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Current places for Smooth Jazz

lanceventa said:
That's not true at all... Look at the infinite number of "Ambient" music streams on YouTube and elsewhere. Just because it's not the music you are familiar with doesn't mean it doesn't exist. This one 4 hour segment has been played 42 million times.
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lanceventa said:
The real issue is that record labels cannot monetize it and therefore there's no cohesive marketing push, which in turn would lead to radio airplay.
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That's true. Ambient music is popular on You Tube, although we don't know the age of the people clicking, could be young, could be older.

But instrumental music has been wiped from the radio dial. From the earliest days of FM radio, instrumental stations were popular. Each large market had a commercial classical station and several beautiful stations. Then most markets had Smooth Jazz stations. But now every station on the dial plays only vocals. Classic Hits stations won't play instrumental songs, even those that reached the top ten.

And yes, record labels can't monetize instrumental music. One of the biggest selling jazz albums of all time, triple-platinum Breezin' by George Benson, was all instrumental except for two songs, even though Benson was a good singer. But that was 47 years ago.
 
Gregg. said:
One of the biggest selling jazz albums of all time, triple-platinum Breezin' by George Benson, was all instrumental except for two songs, even though Benson was a good singer. But that was 47 years ago.
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That's the kind of smooth jazz I want. "Breezin'", the song, was (and may still be) on America's Best Music.
 
Gregg. said:
Classic Hits stations won't play instrumental songs, even those that reached the top ten.
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I have two instrumentals in Forgotten 45 rotation on The Eighties Channel™. Guess which two?
 
Instrumentals are well-accepted in the Yacht Rock sub-genre: George Benson, Chuck Mangione, Spyro Gyra, Herb Alpert, etc. And in songs like "Baker Street" and "Year of the Cat", the real hook is the instrumental solos, not the vocals.
 
Kat got them both, and the other guesses wouldn't fit the format.
 
KilowattKat said:
Those were the only instrumentals I recall hearing on Top 40 radio in the 80's, and of course both were big hits. Were there any other instrumentals that made it to Top 40 radio back then?
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What about the Chariots of Fire theme, it hit #1. "Give It All You Got" by Chuck Mangione hit #18.
 
radiofan2023 said:
What about the Chariots of Fire theme, it hit #1. "Give It All You Got" by Chuck Mangione hit #18.
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Those were both good.

The first one till gets played on stations I have listened to. My father came out of the theater (I didn't go with him) saying that was going to be a #1 song. He was right.
 
radiofan2023 said:
What about the Chariots of Fire theme, it hit #1. "Give It All You Got" by Chuck Mangione hit #18.
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Top 40 radio back in the 80's was identical to what you hear on 80's based Classic Hits minus the 70's and 90's. Those two songs were only heard on Adult Contemporary or MOR back then. For accuracy, I should refer to Top 40 as CHR., even though everyone still referred to it as Top 40 until the mid 80's.
 
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in Baton Rouge LA 90.3 plays a lot of smooth jazz and classic jazz. Also 106.5 plays smooth jazz 12-1pm on sundays after Mt Zion church broadcast. Also in New Orleans KMEZ 102.9 plays smooth jazz on sunday afternoons and 95.3 WNOZ-LP plays smooth jazz 24-7
 
WSIE 88.7 "The Sound" Edwardsville, IL/St. Louis: WSIE FM The Sound

Broadcasts from the campus of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.

Lately it has sounded a lot more robust not just in my car radio, but even on of my home radios in Chatham, IL. About 75 miles from the transmitter. Is a regular here but victim to both WTTT 88.9 Springfield slop (despite a little over 100 watts) and even fringe/tropo coverage from WPCD Champaign, even though the latter's fringe signal range isn't anywhere close to Chatham.
 


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