played before they dropped the format the other day. Now, I love Sade, and that's a nice song, but jazz it decidedly is not.
By the way if you like eclectic music of any and all kinds, WDET is a great station for it, when they're doing music at all. I would hold that up as the exception to the "Detroit radio is abysmal" argument, which in general is otherwise true.
Now that we've had a fairly long period during which there is almost no local ownership of media and the top few companies own all of it - television, radio, what's left of newspapers - you can start to understand why the government for, oh, maybe a century thought this centralized control was a bad idea and tried to fight it.
I listen to the radio only for a purpose - I go out of my way to catch Ann Delisi or Jay Butler, for instance, and if I'm driving at rush hour I listen to WWJ to get the traffic. But other than that, I've got my Lloyd Cole and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Sam & Dave CD's in the Focus, and that is how your Professor rolls. If I had to depend on radio for my day-to-day music fix, I'd tear my hair out.
Didn't 106.7 change formats just recently? to hip hop.
Ed Love plays good, real jazz, but the problem I have, with Ed, is that he gets fixated on things, at times.
He could have you believing that Joe Farnsworth & David Hazeltine play on goddam everything.
Dave Brubeck, Maynard Ferguson, Herbie Hancock, Michael Franks, Oscar Peterson, Al Jarreau, Lonnie Liston Smith, Chic Corea, Cedar Walton
All names I remember from the WJZZ days
I remember WJZZ. Wasn't it at 105.9 right above the dial from WQRS?.
Can't remember, but I think QRS was 105.1, then JZZ, then W4, then a bunch of Bible Thumper garbage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Meddle
Those were the days, with my fav DJ Rosetta Hines doing the spinning.
I liked the format once in awhile, it was good to leave on in the background and they did not have too many loud commercial periods. Meddle WABX was on 99.5 and Ceased to exist in 1983. I can't remember when WLLZ went to the JAzz format. Was it 1988?Quote:
Originally Posted by Meddle
Now, it's important to remember that V98.7 was one of the last five of the once massive network of cookie-cutter smooth jazz stations throughout the US, so they did hold on for quite some time and the blame can't fall all on Tom Sleeker's shoulders, but there were mainstream-jazz or pop-jazz before the "Smooth Jazz" network came about, that stayed around for quite some time. Independent stations, granted, but most were at that time [[the network thing didn't reappear the way it is now until about 15 years ago, give or take a few). The "Smooth Jazz" network dumbed-down and diluted the genre by interrupting the format to play Celine Dion, The Spinners, Phil Collins... basically they interrupted the pop-jazz format to play easy-listening... in time, the genre had become so diluted that the network had no face or identity [[much like, say, boiled potatoes), and it in turn lost its appeal. Let's not forget that WJZZ, in many ways a predecessor of what the Smooth Jazz format COULD have been, was around for decades. It's not that people don't like pop-jazz, it's that the network ruined its own format.
I had 98.7 on my presets in the car and on the computer. I too, heard of the "takeover" while driving, and not to pleased with what I heard. Aren't there enough stations playing club music? This will be just another blank preset on my vehicle radion dial. Radio is ushering in it's own demise by going with so many national stations.
We in Flint currently do not have a daily newspaper, just a few local radio stations to get local news from [[softball news-never any hard core news) and I am afraid without the "checks and balances" of news providers "keeping them honest" what the crooks will be up to.
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Originally Posted by nickstone
Very good points. The Spinners were a great R&B group. I didn't equate them with jazz.
It seems that the smooth jazz format is catching it all over the country with stations disappearing fast so I guess this should have been expected. On satellite radio you never hear the music termed as smooth jazz rather you hear it as C-jazz C for comptemporary. I know people have a dislike for "pop jazz" saying its not real jazz. That's ok I can buy that , however I rather like the genre and I remember what the late Waymon Tisdale said when some fans who knew him for his basketball cracked on him about being a smooth jazz artist. He said something to the effect that I can play jazz but with the 4 or 5 people that would come out to see me I couldn't make a living at it. And I believe thats the case with many of the smooth jazz artists. They are very good musicians that know that playing hard jazz doesn't pay the bills anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by nickstone
Another tragedy for our great city. There is still a smooth jazz station on cable and satellite, commercial free.
