Radio has no interest in music. It is in the advertising business. The record industry has no interest in music. It is in the business of selling pieces of plastic. It is a gigantic machine, almost entirely owned now by international conglomerates, whose only purpose is to accrue profits. It is indifferent to what is on its plastic discs, except insofar as it induces the undiscriminating to buy them. It virtually ignores the discriminating audience because the undiscriminating are so much more numerous.—Gene Lees, The Modern Rhyming Dictionary.
Radio was the tiny stream it all began with. Then came other technical means for reproducing, proliferating, amplifying sound, and the stream became an enormous river. If in the past people would listen to music out of love for music, nowadays it roars everywhere and all the time,
“regardless whether we want to hear it,” it roars from loudspeakers, in cars, in restaurants, in elevators, in the streets, in waiting rooms, in gyms, in the earpieces of Walkmans, music rewritten, reorchestrated, abridged, and stretched out, fragments of rock, of jazz, of opera, a flood of everything jumbled together so that we don’t know who composed it (music become noise is anonymous), so that we can’t tell beginning from end (music become noise has no form): sewage-water music in which music is dying.”—Milan Kundera, Ignorance
Creativity shouldn’t be following radio; it should be the other way around.—Herbie Hancock
Gene Lees, Milan Kundera and Herbie Hancock have all got it right. I have spent a half-century in radio of one kind or another (Armed Forces Radio, local commercial radio – “middle of the road” music (Sinatra, Nat Cole, Peggy Lee, Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass), talk, news and as an international news broadcaster for the Voice of America. It was always the same – if music was the issue, the entire effort was spent on dragging in the largest audience possible. And If that meant Korean folk music, then by God, that’s what we would play. And, with certain courageous hold-outs the exception, that’s also the way the record business committed suicide. So, now what do we have – downloads, iPods, ringtones, twitters, YouTubes, all in one way or the other, products of the internet. It’s the Balkanizing of the audience into tiny slices of humanity, each listening to his own corner of the patchwork quilt. The tastemakers have receded into near silence, licking their wounds as they search for a platform from which to regain the public’s notoriously tin ear. So what am I doing about it?
At the age of 75, I’m starting a jazz show on the dreaded internet. Think of it as “a tiny stream”, in the words of Kundera. Truth be told, it’s an old-fashioned jazz program of the type that offers a variety of music and lets you know what you just listened to rather than keeping you in the dark until “the format” allows the jock to open his/her mouth. It’s the musical taste of one man offered as a possibility that our tastes may link up at certain points. Who knows? It might turn out to be revolutionary.
WARNING – Blatant plug: The show begins March 1st. It’s to be called CyberJazzToday and the web site where you will filnd it will be http://www.cyberjazztoday.com I don’t know whether to call it a “broadcast”, a “podcast” or “old-time radio”, but there it will be. You be the judge. I’m just going to enjoy it.
I tend to agree, but I’m curious as to what prompted this post…?
Researching a project, I came across the Lees paragraph in the introductory chapters of his rhyming dictionary. That sent me in search of others to go with it in the latest installment of the occasional Rifftides Compatible Quotes series. I wasn’t singling out any station, least of all KPLU, Ms. Lloyd’s Seattle-Tacoma jazz station. Singling out offending stations would consume the digital capacity of Rifftides, artsjournal.com and maybe the entire internet.
“Turn up your radio and let me hear the song
Switch on your electric light
Then we can get down to what is really wrong
Turn it up, turn it up, little bit higher, radio
Turn it up, that’s enough, so you know it’s got soul…”
–”Caravan,” Van Morrison
In response to Mr. Birchard’s comments, I humbly would like to add that some of us out here in the wilderness have continued conducting radio shows just as he described. My presentation offers “an old fashioned format” in which I comment on the who, what, where and why and I have never stopped doing that, even when I was still on commercial radio.
My home for the past 12 years has been University of Delaware public radio and though it may be a small outlet, I have not given up or sold out.
Doug can attest to my efforts as he was a fantastic guest on my show in 2003 talking about the Paul Desmond book in lengthy and intricate detail.
