Excellent Turnout-What Next?

About 125 people turned out last night looking for ways to improve jazz radio in Boston. Reps from the major Mass. jazz organizations were in the house, as were a lot of musicians, dj's, promoters, producers, bookers, just plain listeners and the two guys who are in the center of this whole thing-constrained WGBH jazz host Eric Jackson and ex-WGBH jazz host Steve Schwartz. 


No matter what arises in the wake of the meeting, it felt great to be a part of that wizened, caring community. 


It was a lightly moderated forum, with no serious mic hogging. There was a certain amount of sheer venting as well as a lot of concrete ideas. I assume jazzboston.org, organizers of the event, will post what was discussed. I also know that Dick Vacca is writing it up for the JJA. Find details at those sites. My comments will be general. 

Alan Dawson

There were some younger people there last night, including a 19-year-old who said "My generation doesn't listen to the radio." A sobering thought, although not quite accurate. They do listen: to KISS, JAMN WBOS, WERS at night and maybe a few other high wattage stations; not to jazz. As noted last night, education is an important part of growing an audience. The difference between stumbling across a disembodied track by Herbie Hancock that you like and having a knowledgeable DJ put it into historical/cultural context for you is huge.


This is just to say that any strategy undertaken to satisfy the current jazz audience and to grow a new one has to utilize both old and new technologies. There was a lot of energy to try and force redress from WGBH or to approach WBUR, but the current diminished size of the jazz audience means that no high-powered station in Boston with a big monthly nut will take a chance on jazz. Let's concentrate on utilizing those college and smaller non-commercial stations that have the flexibility to be supportive. 


In terms of newer technology, a Boston Jazz Stream would not be free, but with all the knowledge we hold, it's almost a no-brainer. In terms of social media, we have a long way to go. Last night, someone asked how many people in attendance blogged, Facebooked and tweeted about the meeting and I was shocked that so few of us raised our hands. C'mon people. I know you got the smart phones. That's what they're for.

[Ed. note: In the next week or two, I'll be posting an interview with Steve Schwartz.].

Jazz & Radio; A Man, A Plan, A Channel

It makes sense that jazz fans want their music on the radio dial and not just on the internet. Even in the face of streaming stations, Satellite, Pandora, et al, radio continues as a force. The numbers vary, but somewhere between 85-95% of Americans listen to some terrestrial radio every day. Radios are everywhere, easy to operate and you don't have to put quarters in to make them work. The charges (and annoyance factor) are "hidden" in ads and underwriting. Americans, weaned on endless TV and radio ads from a young age, have built up an amazing tolerance for the 15-25 minutes of ads and promos per hour on commercial radio stations and for endless public radio fundraising drives. 

But radio is changing in a way that's very important to anyone who wants jazz (or any other "demographically insignificant" format) on the radio: The idea of a high-power station playing more than one format (multi-format) is disappearing. Public stations, as we are learning, are moving rapidly towards all news/talk. Commercial stations hyper-refine their music formats to maximize desirable demographics and they have stopped the little jazz they used to play on the weekend. There was once some leakage in the tight radio edifice, but like every nook and cranny of urban real estate, all cracks have been accounted for and leveraged for maximum income.

I want to thank Larry Cronin for sending a vision for jazz in Boston radio (posted as a comment in my last post and on a Facebook group). Given the landscape as I see it, he presents a somewhat utopian vision.

I do think the Boston jazz community should unify under one organizational banner, either a new one or a pre-existing one like jazzboston. But, even if it does, it will still have little power at a bargaining table freighted with financial concerns. So, to make any of Larry's proposals happen would require large institutional backing. I agree that a consortium of local colleges would bring considerable weight. The question is, why would they do it? They would have to be convinced that this liaison would either greatly elevate their educational mission, or that it would somehow pay off financially. Either argument can be made, but I don't think either can be successfully made.

Instead, I would propose taking a close look at the following Boston-area college stations; radio resources we could actually leverage:

WMBR

WZBC

WUML

WMFO

WMLN

WZLY

WHRB

WBRS

(WERS is a "professionalized," tightly formatted station and of no use to us).

There's already a lot of jazz scattered through the schedules of these stations-especially WHRB. Taken as a group, I think they represent a tremendous opportunity.

Rah

There are challenges. Some of these stations have strong community components and some don't. We don't know how management at these stations would respond to be approached. Their signals range from moderate to weak, certainly nothing like WGBH. It's a major challenge getting people to tune in at a certain time to get the program they want, as opposed to just going to a number on the dial and knowing what they'll hear. But if the coordination was done right, promotion could be effective. I.e., "You can find Jazz programming 24 hours a day on one of these stations." I'm one of a number of musicians with radio experience, invested in this process, who could provide the person-power.  

There are scores of details that would have to be ironed out, but like Larry's post, this is just a beginning.

On the other hand, AM stations are getting cheaper all the time...

Building a New Jazz House

Jazz people are increasingly having their media sanctuaries taken by eminent domain. Here's the press release: "We got more cars, need bigger highways, something's gotta give. Sorry... Feel free to stand by the highway holding signs, trying to convince drivers to go back home and ride their bikes to work."