I am with Ravine on this one, the whole concept of smooth jazz rubs me the wrong way. I consider jazz to more akin to classical music than pop. Why even go that way to water it down for the masses? I also agree with you too Firstandten, I know a few world class musicians who have to have day jobs to feed their families.
How's the reception on WEMU 89.1 from Ypsilanti in different parts of the metro area? Should come in at least in the western portions depending on equipment, and I've gotten it nearly to downtown. All jazz, all the time [[except for news blocks and part of the weekend).
Sort of liked the smooth jazz personally, especially with vocals--there's a good-sized constituency for it in the city itself, I think. The format grew out of the so-called Quiet Storm stations of the 1980s. I'm sure another version will come along soon.
There are still many smooth jazz resources:
- http://www.kifm.com/ [[select the LISTEN LIVE! link on the top left hand side)
- http://www.last.fm/tag/smooth+jazz [[select the ---> http://i35.tinypic.com/330zssh.jpg button)
You can get some good classic R & B still on WGPR 107.5... especially on Saturdays... recall back in the day that was the original Mojo used to DJ.... now that was some good times!
For a wide variety of Jazz I do accujazz.com. Nice!!!
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Originally Posted by jtf1972
I dislike "smooth" jazz too. There are few songs I like, but most smooth jazz is like "paint by numbers" to me and unremarkable and all sounding the same....
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Originally Posted by rajdet
Yep, although their songs are a bit repititive for my taste, there are by far the better of the Detroit music stations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zacha341
Correct regarding Waymon Tisdale. He openly alluded to the dilemma.Quote:
Originally Posted by firstandten
Dislike of smooth jazz is understood. For me, variety and a larger pool of options is optimal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zacha341
Accujazz --> http://www.accujazz.com is nice, however, being based in the US it has certain restrictions. Per their FAQs page:
Quote:
Why can't I choose to listen to a particular artist or song?
Currently, every Internet radio station in the U.S. must abide by guidelines set forth in a federal law called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act [[DMCA), which places certain restrictions on what we can offer our listeners. [[If you're interested, you can view the text of the DMCA in PDF format here. The section that regulates Internet Radio is listed under Title IV, Sec. 405, "Scope Of Exclusive Rights In Sound Recordings; Ephemeral Recordings" on page 33 of the file.)
The webcasting license we operate under only allows "limited personalization" of our channels. This is why we only allow listeners to deselect a limited number of artists they don't want to hear, rather than allowing listeners to pick specific artists or specific songs they do want to hear. [[As far as copyright holders are concerned, allowing listeners to choose the specific songs they want to hear when they want to hear them might discourage those listeners from buying CDs.)
Hopefully we've found a solution that everyone will be reasonably happy with.
Vetalalumni- I looked at the Accujazz website and its purpose for being. WOW! are we seeing the future of how music will be marketed in general and maybe even the end of commercial radio ?
Maybe as we currently know it. Many artist market their own websites. This is in addition to their other marketing programs such as peddling CDs out of their car trunks :) The bigs [[traditional players) ain't all to happy about it either.Quote:
Originally Posted by firstandten
The commercial radio market has been so drab for so long.
I still lament for those days when I could listen to a radio station and have a deejay use his/ her extensive musical knowledge choose a play list that was smart and informed. Does anyone remember the days when the deejay would even know a factoid or two about the artists they're playing? Whatever happened to the days when a deejay could actually make an artist because they were brave enough to stake a portion of their reputation on the air by playing unheard of songs? Lord knows all the personalities on the air are so generic one could swap them out from one radio station to another and it really wouldn't make a bit of difference.
I still remember being back in high school listening to the Electrifying Mojo when he started out on WGPR. He played eclectic music without any regard to genre- and he made it sound good. And when he left WGPR, there were those of us who followed him up or down the dial because we wanted to hear more of his musical knowledge [[and maybe a little bit of his Mothership & MFA schtick as well). He broke musical barriers by playing everything from Pink Floyd to Prince to Kraftwerk to New Order to John Coltrane. He knew something of each of them and played the song lists in such a way, it made musical sense. It wasn't just based upon playing one genre for hours on end.