Pat Goodhope
“Avenue C”
WVUD 91.3FM & WVUD.org
Wednesday’s 9 PM – 12 Midnight Eastern Time
When I turned on the radio in 1978 to 1985, it was inspiring & informative, which was all I needed for my musical progress. I recorded loads of 1-hour jazz musicians’ profiles on tapes, on cassettes, to be precise.
On the 10th anniversary of Duke Ellington’s death, young folks like me had the chance to find at least a dozen broadcasts covering not only his whole recording career from 1924 to 1974, but they were also focusing on specific aspects of his work: “The Duke Ellington Suites”, “The DE Small Bands”, “The DE Carnegie Hall Concerts”, “DE As A Pianist”, etc. — In Germany’s radio culture of the 21st Century, this would hardly be possible.
Particularly jazz radio is mostly about the newest release by X, Y, or Z, but it doesn’t care for “education” anymore; to find something of jazz historical content is almost impossible, and if there are such kind of “old fashioned” jazz broadcasts, they would be aired long after midnight; just as if they would like to hide those precious sounds (the great big bands are filed under “easy listening”, to name just one of hundreds of misinterpretations).
The very same for New Music, or anything which would be off the mainstream, or subculture, or only “too inconvenient for the average listener”.
And the worst is: They don’t give a damn. It’s almost impossible to find a common theme: Everything is cut down to digestible nibbles à la “No! Don’t let us overtax the listener.”
Maybe I’m sounding too pessimistic, too emotional perhaps? Well, music is about emotion, it should not degenerate to “Muzak”.
Every time I’m visiting the dentist of my trust, he is turning off the radio. Why? Because I told him he would lose a patient if he wouldn’t turn off that crappy “Radio Köln” station.
Especially as a trumpeter you need an able, a focused dentist, who is not distracted by annoying commercials which are always louder than the actual “music”.
Can’t agree – with the advent of internet radio there are more and more stations available than ever before. It is as easy to listen to Pat Goodhope or Mr. Birchard’s radio broadcast as it is the local MegaWatt station.
University stations, local independents, even in-house stations of hospitals and such can be easily tuned in. The biggest problem, in fact, is the embarrassment of riches.
Put me squarely in the camp reinforcing John Birchard’s practice of introducing the music as it is being played, back-announcing it afterwards, saying enough that the listener learns something about the music and the music makers, enough to connect the dots after many such encounters, and to add to one’s collection that which grabs our interest. That’s how I learned enough about jazz to begin listening, identify artists and music I enjoyed, and begin a collection that now includes nearly 4,000 LPs and more than that number of CDs.
I ABHORE the long-standing practice of back-announcing a half hour’s worth of music, which I find highly destructive of all of the process described above. When I hear something I like, I want to know whose name is on the recording, who played nice solos, who wrote the chart, and who was in the band. I don’t know which genius radio programmer came up with the current practice, but a special place in hell ought to be reserved for her. Half the time, by the time the announcement is made, I’ve either stopped listening to do something else, or been interrupted, or even forgotten which of the tracks in sequence I liked and their identifying characteristics.
Back to the days of REAL jazz DJs, like Dick Martin, Dick Buckley, Daddy-o Daylie, and Sid McCoy.
…and Jimmy Lyons, Chuck Niles, Al Collins, Norm Bobrow, Willis Conover, Frank Evans, Sleepy Stein, Ted O’Reilly, Ross Porter, Felix Grant, Yvonne Daniels, Bill Randle, Harry Abraham, Joe Rico, Ed Beach, Mort Fega, Pat Henry, Fred Robbins, Gene Norman, Joel Dorn——none of whom were forced into corporate formatting that imposes arbitrary limits on microphone time, reducing much of not only jazz radio, but radio in general, to the automated blandness of pre-programmed wireless juke boxes.
