How many full time Jazz station do we have in the US? I'm talking about full-time traditional Jazz Music, not Smooth Jazz/NAC or Smooth AC such as KMHD - Portland, KCSM - San Mateo/San Francisco, KSDS - San Diego, WBGO - New York City....etc. It seems that most of the jazz stations has switch to NPR News/Talk format instead of all jazz music.
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Jazz stations
- Thread starter e-dawg
- Start date
About 18 months ago I was interviewing for a job at WICN, another FT jazz station and I did a little research. I searched on "formats" at radio-locator.com (not the most precise of tools, but it was a decent enough place to start) and found there were 47 stations in the entire USA listed as "jazz" stations.
If you eliminate stations in the top 20 markets, and stations owned by educational institutions, the number drops to two: WICN, Worcester, MA, and KRML, Carmel, CA. And KRML is commercial, so WICN was the only non-major-market, non-college-owned, FT non-commercial jazz station in the USA.
Also, you didn't mention KUVO in Denver, which was all-jazz, but had gone to The Takeaway in mornings but dropped it to go all-jazz again when the Takeaway moved to mid-days.
If you eliminate stations in the top 20 markets, and stations owned by educational institutions, the number drops to two: WICN, Worcester, MA, and KRML, Carmel, CA. And KRML is commercial, so WICN was the only non-major-market, non-college-owned, FT non-commercial jazz station in the USA.
Also, you didn't mention KUVO in Denver, which was all-jazz, but had gone to The Takeaway in mornings but dropped it to go all-jazz again when the Takeaway moved to mid-days.
I was mostly being facetious. Clint's been a fan of KRML since well before he shot Play Misty For Me there.
So it's not that Eastwood owns or owned it, but it's well known that he's a huge jazz fan and has an affinity to both the station and Carmel-by-the-Sea...he was mayor there after all! That said, Clint's got money. The phrase "a cubic f**kload of money" comes to mind. So if he reeeeally wanted it to stay jazz, he could've just bought the damn thing, handed it over to someone he trusts to run it, and told them to keep it jazz, regardless of the profit/loss statements. He didn't, so, I guess he doesn't care that much.
Honestly, I don't begrudge him that. Caring quite that much would be a little over the top, I think.
(see full press release)
So it's not that Eastwood owns or owned it, but it's well known that he's a huge jazz fan and has an affinity to both the station and Carmel-by-the-Sea...he was mayor there after all! That said, Clint's got money. The phrase "a cubic f**kload of money" comes to mind. So if he reeeeally wanted it to stay jazz, he could've just bought the damn thing, handed it over to someone he trusts to run it, and told them to keep it jazz, regardless of the profit/loss statements. He didn't, so, I guess he doesn't care that much.
Honestly, I don't begrudge him that. Caring quite that much would be a little over the top, I think.
Apropos of nothing, my wife saw that Play Misty for Me was on cable last night and we decided to watch it. I haven't seen it in nearly twenty years and apparently I repressed the memory. That movie was AWFUL. Maybe it just hasn't aged well (made in 1981) but I was cringing at the wooden acting, shallow characterization, terrible cinematography, and almost nonsensical plot. Ugh.
Worse, it's essentially a daytime-only AM, too. Nighttime power is only 16 watts. Granted, Carmel-by-the-Sea is pretty small, but 16 watts probably doesn't even penetrate buildings in-town, much less reach the adjacent towns of Pacific Grove and Monterey.
Worse, it's essentially a daytime-only AM, too. Nighttime power is only 16 watts. Granted, Carmel-by-the-Sea is pretty small, but 16 watts probably doesn't even penetrate buildings in-town, much less reach the adjacent towns of Pacific Grove and Monterey.
Rochester, New York has two stations with a strong commitment to Jazz
WGMC (Jazz 90.1) is licensed to the Greece Central School District, though it is not a student run station. It is staffed by professionals and community volunteers. They air Jazz full-time during the week, and for a fair number of hours on weekend. Though some weekend hours are given over to brokered ethnic and religious programming.
There is also WJZR (105.9). This is actually a commercial station. It is owned by a local company headed by a long time Jazz presenter in the area, Lee Rust. This station is probably one of the few commercial stations in the country to still play straight-ahead Jazz, though it is mixed with Smooth Jazz, which I know is an automatic turn off for some. Unfortunately, this station doesn't have a website, let alone a stream.
WGMC (Jazz 90.1) is licensed to the Greece Central School District, though it is not a student run station. It is staffed by professionals and community volunteers. They air Jazz full-time during the week, and for a fair number of hours on weekend. Though some weekend hours are given over to brokered ethnic and religious programming.
There is also WJZR (105.9). This is actually a commercial station. It is owned by a local company headed by a long time Jazz presenter in the area, Lee Rust. This station is probably one of the few commercial stations in the country to still play straight-ahead Jazz, though it is mixed with Smooth Jazz, which I know is an automatic turn off for some. Unfortunately, this station doesn't have a website, let alone a stream.
Sorry to say that Chicago has none. Whatever we do have, it's part time jazz. WDCB 90.9 FM does a beautiful job, but has hours a week of other music (i.e. blues, folk, fusion). The only other choice is an FM DX for me, and that is WHPK 88.5 FM (University of Chicago). Of course, only certain times of the day are devoted to jazz. We have all this crappy rock music, but no stations other than WDCB, that are devoted to jazz and blues. Years ago, we had several like WWMM 92.7 FM.
Given the repuatation of Loonis McGlohon, I think it's a real shame Charlotte doesn't have one. The one they had limited the real jazz to overnights and some weekend programming. During the day, according to one editorial cartoon, it was yuppie elevator music. But they later settled on talk and jazz is just a weekend feautre lasting a few hours. If you have HD, they do have a full-time jazz channel, but HD has its problems.
Outside Charlotte, another NPR station had jazz but decided to go with talk as well.
A standards AM attempted to fill the void, but that hasn't worked too well. At least they haven't changed it.
Outside Charlotte, another NPR station had jazz but decided to go with talk as well.
A standards AM attempted to fill the void, but that hasn't worked too well. At least they haven't changed it.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned KPLU Seattle-Tacoma. It is an NPR affiliate with a heavy emphasis on jazz.
In the St. Louis area, WSIE (88.7 MHz) has been a mainstream jazz station since 1986.
In the St. Louis area, WSIE (88.7 MHz) has been a mainstream jazz station since 1986.
Philly doesn't have a full time Jazz, Smooth Jazz, or Classical Music station. They do have WRTI from Temple Univ at 90.1 that plays Jazz from 6pm-6am and Classical Music from 6am- 6pm. They've got translators all over the tri-state area of Penn, Del, and NJ.
While this is not an all-encompassing list, and includes some non-terrestrials, here is a directory of jazz stations which are part of the JazzWeek jazz chart panel:
http://www.jazzweek.com/station-directory/
I own JazzWeek.com and publish a weekly jazz radio chart and have done so since 2001 when Gavin stopped publishing a jazz chart a few months prior to going under completely.
http://www.jazzweek.com/station-directory/
I own JazzWeek.com and publish a weekly jazz radio chart and have done so since 2001 when Gavin stopped publishing a jazz chart a few months prior to going under completely.
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