And then when WDET ditched their eclectic format a few years ago, it signaled the end of getting free form music in Detroit for me. The closest thing we have now is Ann Delisi's Essential Music Radio show on the weekends where she can and will play whatever floats her boat. I love the fact that she's even opened it up to a Facebook community to offer up suggestions. But again, that's public radio.
Commercial radio has no appeal, educational value or musical value to me any more.
Smoggers!! Good to see you, buddy!!
I posted a brief rant on the Tigers 2009 thread.
I miss good radio as well, in several flavors of music. Meanwhile, I make do with http://www.pandora.com and the like.
About "Public Radio." It isn't. Big business still pays [[sometimes little businesses too) and still gets their ads, just in a particular spot in each program. KKUP is the only publicly-supported station I know of with an FCC license. They run with all-volunteers, pay the rent and electric bills with donations from individuals only. They won't take donations from businesses, not even in kind. They don't use grant money either. And they have a marvelously motley collection of programming. Take a look at www.KKUP.com Radio the way I like it. You might, too.
Wow the Bible is Garbage ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Meddle
Actually I don't mind the ads whether they be on commercial radio or public radio as long as the deejays that they hire are allowed a fair amount of leverage in selecting their songs. And those people should be hired for their musical knowledge. If the ads are a necessary evil for us to hear some new music, get a little more cultured by being exposed to some new stuff and even re-hash some good ol' tunes- then I'm somewhat okay with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mackenzie68
The radio forum should have some of the public's interest in mind- regardless whether it be talk radio, weather, sports or music. But again, I'm probably asking for Utopia in this day of the Clear Channels & offbeat FCC rulings.
Some of my friends that love metal, or rock in general, prefer pandora. I'd like pandora to expand their available CD/album selection base. Pandora is visually appealing.
Sorry to see the change. There is a void in the market now. Sad to see Smooth Jazz lovers left without a place for their choice in music. For a little different twist on Smooth Jazz check out
www.caponelive.com
I noticed that 106.7 had a format change when I went to catch the NASCAR race on it and all I heard was some rapcrap.
Not wanting to get into the true jazz/smooth jazz debate, my disappoint is more so that this was one of two radio stations on the Detroit dial that I could find that actually played music during the morning drive time. I prefer to listen to music during the morning drive rather than a few songs surrounded by all that extra cirricular junk on the other stations.
No More ALL THAT JAZZ for v 98.7. Where's another station that plays jazz.
Now what are they going to play at every post office in the city?!
Andy, since you asked about the Post Office... When you are in there, keep your ears open for the "We've Been Paying Dozens Of People To Sit And Do Nothing For Months Because We Abolished Their Jobs And Can't Figure Out What To Do With Them Except To Force Them Out Into The Street As Temporary Carriers" station.
Thinking of it I first heard "smooth jazz" on WJOI 97.1. Not a big jazz fan myself Yet Dave Brubek was played enuff for me to be told that that was smooth jazz or mellow jazz, Not to be confused with "hard jazz or fusion". Good thing I could leave that part of the shop and listen to Riff, Wheels, or 89X. Maybe even Honey Radio if the static wasn't bad.
I think 98.7 went to smooth Jazz in early '96 or late '95.
True. either both the "nuts in the morning" and "I gotta telecomm degree from Specs Howard, so I'm an authority to say too much about too many things that I know far too little about like the harpies on The View" formats have to go or terrestrial radio as we know has to go.
WRCJ plays Jazz every night at 7pm 90.9 http://www.wrcjfm.org/. they even make a brief mention of the loss of the smooth jazz on their home page. the jazz hosts have their bios on the site too.
Maybe we need something like "Radio Free America". Watch out people, once again it's about money, not about people. "When it comes to money, people loose everytime".
Based on when I heard the change on my lunch break and where I worked at the time, it had to have been sometime between Labor Day '95 and June of '97.Quote:
Originally Posted by CountrySquire
I was a WRIF listener at the time but would check out WLLZ once in a while. I remember turning it on and they were playing Anita Baker. I thought it was a joke and listened for a few minutes. Haven't been back much since.