Who played the tenor solo on that last record? You’ll never know, because the broadcaster providing the few words allowed by the formatters (who may be computers) is not allowed to tell you. Full disclosure of information about the music is against the rules. Keep it bland. Keep it moving. As Carlita Kaunda points out in her comment, there are exceptions, most of them public and college stations. But even many of them have succumbed to the restricted-format miasma that has seeped from the commercial combines into the independent radio sector. It is no wonder that disgruntled listeners like John Birchard are taking matters into their own hands and establishing podcasts. Maybe that’s the future of jazz broadcasting. Will podcasting develop a business model to make it worthwhile for John and others like him to expend all that time and effort? Maybe—about the same time that blogging does.
Another mind opener for me was provided by Dick Martin who, after playing a Basie record one night in the ’50s, said, “That sounded like Al Grey’s trombone.” I decided that this guy Dick Martin must be pretty hip — he could distinguish one player from another, hearing only his playing, with no liner notes — and I resolved to learn how to do that myself. Only one of many things I’ve learned by listening to the great jazz jocks.
I hosted a jazz show on NPR affiliate WICN-FM located in Worcester, MA for over two years, and caught flak for back-announcing too. In days of yore, all the djs I idolized conveyed this vital information to me while extending the courtesy of acknowledging the side-men, many of whom were major players and leaders in their own right. At the risk of taking advantage of this opportunity to direct you there, may I offer http://SloaneView@blogspot.com where I posted on this topic on January 23rd, followed by my fond recollections of Bob Brookmeyer.
Sorry, Doug, but a podcast is not broadcasting, it’s a stream of bits & bytes, and so it can’t be compared with a full-frequency stereo (or, in the early days, mono) signal, be it analogue or digital.
This compression will take the magic of a real radio broadcast away. Browsing the internet is something entirely different than turning the control knobs of your VHF tuner.
Then, in the old days you could call your favorite jazz announcer, and talk to him in real life which is hardly possible today.
The internet is only a crutch, an imitation of life – if you allow me the little reference to film history -, and it’s an entirely different medium than old time stream radio which I’m really dearly missing.
Listening to jazz on the radio, to hear the voice of a real person at the other end (yes, it can almost feel like a telephone call) who is bringing in his personal emotions when he would be listening with you to his favorite music, or the music he has to broadcast, all this can’t be substituted by any podcast.
And think about that: Who is really listening? And when: How is she/he listening? Is she/he sitting in front of the computer, giving them sounds time to reach her/his heart & soul, or is the listener washing dishes, watching TV, or cleaning the windows while the podcast is playing? Since a podcast is a totally depersonalized medium, we will never know what really happens at the other end.
Okay, one thing *do* they have in common, the old radio and a podcast, but this depends on the size of your speakers: The sound can be as crappy as a vintage, worn out shellac.
Alas, we can’t turn back the clock, as one of my jazz journalist friends told me some days ago, can we?
P.S. — Since this is a very interesting article, I have reposted an old one of mine, linked with yours. Feel free to go HERE
As a retired audio engineer, I’m quite sensitive to sound quality, but I’m also part of at least two generations who got our jazz via AM radio from half a continent away (or shortwave radio from 5,000 miles away), with signals fading in and out of the noise, interference from other stations, and distortion from selective fading. Thus, while I’m no fan of data compression, I must strongly disagree with Brew with respect to internet broadcasting. A good quality internet stream (64Kbits or better, 15kHz bandwidth, signal processing designed for the internet), sounds vastly better than those distant AM radio signals we grew up with (5kHz bandwidth typical) that made life-long jazz fans of many of us, and world class musicians of thousands.
And FM broadcasting is far from ideal, especially in the center of big cities, and in areas distant from the relatively low power stations who broadcast jazz. To make matters worse, legions of so-called religious broadcasters have cannabalized the coverage areas of many of these stations, making it more difficult (or impossible) to hear them in outlying areas. That’s what’s happened to me here in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where less than 40 miles from our local jazz station, KCSM, a so-called “community broadcaster” two miles from me dumps non-stop preaching and begging onto KCSM’s channel from a church in Idaho.
That 64K stream is not CD quality, but it sounds pretty good in headphones and on decent stereo speakers.
