98.7 Smooth Jazz No More

[jackie5275]

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.

[jtf1972]

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.

[Zacha341]

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!!!

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.

[313WX]

You can get some good classic R & B still on WGPR 107.5... especially on Saturdays...

Yep, although their songs are a bit repititive for my taste, there are by far the better of the Detroit music stations.

[Meddle]

98.7 smooth jazz? When did that happen? That was always a hard, hard rock station, WABX, then WLLZ [[Whole Lotta Led Zepplin).

[Ravine]

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.

[buildingsofdetroit]

If you love jazz, Ed Love on WDET usually spins good stuff. Granted, it isn't 24-7 jazz.

[Meddle]

has been for the last, oh, ten years.

600+ miles away.

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.

[Ravine]

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.

[Meddle]

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.

[reddog289]

Didn't 106.7 change formats just recently? to hip hop.

[CountrySquire]

98.7 smooth jazz? When did that happen? That was always a hard, hard rock station, WABX, then WLLZ [[Whole Lotta Led Zepplin).

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?

[border5150]

I think 98.7 went to smooth Jazz in early '96 or late '95.

[danofcamden]

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.

[patmc16]

I can't remember when WLLZ went to the JAzz format. Was it 1988?

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.

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.

[msamslex]

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.

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.

[professorscott]

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.

[Meddle]

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

[reddog289]

I remember WJZZ. Wasn't it at 105.9 right above the dial from WQRS?.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

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

Those were the days, with my fav DJ Rosetta Hines doing the spinning.

[Meddle]

Can't remember, but I think QRS was 105.1, then JZZ, then W4, then a bunch of Bible Thumper garbage.

[shock]

Can't remember, but I think QRS was 105.1, then JZZ, then W4, then a bunch of Bible Thumper garbage.

Wow the Bible is Garbage ?

[nickstone]

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.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

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.

Very good points. The Spinners were a great R&B group. I didn't equate them with jazz.

[firstandten]

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.

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.