What Is Happening To Our Radio?
Radio is rapidly changing. Many of the major market stations have changed their formats much to the chagrin of Jazz Listeners Nationwide. We have lost SO MANY great stations in cities like Miami, Phoenix, New York, and others have gotten rid of their DJs and are taking a feed from a central corporate source.This means that artists like myself have a rapidly shrinking opportunity to get our music heard. This also means that YOU will not be able to hear new music produced by new talents. You may not even know they exist as with limited outlets and only so much time in the day, it is not possible to fit in new music from Independent artists in any meaningful amount even if the station has made the the committment to play them. You know, maybe at 1:00 in the morning, and if you ain’t up, it’s gone!
What do we do with this? Well, we need to remember to CHERISH the stations that are still playing our type of music: Terrestrial, Satellite, and on the Internet.
Call them and let them know that you LOVE this music and make sure that you will NOT listen if they change! Let them know that their advertisers will LOSE money if they continue to change and turn into just ANOTHER POP STATION.
Jazz Lovers are a special crowd. We are an affluent crowd. We’re educated. We like nice things. we have good jobs and we are VERY LOYAL! Advertisers on stations will lose a very valuable opportunity to reach this crowd if they try to make us listen to Brittany! (nothing personal just not our type of music!)
Please visit the stations that are staying true on the list to the left and tune in at work if you can stream from the office. Listen in your car. Call in and TALK WITH THE DJ.
TAKE BACK YOUR MUSIC!
May 9th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Radio is just the tip of the iceberg. If you look at some of the traditional jazz festivals around the world (North Sea, Montreaux, Newport), the influx of R & B artists to the jazz festival stage is overwhelming and honestly a little disappointing. Now I must add that I love some of the R & B artists added to the mix because they are truly gifted in their genre. However, when I want to hear jazz, I don’t want Frankie Beverly and Maze mixed in there; I’ll go see them another night. What jazz form suffers the most? Right now, traditional jazz as played by Wynton, Joshua Redman, and Roy Hargrove to name a few. What I fear most is that, that genre of jazz will die much like ragtime, big bands, and bebop before it. Miles Davis was a perfect example of the ever evolving nature of jazz when he blend jazz with hip-hop (working with Easy Mo Bee) and R & B (his rendition of Michael Jackson’s Human Nature is outstanding). However, we can’t let the roots of jazz die. We all know what happens when the roots of any living thing dies. Sorry for the rambling nature but just wanted to get that out.