You can thank Broadcast Architecture and its president, Allen Kepler for the destruction of the smooth jazz format. Broadcast Architecture is an overpriced consultancy who claims to be the be-all when it comes to smooth jazz. According to Mr. Kepler, he pretty much invented the format, except for the name "smooth jazz." He has these stations playing a mixture of pop vocals and smooth jazz, and if he doesn't like it, it doesn't get played. Only HE knows what is and is not smooth jazz. Case in point, NONE of his stations were alllowed to play Alexander Zonjik, except for V 98.7. Because, according to Mr. Kepler, smooth jazz listeners do not like the flute. But you can bet that the few stations left in his care play "Just My Imagination" by the Temptations incessantly. Why? Because HE says it belongs in the format. We all know it doesn't but HE says so, so there!
Many cities across the country have had to part with their smooth jazz stations, including Detroit, Chicago, Philly, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco, and ALL consulted by this joke of a company.
Your best solution is to check out smoothjazznow.com. It plays such a great variety of what smooth jazz should be, without a ton of pop vocals. It is programmed by a guy who fired Broadcast Architecture when he took over a station many years ago. Can't get it in your car [[yet), but online, it is a breath of fresh air.
98.7fm is calling itself AMP Radio...
like a former DJ, former station engineer friend of mine [[we both worked at 97 KROY in sacramento when Trudi Daniels was out there) has said many times...
"radio sucks and everyone except those in radio know it"
and i agree. i used to have in depth conversations with the station manager at the college radio station about how corporate greed and ignorance was ruining radio. this was in 1982-1986...
Mallory posted:
"Because, according to Mr. Kepler, smooth jazz listeners do not like the flute."
I figure that Kepler's statement is probably true. As far as I can tell, a big part of the deal with the "smooth jazz" concept is that the categorization of certain records as "jazz" is based not on the musical approach, but on the instrumentation.
So, [[countless hacks bleating through a soprano sax)+[[tiresome, horribly cliche reverb effect)="jazz," while flute, I'm supposing, is perceived as being only a half-step away from "classical."
Again, I stress that I mean no disrespect to the folks who enjoy "smooth jazz." I just happen to hear it as being "pop" music, and I don't mean to be terribly derogatory, with that statement; I like "pop" music.
Bobbi Humphrey sounds great.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ravine
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ltdave
Veering off the Jazz angle for a minute. I can remember listening to FM radio all night and never hearing a commercial. Back then, they'd put an album [[remember those?) on and let it play through. The only sound you heard was the DJ flipping the album over to start the other side. No blather, no hype, no talk, sometimes not even a station ID for hours.
Well, there was Jean Luc Ponty.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ravine
As for other non-traditional Jazz instruments, think Noel Pointer [[violin).
And the reason that you perceive it as "pop" is because of the aforementioned Allen Kepler and his consultancy dumbing down the genre to whatever THEY dictate as smooth jazz. Until I listened to them, I didn't know that the Spinners, Temptations, or Alciia Keyes were smooth jazz acts. It's because THEY say so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ravine
There are some great artists right now, several of whom double as DJ's for this consultancy, who are actually being screwed by the consultancy. The more the format is dumbed down, the more stations around the country start to drop the format, hence, less exposure for their music. Ridiculous business model.
Two of my favs :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Meddle
Now I'm having second thoughts. Maybe I was thinking of Jean Pierre Rampal on the flute. Ponty was violin too, right?
Brass goes into a whole different group including Gillespie, Severinsen and so many others.
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Originally Posted by vetalalumni
I second that, Jean Luc Ponty was great, wonder if he's still playing that violin?
Jean-Luc can play, for sure. I remember hearing Stephane Grappelly at the Pontch, and he joked about the blue electric violin he'd received from JLP as a gift - he was afraid JLP was trying to electricute him. I could not imagine Stephane playing an electric violin.
Ravine, my man, I love your "formula" for Smooth Jazz. Smooth Jazz is one of those hot button topics among jazz people. I can't use it, the rhythm doesn't work for me, but KennyG [[who is NOT related to my screen name) can play. It's just WHAT he plays with that talent...
Mallory, I see your point. Sometimes I would hear Regina Carter [[Cass Tech alum) on the smooth jazz station on sirius, but I would never hear her on 98.7Quote:
Originally Posted by mallory
and you would think they would give a Detroiter some play. I guess because she is a jazz violinist Mr. Kepler figured no one would want to listen.