If I quote Paul Desmond now and then, it’s because much of what he said is worth quoting. Once when we were sitting around drinking Dewars and listening to records, I put on an LP with a Julian Dash tenor solo that I wanted him to hear. The LP had had a hard life and I apologized in advance for the scratches. Paul said, “Let’s not listen to the scratches. Let’s listen to the music. I don’t care if something is on a cracked 78 or a cellophane strip, if I can hear what everyone is doing.”
To expand on one of Jim Brown’s points, think of the legions of musicians around the world who were inspired to play jazz by Willis Conover’s Voice of America broadcasts on shortwave signals that were loaded with atmospheric snaps, crackles, pops and static. They listened to the music.
While I agree in principle with most of this, I don’t think some of the irascible tone is becoming to jazzers. It’s clear, the ‘Net has been a boon for collectors and trivia bugs, as well as a source for listening to radio stations Countrywide, and a meeting-place for fans. As for audio, many of us listened appreciatively for years on a little Magnavox portable through a 7″ speaker. . . .What would benefit jazz with Pop status? Do you really want to have to fight all day to get into a stadium setting and have to watch stoners hanging off staging and see the combo a mile away reproduced on a large screen? I’m often grateful that jazz is an esoteric interest.
Yes, I am with Jim Brown and strongly disagree with Brew.
Listening to radio (be it podcast or live) is a 99.9% passive activity in terms of listener/DJ interaction. The vast majority of listeners – now or then – ever “called the DJ”. And how many broadcasts have you listened to while never knowing if it was pre-recorded?
If your concept of radio is listening to it on a tube “wireless” with a disc jockey spinning vinyl or shellac platters, then no, you “can’t turn back the clock”. Ironic that the weeping about the decline of an older technology is being done at a blog.
But who would want to turn back the clock when there is so much more to hear?
I’m a radio guy, too. Don’t really go with the Golden Age theory, but something seems to be lost in the shuffle mode. My own little perverted take on the subject: http://bit.ly/tYtlfD
Radio is a radio is a radio is a radio.
By Brewdude Stone
That’s the spirit, Steve!
Doug, many thanks for jump starting this fascinating dialogue relative to jazz radio. I’m proud to say I’ve been a weekly jazz show host for nearly 40 years, starting as an undergrad at WKSU – Kent State University. Currently I host the weekly – thoroughly non-formatted – program “Ancient Future,” which is part of a daily M-F Morning Drivetime Jazz stream 5:00-8:00am on WPFW 89.3 FM, serving the Washington, DC metro community as part of the Pacifica network, and streaming live at http://www.wpfw.org. Happily we are under no playlist or formatting restrictions, leaving me the freedom to do my own formatting in segments; befitting the program theme Ancient Future I literally range from the classic to the contemporary in the course of my 3 hours. My program is likely to range from Pops to Vijay Iyer during the course of a given program, and we’re quite proud at WPFW to present this kind of progressive radio.
In reading the various comments relative to the practice of back-announcing and restrictions on the length & breadth of information a programmer may provide, I was left with one question I’d like to pose to your readers: Is it their listening preference to experience a stream – or set – of selections (I’d say 2-3 max), with pre-announce and tasteful back-announcing, or would they prefer what two of the great legends of jazz radio – Oscar Treadwell and Felix Grant – chose to deliver: one selection at a time, with concise (and at times expansive, but always in good taste and good humor) and informative pre-announce intros?
There are several ways to look at that question, I suppose with the modern perspective being based on the wall-to-wall music selections favored by Sirius-XM, cable tv jazz services, and the various internet services like Pandora. I mention that because our station is one which enables listeners to call for information or clarity and while the vast majority of my calls are either purely for information (they perhaps missed either an intro or outro, or a spelling) or the purely complimentary. However I was somewhat mildly amused by a call I got during my annual year-end survey show – something I call “Songs That Made the Phones Ring” (stolen from Joel Dorn’s compilation “Songs That Made the Phones Light Up”), where throughout the year I make note of tracks listeners respond to with calls and run that list of tracks as a sort of listener’s choice listing at year’s end. I was striving to provide sufficient information on those jazz artists we lost during the year when a listener called to complain that I ought to be running a talk show. Obviously you can’t please all of the listeners all of the time. Thanks again for your initial post which prompted so many responses.
