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Is Smooth Jazz 'JJZ still on the air?

Route 222 said:
Smooth jazz is still a very alive genre of music. I know someone who operates a small-powered radio station that programs smooth jazz during certain dayparts. They receive an abundance of new music from artists. Watercolors on Sirius/XM is one of the top channels. "Smooth Jazz Internet Radio" is a top-searched term on Google. Berks Jazz Fest in Reading sells out almost all their concerts every year. You're catching my drift. The genre is alive and well and not really an aging problem. Go to Berks Jazz Fest and you'll see as many 20-somethings as 60-somethings. It's just not a profitable format on terrestrial radio anymore for various reasons. Saying that smooth jazz is dead is like saying that metal is dead or dance is dead. They're not. They just don't work on FM radio.
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To start, Smooth Jazz is not the same as Jazz.

The Berks Festival is not a smooth jazz event... it is mostly real jazz with a hint of r&b.

Smooth jazz, as I heard one consultant describe it back in the late 80's, is "beautiful music for yuppies". Or, as Mike McVay said back then, "songs you've never heard by artists you've never heard of".

The term "smooth jazz" came from a listener to a demo tape in Chicago, also in the late 80's. She heard the music, did not recognize anything, but when asked how she would describe it, said, "it's sortta' like smooth jazz". The term was used by WNUA in Chicago, and then got adopted by the industry after R&R's effort to call it NAC, New Adult Contemporary, did not stick.

And you would be surprised that the formats that get the most listening by satellite subscribers are, for the most part, the same ones that get FM music listening. The only difference is in programming suitable mostly for seniors, where the 50's channel, the 60's channel and things like Watercolors and Beautiful Music get traction.

I began my career at an all jazz station, WCUY in Cleveland, and I find it almost offensive to compare the style of Kenny G with Ornette Coleman or Miles Davis.
 
I am an educator at a University with music as a major part of the curriculum and this topic has come up occasionally: "is smooth jazz really jazz" and the consensus among most of the pro's here is 'yes,' it is a form of jazz. I think this little article does a nice little job being fair with the topic: https://www.merriammusic.com/school-of-music/smooth-and-contemporary-jazz/

I am fully aware of how the term 'smooth jazz' was born with the testing session in Chicago. Most of the respondents agreed it was some form of jazz, but it was the one person who said 'smooth jazz' that really stuck. But most every agreed it was some form of "cool jazz," "soft jazz," "poppy jazz," etc.

If not some form of jazz, then what do we call that huge pile of CD's and mp3's my friend at the small non-profit station that programs some smooth jazz? Instrumental pop maybe? I don't know. But what I do know is I have looked through the submissions and done research on the artist bio's and most if not all have some serious background and education in the roots of jazz. Do we call an Italian hoagie not a hoagie just because someone may put some mayonnaise it? (That's another fun lively discussion we had here at the University. Purists only think it should be oil and vinegar). :) But it's a good analogy.
 
DavidEduardo said:
you would be surprised that the formats that get the most listening by satellite subscribers are, for the most part, the same ones that get FM music listening. The only difference is in programming suitable mostly for seniors, where the 50's channel, the 60's channel and things like Watercolors and Beautiful Music get traction.
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Now that streaming is being promoted for non-auto listening, I guess SiriusXM can get some idea who's listening to what, though I don't know how they would do that with the satellite listeners outside of surveys. I remember when Escape programmer Marlin Taylor retired in 2015, the suits at SiriusXM announced that the easy listening channel would leave the satellites and go streaming-only, where the vast majority of the channel's listening audience would not have access to it. As someone who had 5 radios at the time, 3 of which were used by relatives who listened almost exclusively to Escape, I questioned whether SiriusXM had any remote idea who their listeners were and what they tuned in to. Of course, massive subscriber revolt ensued and Escape returned to the birds in 5 weeks, an unprecedented turnabout.

The satcaster has experienced constant subscriber growth thanks to the auto market and seems to be doing quite well financially, so the occasional gaff doesn't appear to hurt them, but one wonders how much knowledge they really have about their subscribers' listening habits.
 
