C
cklw800
Guest
On several posts there have been references as to whom the Smooth Jazz format was trying to reach. There's no doubt they wanted the upper class money demo (mostly white). But any genre of music that uses the word "Jazz" will draw a black audience as well because of the historically black association with jazz music. To temper that and attract the money demo, the idea was to use the "mood" music (mostly devoid of ethnicity) and non-ethnic hosts for the most part. For vocals they drew in only the highest charted/testing crossover R&B vocals to give the format some hipness. Some posts said that advertisers were surprised at the number of black audience members and/or the number that show up to some of the venues, especially places like restaurant remotes of Smooth Jazz radio sponsored events. Again, the use of the "J" word and any form of hip music will attract a diverse audience. The format may have been better off as a urban deriviative or better yet stayed with its old new age orientation. As a urban offshoot, listener expectations would not have been so violated. Black and white listeners alike would have appreciated hearing Herbie Hancock's 70s-era music, Roy Ayers and other jazz artists associated with urban music more frequently if at all. In addition some Smooth Jazz stations attempted to get an AC audience by grabbing mostly vocals by Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Bruce Hornsby and the Range and George Michael. But the jazz moniker still brought in listeners who were hoping to hear some wisp of what they were after, and usually got it just enough to stick with the stations for awhile since there were no other choices. Now with Internet and satellite those choices are there. And so many of these posts have directed us to some great jazz radio (not necessarily smooth) sites with the very music we expected from this format. It's made me and apparently many others kind of move away from expecting anything great from radio with this format, helping us to move on. My only problem is access to the sites in my car other than satellite, but an iPod and future technology may resolve that. Folks, we have to embrace new technology like so many other music lovers have. It's painstaking for some who'd rather have the convenience of just turning on the radio, but those days are over. I hope new technology will eventually get us to the point where there's not much labor to getting to enjoy this music while we're mobile and even on the beach (in literal terms, with the sand and water!) 