I goofed in leaving the great Cincinnati jazz broadcaster Oscar Treadwell off my mostly top-of-the-head list.
“An Oscar For Treadwell”!!
Perhaps the comment in Mr. Sullivan’s message resides in the exclamation points. He refers to a Charlie Parker tune, based on “I Got Rhythm,” named in honor of Oscar Treadwell, who at the time was doing his disc jockeying in Philadelphia. Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Curly Russell and Buddy Rich recorded it in June of 1950. You may listen to it by clicking here.
Willard, I prefer back-announcing since I’m more likely to have an urgent need to know who played the killer bass solo on that last tune than to know who will play a bass solo on the next tune. I think it’s preferable to have the announcements after each tune, especially for a mobile “drive-time” audience. Extended commentary is okay if it’s interesting. The audience for music-only broadcasts is likely to gravitate towards services like Pandora so traditional radio is probably better off focusing on programming that takes advantage of the announcer’s touch.
I’ve been hosting jazz radio programs for 35 years. I’d be glad to have all of you join me tonight for my tribute to Roy Eldridge on his 101st birthday anniversary. Or tomorrow night, when you’ll hear a feature on Frank Wess. On Thursday night I’ll feature Sonny Stitt and Stan Getz. Friday nights are often devoted to recent releases, but two Fridays ago I paid memorial tribute to Johnny Otis and Etta James. I usually back announce the song/CD title/label; some of the players, occasionally the composer and/or the show or movie where the tune originated. Tonight I’ll say something about the cruel realities of the Jim Crow world “Little Jazz” worked in; I may mention that his tune “I Missed My Hat” is based on “I Never Knew.” And I’ll try to do it succinctly. Click on the audio stream at http://www.nepr.net
I’ll mention Roy and his sidemen notwithstanding the fact that in the 35 years I’ve been spinning jazz records on the air, I’ve probably received fewer than 100 inquiries for more information about recordings. My listeners are very indulgent; they like the thematic flow that I strive for, and they respect the hint of historical grandeur that I ascribe to these artists. Thankfully, enough of them also support WFCR with the financial contributions that have sustained “Jazz à la Mode” for 28 years on New England Public Radio.
Music on public radio is an easy target for the disgruntled and rarefied, but since when has radio or any mass medium been a wellspring of creativity? Funny that you should include Herbie Hancock’s apothegm. As true as it reads, Herbie strikes me as being as commercially calculating as any jazz artist of the past half century, and he seems to have done pretty well along the way. Anyway, if creativity means telling you who played that great tenor solo, I’ll gladly be your man.
“Voice” is so important in jazz. (hmm, as it is in radio). Recognizing who’s taking the solo means that player has, in a sense, become a member of one’s family.
Some of the great moments have been watching my wife expand her sphere of recognition beyond Miles and Getz. That won’t happen unless someone tells you in the first place who’s playing. No liner notes, please, but give the audience a chance to build context.
Interesting topic and comments. To me this statement is 100 % true :
“Radio has no interest in music. It is in the advertising business. The record industry has no interest in music. It is in the business of selling pieces of plastic. ”
This does not mean this is the right way. There is a better way of doing things. Except for jazz, I love funk, soul and hip-hop music and this is why I listen to wefunkradio.com. It started as a small college radio station but right now it is world famous and it still resembles best of the genres it concerns and is a platform for new upcoming and talented artist / musicians. My point is no that there is a right way of doing the thing, it’s just that mainstream media chooses the shortcut – the easy way. This is not right and all the music lovers and radio listeners should be critical and whant better quality and better programs and better music. If they play good music, where is the problem to make money out of it ? No problem, I think.
These were my 2 cents.
B.R.
Stoyan