Route 222 said:
I am fully aware of how the term 'smooth jazz' was born with the testing session in Chicago. Most of the respondents agreed it was some form of jazz, but it was the one person who said 'smooth jazz' that really stuck. But most every agreed it was some form of "cool jazz," "soft jazz," "poppy jazz," etc.
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That is not how it happened. The term came up in one interview in a cycle or set of one-on-one interviews done by Owen Leach, founder along with Frank Cody, of Broadcast Architecture. Owen did the interviews.

The one lady who said "it's sort of like smooth jazz" was answering the question, "what would you call this music". She was the only one who used the term "jazz". Owen Leach picked up on this because WNUA did not want to license the name "The Wave" from the company that held the rights and they need a name or positioner.

That line of questioning resulted in what was a serendipitous response. The persons interviewed, always individually and not in a focus group, were recruited for what is called an ATU study... Awareness, Trial, Usage. In such studies one attempts to find a hole in a market for a format, and often testing is done for multiple formats, each one being evaluated on a series of like/dislike, "anyone do this here?" and "how much would you listen" questions.

I've done ATUs ranging from 6 potential formats in LA to 17 in Buenos Aires. In each case, each respondent heard a prototype telescoped music set, and then answered questions.
 
TheBigA said:
As I recall, they did for a short time and stopped.

They are monitored by Mediabase and Billboard however.
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They have done studies in the past based on calls to subscribers. The questions are simple, like "what channel do you listen to most", "What channel is your favorite", "what is your second choice?" and "what other channels do you use regularly.

I got the questions once myself. The interview was very quick, and they apparently just wanted top of mind. No TSL questions, no aided recall.

I presume they did some stratification of the results by age, gender, geographic location, etc. They asked me that as well as a botched ethnicity question (they apparently did not understand that "Hispanic" is not a race).
 
DavidEduardo said:
The one lady who said "it's sort of like smooth jazz" was answering the question, "what would you call this music". She was the only one who used the term "jazz".
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The thing about it is the music existed before the radio format. There were artists like Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Patrick Williams, and many similar artists making a lighter form of jazz pop in the early 70s. Some of the purist jazz stations stayed away from it, while some of the more commercial stations like WRVR NY embraced it. As I recall, WRVR flipped to country before the smooth jazz name started to get used. WQCD picked up the newly named format with enthusiasm.

In terms of Philadelphia, the legendary jazz station in the 60s was WHAT-FM, home of Joel Dorn, who called himself "the masked announcer." Joel became better known in the 70s as a jazz record producer, responsible for numerous hits by Roberta Flack.
 
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TheBigA said:
The thing about it is the music existed before the radio format. There were artists like Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Patrick Williams, and many similar artists making a lighter form of jazz pop in the early 70s. Some of the purist jazz stations stayed away from it, while some of the more commercial stations like WRVR NY embraced it. As I recall, WRVR flipped to country before the smooth jazz name started to get used. WQCD picked up the newly named format with enthusiasm.

In terms of Philadelphia, the legendary jazz station in the 60s was WHAT-FM, home of Joel Dorn, who called himself "the masked announcer." Joel became better known in the 70s as a jazz record producer, responsible for numerous hits by Roberta Flack.
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And before the "smooth jazz" term came into use, the "Wave Format" was more commonly referred to as New Age as it began with a liberal dose of Yanni and the like.

Yanni's albums were listed in the New Age charts at Billboard, not jazz.

And Broadcast Architecture loved the term "Soft Jazz" as the term "soft" made it sound relaxing and the term "jazz" made it hip enough... with the two words together tempering the limited appeal of jazz with the mood-evocative "soft" word. It really did not matter that most of the music was only remotely related to real jazz. Now, 30 years later, promotion of the format back then has made perception become reality... to many, smooth jazz is an offshoot of real jazz.
 
DavidEduardo said:
And before the "smooth jazz" term came into use, the "Wave Format" was more commonly referred to as New Age as it began with a liberal dose of Yanni and the like.
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To me there were two very different styles. New Age was typified by the ECM Record label, run by Manfred Eicher. He had Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton, Eberhard Weber, and a lot of the very natural sounding artists. Atmospheric music. On the other hand, there were the artists on CTI Records, run by Creed Taylor. That label had its own very distinct style, typified by Bob James, George Benson, Herbie Hancock, and Grover Washington. They were more along the lines of what became smooth jazz.

