K-Mozart is back on 1260

[K.M. Richards]

I think it does. If the claim is that people know what jazz is, do they mean real jazz or smooth jazz when they are describing what jazz means to them.

And I think that anyone who likes either kind would still at least sample a station called "Jazz-FM" before deciding whether or not they liked the station.

You really don't understand how this business works, do ya?

 

[TomásEstefan]

That's what my dad used to say about the Boston Symphony Orchestra when I'd ask him why he didn't have any BSO records in his huge collection. He did have plenty of Philadelphia/Ormandy, though. As always, taste is purely personal.

It certainly is personal. Many feel that Serge Koussevitsky's BSO recordings (although 78 rpm shellac) are superlative for the era.

 

[Kemosabe]

Cleveland wasn't bad. The Philadelphia under Ormandy was the worst. Duller than dull.

Do you also consider Furtwängler and Böhm to be dull?

But I always prefer Von Karajan.

Just out of curiosity, do you prefer contemporary music when it's sped up? Von Karajan famously achieved a similarly "bright" sound by having the Berliner Philharmoniker tuned at A4=445.

They might indeed get mad if you play the Cleveland Orchestra rendition of anything with the late, great George Szell at the helm because those recordings were considered definitive, almost too good and therefore "beyond criticism" - so some of those folks might say: "there must be something wrong with them that people are just somehow missing".

His recording of Smetana's Vltava (Die Moldau) is without equal.

 

[TheBigA]

Just out of curiosity, do you prefer contemporary music when it's sped up? Von Karajan famously achieved a similarly "bright" sound by having the Berliner Philharmoniker tuned at A4=445.

That's funny...I've heard that said. My thought was he just whipped his musicians into a frenzy so it sounded faster than usual. But I agree his records were always a bit more...energetic, shall we say.

 

[kevtronics]

Just out of curiosity, do you prefer contemporary music when it's sped up? Von Karajan famously achieved a similarly "bright" sound by having the Berliner Philharmoniker tuned at A4=445.

Even the contemporary standard of A = 440 Hz is higher in pitch than back when Classical music was new. In the 1700s, the pitch ranged from around 390 to 422 Hz. In the 1800s it kept getting higher and higher, and it wasn't until the 1950s that A440 was standardized worldwide:

Concert pitch - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Weiserguy]

Yes but that threshold time is limited by the fact that a peak power rotation for a song in CHR usually only lasts a week. So for a week, pop stations played one of Taylor Swift's recent hits every hour, sometimes more frequently than that. But it only lasted a few days, and then they moved on to the next big hit. That's based on short TSL and short attention span of the target demographic. Which is NOT the case in classical music. Very different format, very different audience, and very different rotation.

If you ever bump into Scott Muni in heaven, definitely ask him how that theory worked at WABC when Satchmo's Hello Dolly was #1 for seven weeks.

 

[TheBigA]

If you ever bump into Scott Muni in heaven, definitely ask him how that theory worked at WABC when Satchmo's Hello Dolly was #1 for seven weeks.

Muni had nothing to do with it. He was just hired help. Rick Sklar was PD at the time, and he said in his book: "It dramatically proclaimed that WABC's audience included a segment of men & women even larger than the segment of teenagers, a spectacular accomplishment for the station that was first with teens." Hello Dolly was the #1 song of 1964. The Beatles "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was #2. "She Love You" was #3.

As I often say, radio people don't play music based on personal taste.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

As I often say, radio people don't play music based on personal taste.

This is a good thing.

 

[TomásEstefan]

This is a good thing.

It generally is a good thing, seeing as a typical station would like to reach a specific audience for their format.

Back in the day though, certain stations would now and again reserve a couple of hours usually late at night once or twice a week to allow their personality to play "whatever he or she wants" (within reasonable limits) for fun and to check audience reaction, if any, to tunes that may not ordinarily be heard on the station.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Back in the day though, certain stations would now and again reserve a couple of hours usually late at night once or twice a week to allow their personality to play "whatever he or she wants" (within reasonable limits) for fun and to check audience reaction, if any, to tunes that may not ordinarily be heard on the station.

Back in 1989, when I was morning drive/APD/MD of a Country station that played album cuts from current albums before they were released as 45s, plus recurrents, current 45s we hadn't played as album cuts, and a gold library going back to the 1960s (yes, it was a very unique format), we let the all-night jock, who collected all kinds of oddball 45s, have an hourly feature called "Lance's Weird Record". He said a few listeners actually called to see if he had their all-time favorite oddball song.

