Life, food, events, and community in Albuquerque, NM
Smooth Jazz Confessions
As it turns out, I've been listening to Smooth Jazz since about 1985. I had just moved to south Orange County, CA. There is a community college there whose radio station (KSBR) has been playing this stuff non-stop for over 20 years now. I don't even know if they were calling it Smooth Jazz at the time, but they sure do now.
When I first was listening in the mid 80's, the format was definitely more loose and quirky than today: Shadowfax, Michael Franks, and of course Sade to name a few.
By the late 80's, the corporate interest definitely kicked in. And boy did they try. That local station called The Horizon was a fine example. It came and went. What I mostly recall about the 90's is that I ended up exploring the jazz from earlier decades, as well as what we now call Indie Jazz.
These days, cruising around Albuquerque, I have no CD changer or satellite radio. I scan the FM dial and, often as not, I hear some Smooth Jazz at 104.1 FM. I would say I genuinely like about 1 out of 10 tunes that they play.
Compared to the 90's, the corporate funders must be loosening up, and getting somewhat smarter. The programming still isn't as quirky as it was, but they are using real humans that make this music to help promote it. Real humans like Dave Koz and Ramsey Lewis provide pleasant, informative banter between songs. I also hear them adding classic jazz tracks to the playlists. Artists like Diana Krall must have clued them into that no brainer!
An interesting side note, Carlos Santana has always had radio play on these stations with tunes like Bella and Primavera.
I am secure enough with myself to make these confessions. So you tell me, do you have any smooth jazz confessions?
When I first was listening in the mid 80's, the format was definitely more loose and quirky than today: Shadowfax, Michael Franks, and of course Sade to name a few.
By the late 80's, the corporate interest definitely kicked in. And boy did they try. That local station called The Horizon was a fine example. It came and went. What I mostly recall about the 90's is that I ended up exploring the jazz from earlier decades, as well as what we now call Indie Jazz.
These days, cruising around Albuquerque, I have no CD changer or satellite radio. I scan the FM dial and, often as not, I hear some Smooth Jazz at 104.1 FM. I would say I genuinely like about 1 out of 10 tunes that they play.
Compared to the 90's, the corporate funders must be loosening up, and getting somewhat smarter. The programming still isn't as quirky as it was, but they are using real humans that make this music to help promote it. Real humans like Dave Koz and Ramsey Lewis provide pleasant, informative banter between songs. I also hear them adding classic jazz tracks to the playlists. Artists like Diana Krall must have clued them into that no brainer!
An interesting side note, Carlos Santana has always had radio play on these stations with tunes like Bella and Primavera.
I am secure enough with myself to make these confessions. So you tell me, do you have any smooth jazz confessions?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by melody on
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In the 1970s and 80s, I collected a lot of albums released by ECM Records. A European label, they specialized in jazz and improvised music albums by artists like Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, Jan Garbarek, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and others.
Later, my tastes became more pedestrian with Shadowfax, Tuck and Pati, Alex DeGrassi and Michael Hedges from Windamhill's smooth jazz catalog.
I never listened to smooth jazz on regular FM radio but I adore my Pandora.com for autoschmaltz.
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