Hey smoothguy. Looks like Mark beat me to the punch as far as a formal welcome to the Jones Smooth Jazz support group!
Thanks for the kind words about my station. It's a work in progress, as I have not been on the air for 4 months yet. But I am slowly building my listenership through word of mouth. The loss of Jones created a HUGE void for me, both as a listener, and as a programmer. They say imitation is the best form of flattery, and I make no bones about the fact that my playlist is a near complete plagiarism of Jones' old playlist. With them gone, finding new music from more obscure artists has been a challenge, but I am trying my best to stay ahead of the curve and have made some progress.
I think my Jones story is chronicled somewhere in between Mark and my rants. In a nutshell, I first discovered JSJ on WQJZ 97.1 circa 1997. My folks had retired and built a home in West Ocean City, MD, not far from Ocean Pines. I grew up and was raised in Anne Arundel County in the southern suburbs of Baltimore. I recall how my parents and I would lament about the fact Ocean City didn't have a Smooth Jazz station, as we were huge Smooth Jazz fans and regularly attended both the Capital Jazz and Rehoboth Beach festivals every year. Then one day my Mom called me ecstatic to tell me that Ocean City finally had a jazz station. I already enjoyed visiting my folks down the beach, but once WQJZ was in the mix, it became almost euphoric, like I was at some remote B&B on the shore with not a worry in the world. The only other major smooth jazz station in the market at the time was the long-running WJZW in Washington, but their programming was heavy with A/C and could never hold a candle to WQJZ. But it was the only viable option on the radio. Then WSMJ in Baltimore launched in 2004, and initially I thought had promise. They were spinning Nick Colionne and Euge Groove heavy at the time, and I thought it was a fresher sound than WJZW. But then, much like the others that preceded them, they gave way to the "target" demographic and started to hit the A/C heavy. Not surprised both of them went belly up, but I never thought Jones would go!!!!! I always had WQJZ to lean on via the Internet. I also knew of WJZT in Tallahassee and would listen to them when WQJZ had problems with their stream.
Then came September 30, 2008, when I started to smell a rat. I heard Laurie Cobb on the air give her "send off" and that it was her last day. I then started thinking like a businessman and said, "Crap, it's the end of the month and the end of the fiscal year. Something's going on." I started scouring the Internet and that's when I found this forum and I was shocked that the news of the Jones demise was known for months and I was completely in the dark. I was absolutely devastated, and in an almost weird twist of fate, my folks sold their beach house a couple of months ago and are now living back across the other side of the Chesapeake close to their grandkids. Their life down Ocean City essentially began and ended with Jones Smooth Jazz on the radio down there. In a lot of ways, my father was the inspiration for me to launch my station. Earlier this Spring, when my folks were spending more time up here, they witnessed the death of WSMJ in Baltimore. Over a glass of wine after dinner, my Dad said, "Chris, we should get our own Smooth Jazz station going (as in like, something with a studio and on either the AM or FM dial
)." God bless my father, who is major old school. But I said, "Well Dad, something like that is going to cost a hell of an amount of money that neither you nor I have." I said I had the music, but not the infrastructure to make something happen. That's when I started to do some research on Internet radio, and what it would take to get something up and running. When I told him it was far more reasonable than I thought, I went for it. The irony is my folks don't even have broadband yet, so they can't even pull in my stream ;D! My Dad doesn't want to go with Comcast because he is afraid they are going to find out he's been getting over on his cable (kinda like the Seinfeld episode when Kramer is trying to duck the Plaza Cable guy
). So he is going to wait until Verizon Fios is in his community, then he'll be able to tune in!
Anyway (and I have told Mark this both privately and publicly), I was pleasantly surprised to see as many guys on this thread bummed out as much as I was about Jones Smooth Jazz going away. Not to pat ourselves on the back, but I think there is something to be said for the fact that we had good taste in music.
Thanks for checking out the station, and as everyone here knows, I encourage your suggestions and feedback. BTW, I too have a major "man crush" on Keith Riker, and hope he is doing well. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with a 60-year old Laurie Cobb either
. Sounds like she is embracing her new career move, so that is nice to hear.
Peace,
Chris
aka, AC Tones
P.S. Don't worry, cklw800. I'm not going anywhere! I found some pretty educated Smooth Jazz listeners on this board and I want to stay in touch with everyone.