Mallory, despite your sporting attempt to explain, to me, the reason for my perception, I'm going to do a better job of explaining it. Here goes:
Any time I hear music that is referred to as "smooth jazz," I hear music that does not sound like jazz, to me; it sounds like pop.
The term "smooth jazz" implies a sort of wrinkle-free jazz, jazz which does not have any rough edges. Wrinkles and rough edges are part of what jazz, in my view, is all about.
It isn't all about Kepler and his machinations. Many folks just, mistakenly, associate certain instruments with "jazz." If they enjoy soft, dreamy-landscaped tunes played on those instruments, they will say that they like jazz, even if the music is less adventurous than the unwrapping of a Clark bar. For the same reason, if I was to drive by them with John McLaughlin's electric guitar solo from "The Noonward Race" ripping through my car speakers, they might not know what to call it, but I don't believe that they would regard it as jazz.
I think a lot of people just want to get into that which was once called "easy listening," and that's fine; in fact, some really good jazz makes for some really easy listening. Coltrane's "Naima," anyone?
The thing is, if the music was produced with "easy listening" in mind, as a goal, then I am forced to conclude that the intention was to produce something easily accessible to the general public... And, to me, that spells P-O-P.
A lot of people would call Noel Pointer 'smooth jazz' but I certainly wouldn't call it Pop.
Where does Chuck Mangione fit in? Herb Alpert?
Is Al Hirt more 'jazz' than Doc Severinson?
Nice perspective Ravine, my music loving compadre :). Music can be a visceral experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ravine
You inspired me to play "Floating Point". John is certainly one of my favs. Heck, I have a lot of favs!
I have this weird tendency to associate music with whatever is going on in my life. Admittedly an emotional exercise, from a guy who is definitely not overly emotional. Spyro Gyra [[don't laugh) and JLP both invoke memories of my carefree bachelor days :p. Same with Michael Franks.
Parliament recalls my exuberant, super-duper heavy partying days. Chic, the dancing days. Disco days when I truly learned not to be homophobic, for example. That is why I hold an appreciation for certain genres - for what I learned or experienced during the time. It works for me.
That said, and I'm no purist, I also seek variety. Smooth jazz serves a purpose for me - easy listening while solving some technical issue. I virtually listen to music whenever I can while working and uninterrupted by questions etc...
Now Miles, for example, involves more of me in the experience. "Deep", as they say. And "deep" does not serve well in a community activity like the work environment. So many opinions etc... Get it?
Once thing that has not been mentioned is how these moves are going to drive people to purchase HD radios. I have been looking into purchasing one, its seems that HD radio is giving you lots of choices and the sticker price for the radios doesn't seem to be that bad
Noel Pointer's "All My Reasons" is a rare prized LP.Quote:
Originally Posted by Meddle
What the hell does having, or not having, an HD radio have to do with this?
The smooth jazz format of 98.7 FM is continuing, at least for now, on one of the station's HD subchannels.
Ravine, you are a humorous fellow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ravine
JLP site --> http://www.ponty.com/index.php?section=concert_datesQuote:
Originally Posted by Cincinnati_Kid
JLP toured mostly Europe so far this year. Couple of upcoming dates:
- November 19, 2009, Detroit, MI, Music Hall
- November 04, 2009, San Diego, CA, Anthology --> http://www.anthologysd.com/music-cal...mber-2009.html
Anthology is a very nice venue.
Buying an HD radio for ONE station does not make much sense to me. Plus, eventually, they'll pull the HD smooth jazz station and say that no one is listening to it [[though they won't admit that no one listens because no one has an HD nor wants one). Thank goodness for the invention of the mp3 player. Anyone for "Popsicle Toes" by Michael Franks? Mr. Kepler's stations won't play it, but my iPod sure does.Quote:
Originally Posted by firstandten
Seems like Michael Franks would fit right into a Keplerian playlist.
Smooth Jazz=Elevator music for a new generation. 1958: Montovani 1998: David Sanborn.
That imagery made me chuckle a bit. Not my favorite work by JLP [[I have the first 5 tracks from the "Jazz Violin Summit"). You can acquire tracks from the "Jazz Violin Summit" for .99 cents each at Amazon --> http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Violin-Su.../dp/B00002DDOLQuote:
Originally Posted by Jimg
For your acoustic guitar enjoyment --> www.acafe.com