Stephanie,
as someone who has put in close to 20 years of voluntary work at a small,
4200 watts, community station, i have to say that one of the reasons i do it
is so that i, in my own small and limited way, can make sure that some kinds
of music are getting an airing. Sure i enjoy the hell out of doing the show
but i feel a certain sense of mission for it as well.
Last year, after a couple of decades of struggle, our board of directors
decided to sell the license for the station to California State University
of Monterey Bay, so that the station is now a "community service" of the new
campus but not a student-run station, well not yet anyway! but we have no
real way of knowing which politically minded educationalist is going to try
and use the station to their own ends and force it to go in other
directions. The classical programming that does exist at the station is
pretty much top 40 of classics, the jazz programming, with relatively few
exceptions, is very much into a bland form of jazz and certainly does not
begin to cover the full spectrum of the music that the word jazz implies. It
is a struggle to find really knowledgeable programmers who are able to take
their audiences out there and beyond the usually easily delineated stratas
that are accepted as being jazz in the conventional and commercial radio
world!
it is hard to believe that Philadelphia would have so little jazz
programming! This is a city that does have an identifiable musical heritage
and there should be cries for more by jazz fans in that city!
I have given up on terry Gross because there is yet another example of
adherence to what is commercially acceptable and then taking a tremulous
step just half a step beyond that to try to seem hip but not really making
it! My own knowledge of the history of jazz is limited and so i am enjoying
getting some gaping holes filled but i am, like you, waiting to see where
this series goes nearer to the end, i will watch it all though!
leslie/The Power of Sound/www.kazu.org
----- Original Message -----
From: stephanie <nnine@yahoo.com>
To: Leslie N. Shill <icehouse@redshift.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 8:44 AM
Subject: Re: JAZZ
> > I
> > do really like the idea that more people will be
> > exposed to jazz, even if
> > they are already public television watchers
>
> Here in Philly the only jazz station is Temple
> University's station, which is an NPR affiliate. They
> have to share the day with classical music.
>
> A couple years ago, Temple's station was all jazz, and
> there was another station that played classical. The
> classical station folded, and a few months later,
> Temple, strapped for funding and sniffing the
> potential for snooty money, took advantage of the void
> that it left. They struck a deal whereby classical
> would be played during the day and jazz at night, like
> after 6 or 7. It pissed me off b/c nothing makes me
> grumpier in the morning than swelling violins, and
> pissed off jazz folks that jazz was once again being
> relegated to the role of dark, smoky music of the
> night. But better that compromise than to lack either
> one. It was kind of embarrassing to live in a city
> with no classical station, but like 5 classic rock
> stations screaming like treble-heavy banshees.
>
> So I don't know anything about classical music, but my
> friend who does says this station plays the top 40s of
> classical, and remains pissed of as usual. He likes
> the variety of the jazz programming in the other half
> of the day. I'm a little underwhelmed, but it's
> really not bad and I listen in the car all the time.
> There's an excellent show on Friday nights that
> explores the fuzzy badlands of jazz-not-jazz,
> including a lot of the stuff we talk about here.
>
> I noted that last night after "Jazz", the the public
> TV station plugged one of the most respectable jazz
> joints in the city, this cozy little place called
> Ortleibs with killer yam fries and great acts. I
> couldn't help but wonder what kind of swell they would
> experience over the next weeks, and if the audience
> would be expecting old duke ellington tunes.
>
> Why am I yammering on and on? Because I question the
> motives of people who are out to find Jazz and stay in
> the 1920s and 1930s. Take Terry Gross. (ok, obviously
> I spend too much time in my car listening to NPR...)
> Fuckin, she brings in the same people from the same
> time periods to tell the same quaint, dusty stories,
> and I'm sick of it. Has she interviewed Pharoah
> Sanders? Leon Thomas? Eric Truffaz? I'd have to check
> the archives, but I'd venture "no". She did interview
> Lee Scratch Perry and treated him like an idiot when
> he was dropping some pretty spiritual knowledge in a
> poetry that she refused to understand. She interviewed
> Queen Latifa and did the same thing, hit her with some
> obvious feminist-leaning questions
> (boooorrrriiiinngggg...heard it all before...) and
> knew nothing about her real impact or talent. Ok, she
> gets points for getting the saxophonist from the
> Chicago Art Ensemble.
>
> I take Terry Gross as an example of what holds jazz
> back, and keeps the really experimental and new stuff
> from reaching but a token audience. It's ever-so-cool
> to be able to talk a little about the greats, but so
> few people will listen post-Bitches Brew and hear not
> noise, but abstraction....listen to Herbie Hancock and
> hear not cheese but delicate, lacy funk. Mea culpa,
> mea culpa, I was once one of these people. But why has
> it taken so much extra effort to learn the very little
> extra-cirricular jazz that I know? God bless "Jazz
> Bizniz", glory hallelujah.
>
> I continue to yammer with this point in mind: I wonder
> how this series will conclude. Will it do justice to
> contemporary work like that other series "I'll Make Me
> A World", or will it wuss out like most other jazz
> outlets around mid-bebop? How can jazz survive if
> history stops in the mid-1960s for all but the most
> motivated, dedicated, curious minds?
>
> Pisses me off.
>
>
> What else is new.
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 09 2001 - 21:25:50 CET