Another Threat To Jazz Radio?

A story in today’s Los Angeles Times has this headline:

Straight-ahead jazz may lose its KKJZ-FM gig

And this quote:

"KKJZ is a very famous jazz station and there aren't many more around like them," said Frank Sinatra Jr., son of the singing legend, and a professional musician who lives in West Los Angeles. "[Straight-ahead] jazz is the biggest music in the world, except in the country (where) it was created. It would be such a big loss if they stopped playing jazz. That station is the last lighthouse in the fog."

The story is about what may be the next major step in the decimation of jazz on radio in the United States. Stations across the country are cutting back or abandoning jazz programming. They include independent broadcasters and many National Public Radio affiliates that have dropped NPR’s Jazz Profiles, Jazz Set, and Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. KKJZ’s owner, the Long Beach branch of California State University, is soliciting proposals designed to put the station under management that will make it what the chairman of Pacific Public Radio calls “a cash cow ” for the university. Pacific Public Radio is the current operator of KKJZ and one of five radio companies asked to submit proposals.

To read the Times story, go here.

To listen to KKJZ on your radio in the Los Angeles area, tune to 88.1 FM. To hear it on your computer, go here.

The provost and senior vice president of Cal State Long Beach, the station's license holder, is Dr. Dorothy Abrahamse, e-mail dabraham@csulb.edu