New Age still exists today, and there's a Grammy category for it, established in 1987. Smooth Jazz was never given its own category. Both Manfred Eicher and Creed Taylor are still alive today.
 
TheBigA said:
The thing about it is the music existed before the radio format. There were artists like Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Patrick Williams, and many similar artists making a lighter form of jazz pop in the early 70s. Some of the purist jazz stations stayed away from it, while some of the more commercial stations like WRVR NY embraced it. As I recall, WRVR flipped to country before the smooth jazz name started to get used. WQCD picked up the newly named format with enthusiasm.

In terms of Philadelphia, the legendary jazz station in the 60s was WHAT-FM, home of Joel Dorn, who called himself "the masked announcer." Joel became better known in the 70s as a jazz record producer, responsible for numerous hits by Roberta Flack.
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TheBigA has an excellent point. I can see David is not a fan of calling smooth jazz "jazz" and I respect that, but then what exactly is George Benson "Breezin'?" Or Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good?" Or Bob James' "Angela?" Or Herb Alpert's "Rise?" All songs from the 70s long before the name "smooth jazz" ever came about. Are they not jazz at all? All of the modern "smooth jazz" is basically the same sound and style as those songs. George, Chuck, and Herb probably would be pretty upset if someone told them they weren't jazz just because their form of jazz was "smoother" than mainstream. Am I totally off base here?
 
Route 222 said:
All songs from the 70s long before the name "smooth jazz" ever came about. Are they not jazz at all?
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Depends. Most of those songs got played on pop radio at the time. That would not happen now. Airplay of instrumentals mostly went away in the 60s. The Chuck Mangione and Herb Alpert songs were anomalies. Fortunately for George Benson, he could sing. When Santana put together his Grammy winning Smooth album, he needed singers to get that music on the radio. But because Benson, Mangione, and Alpert got pop airplay, they were shunned by traditional jazz stations at the time. Grover Washington's "The Two of Us" got lots of airplay on soft rock stations at the time. In fact, for a lot of this music, soft rock was a launching pad for what became smooth jazz in the late 80s.
 
Route 222 said:
I can see David is not a fan of calling smooth jazz "jazz" and I respect that, but then what exactly is George Benson "Breezin'?" Or Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good?" Or Bob James' "Angela?" Or Herb Alpert's "Rise?" All songs from the 70s long before the name "smooth jazz" ever came about. Are they not jazz at all?
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Those all were considered "Easy Listening" or "Middle of the Road" (MOR) when new. For example, "Feels So Good" was a #1 hit on Billboard's Easy Listening chart -- which later got renamed to Adult Contemporary.

And you may think it's a stretch to call this kind of music "jazz", but what about all the AC stations today who play Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga and call it "Soft Rock"?
 
Does anyone remember WKTU New York before it was "Disco 92?" Probably around 1975 it was "Mellow 92." They started out typical AC at the time. Carpenters, Ann Murray, etc. But then they switched to more deep cuts rock soft hits. I remember hearing Pink Floyd on the station! It was pretty interesting. But obviously didn't make any money or get ratings.
 
Gregg. said:
There happens to be a fairly long thread of recent comments on the Smooth Jazz page titled "How Smooth Jazz Took Over 90s Radio." Several posters give their comments as David did above on why Smooth Jazz suffered such a rapid death. It went from being a top performer in many markets to no where in a matter of several years.

Philadelphia was a rare market that still had a Smooth Jazz station up till about a year ago, but only on AM, 1480 WDAS-AM. It was likely a labor of love from someone in iHeart's Philadelphia operations, since few people, even Smooth Jazz fans, are going to listen to it on AM. Even when it was identifying itself as "WJJZ" on the air, iHeart didn't even spend the $200 to get the FCC to really change the call letters to WJJZ.

When the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was willing to lease the station, iHeart said "Yes!" and that was the end of Smooth Jazz on conventional radio. And the acquisition of an FM translator at 102.5 sealed the deal. But as stated above, the HD channel lives on, at 106.1 HD2.
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WISX should register the subchannel in the ratings book.
 
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