The trick is to balance features like that against the main format.

 

[TomásEstefan]

Back in 1989, when I was morning drive/APD/MD of a Country station that played album cuts from current albums before they were released as 45s, plus recurrents, current 45s we hadn't played as album cuts, and a gold library going back to the 1960s (yes, it was a very unique format), we let the all-night jock, who collected all kinds of oddball 45s, have an hourly feature called "Lance's Weird Record". He said a few listeners actually called to see if he had their all-time favorite oddball song.

The trick is to balance features like that against the main format.

Yes, balance is the key...otherwise you might have Dr. Demento 24/7 ! Although I'll bet that's been tried before!

 

[K.M. Richards]

Yes, balance is the key...otherwise you might have Dr. Demento 24/7 ! Although I'll bet that's been tried before!

With Mr. Hansen's kind permission, I once had a station stunt before a format flip by running old Dr. D shows 24/7 for a few days.

 

[TomásEstefan]

With Mr. Hansen's kind permission, I once had a station stunt before a format flip by running old Dr. D shows 24/7 for a few days.

Sounds like that was a lot of fun!

 

[SarahB98]

One of the side effects of the President's executive order last night to demolish the CPB will be the loss of classical music outlets in many markets, including many classical broadcaster simulcasters. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) There are no more commercial classical stations in the U.S. (Per posts from above, KMZT-AM will now be using one of the two non-commercial classical networks.)

2) Many of the radio stations playing classical music, either part- or full-time are public and do receive money from CPB for their programming; in addition (as I pointed out on another thread), CPB has been paying the fees for these stations to stream their signals over the Internet. There is only one non-commercial classical station I know of (it's in Wisconsin Dells, WI) that (most likely) does not receive money from the CPB and that station carries a fair amount of Christian religious programming, probably to assist in funding the classical music it plays.

I thought 1260 always plays commercials

 

[TomásEstefan]

I thought 1260 always plays commercials

1260 is a commercial operation although advertising on the station has always been very intermittent.

As kind of a friendly jab at KUSC., in the past KMZT has reminded listeners that "unlike others, we will never ask you for money".

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

1260 is a commercial operation although advertising on the station has always been very intermittent.

As kind of a friendly jab at KUSC., in the past KMZT has reminded listeners that "unlike others, we will never ask you for money".

kinda funny/ironic that they say that... while a different format, KJZZ 88.1 is programmed/managed by Global Jazz, Inc.... which is headed by Saul Levine and i guarentee they ask for donations

 

[K.M. Richards]

I thought 1260 always plays commercials

The vast majority of advertising on 1260 in the 30 years that Saul has owned it came along with syndicated programming (during the Talk years, for example) or a 24/7 satellite format (see Music Of Your Life). Outside of that, I don't remember ever hearing local commercials on 1260 ... not even bonus spots for 105.1 advertisers.

 

[K.M. Richards]

kinda funny/ironic that they say that... while a different format, KJZZ 88.1 is programmed/managed by Global Jazz, Inc.... which is headed by Saul Levine and i guarentee they ask for donations

Because the actual licensee, California State University Long Beach, wants to keep paying the electric bill, and Saul cannot use revenue from his commercial operation to cover KKJZ's (not KJZZ) operating costs. In fact, that is why there is a separate legal entity to program that station.

 

[cc333]

Has anyone had the idea of recording airchecks of KMZT's various formats over the years? That would be very interesting indeed.

Who knew there were so many fans of classical music here? Now, what's our average age?

I've been a fan of classical since I was at least 12 or so. Some of my long time favorites include George Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A Major, Lizst's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-Sharp minor and Vivaldi's Spring (La Primavera?), part of the Four Seasons (which was mentioned here!) The first time I heard the Romanian Rhapsody in particular was on the B-side of a scratchy old, worn out record I found at a thrift store one summer whose main title was Gerswin's Rhapsody in Blue (I don't remember either the orchestra or conductor). Despite the noise, it has always been one of my favorite records, and it wouldn't sound right if it weren't all scratched up. I think it dates back to the 50s, so it's mono, too.

I still have that record stored away in a box somewhere. I should go find it and give it a listen.

c

 

[K6JHU]

My introduction to classical music was when I heard Dvorak's 'New World Symphony' and realized it was the music from a 'Flash Gordon' serial