"You are a diminishing and not very desirable demographic. We're not saying you're not a wonderful human being, but romance without finance is a nuisance. The bigger the broadcast outlet-and we are the biggest around here-the bigger the gap between your needs and ours."

Ok. I hear you and I accept your explanation.

I'm not happy about having my home bulldozed by the news/public affairs juggernaut (I'd be slightly happier if it wasn't lurching ahead on retread tires). But over the last 15 years I started several pirate radio stations because I knew the game was rigged and I knew the answer was to find another place to hang my porkpie hat. At a certain point, I stopped bad mouthing Clear Channel, as I'm done now with bemoaning the wrong-headed-ness of WGBH. There just ain't no traction in it, nor a convincing moral case. As my recent post about my daughter and her friend clearly showed, art and morality are in the eye of the beholder.

Call it a plea to the jazz community to use this moment to dream a little bit; to look for unthought-of creative solutions. Let's look ahead, not back. Regulatory action is a dead end. Positive actions win hearts. Jazz is at the center of all this. That should give us all the inspiration we need.

Rockin' 'GBH

Last night's jam in front of WGBH demonstrated a beautiful sense of solidarity among the jazz community of Boston. It's impossible to know what the ripple effects of the event will be, but it felt freakin' great to be there.



There are several more videos at this link: http://bit.ly/Ma4Umw

There will be an open meeting at 6PM on Tuesday, July 31st at the Boston Public Library and I hope that some focused goal will emerge, as well as the right strategy to make it happen. B.C. readers are encouraged to send ideas.

Photo by Cherrie Corey  

Jazz & Media-Teenage Perspective

I thought I'd ask my 14 year-old daughter and her same-aged friend what they thought of the whole jazz/WGBH/media thing. Their response was thoughtful-and instructive.

Generally, I wanted to know if they thought that jazz should be left to fend for itself in the marketplace, whether its cultural importance merited some kind of small subsidy through the government, or if public media had a mission to carry it. I made sure they understood the disbursement of "discretionary" funds by Congress, the huge amount spent on the military, pork barrel projects, the small amount I was suggesting each person pay, etc. They seemed to understand.

They are both very into music. In fact, my daughter wants to be a singer. Despite that, neither one thought jazz or classical or any other kind of music should get tax subsidies. Without brow-beating them, I made the case as best I could, but each time, they said that there were more important basic things that should get funded first-the environment, hunger, housing, etc.

If you're invested in this jazz/media campaign-if a campaign it is-it's easy to get frustrated about the fact that to most people, the meaning and history of jazz carry little weight. But such perspectives have to be reckoned with.  Dismissiveness and glib responses will not carry the day. If you are actually interested in changing someone's mind, you have to respect what they have to say, persist, and trust that the weight of your position will eventually win out.

Jazz Exceptionalism and The Media

We all have to reckon with the fiscal concerns at the center of what happened at WGBH, but it also behooves us to make a case for the exceptionalism of jazz.

To begin with, we need to differentiate this campaign from previous grassroots media movements, like Action for Childrens Television or the groups that sprung up to keep Joss Whedon shows on the air. People who lobby for a certain show don't want to kill or resuscitate a type of show. They want their teen angst show. Or, they want certain kinds of advertisers not to pollute kid's shows. Tactically, to get this done, you can target specific sponsors-or networks-and this has worked.

The jazz situation is different. We're talking about the elimination of an entire genre of music from the public airwaves.

"Market forces" are inevitably cited to explain the shrinkage of jazz on WGBH and the radio dial (TV exposure was lost long ago), but jazz advocates can't slough this off as the triumph of crass philistines. The battle won't be won on the basis of good or bad taste. The taste argument leads back to audience size and money, every time.

Instead, look at the historical precedent for a public media mission that allows more than money to be at play in programming decisions. It was a damn good thing back in 1934 and 1967 and is just as important now. Ask the question: what would art, music, theatre and literature in the US look like if they had always been forced to compete in a strict media marketplace environment?

We are asked to hand over our money to the IRS every year for a panoply of nonsensical and reprehensible uses. It makes sense to stand up and demand that valuable aspects of American culture be supported. The evidence that we don't is sobering.

Public media outlets like WGBH must be forced to question whether or not they have drifted from their mission. The need to perpetuate the existence of the organization needs to be balanced by asking the question "why are we here?"

WGBH Decimates Its Jazz Programming

WGBH is now taking an active role in moving jazz onto smaller and smaller radio signals. Steve Schwartz's Friday show is going off the air and Eric Jackson's weekday show is gone. The story is here. There is a fabric that constitutes the Boston-area jazz community and these shows, especially Jackson's daily show, were an important part of it. This is a bad blow for the local jazz community. 


Problem is, the effects of radio programming all have to be "quantified" into numbers and demographics. I had the same problem years ago, when I was a producer for a show called "Ready-To-go, a mostly live children's show on WNEV (now WHDH) TV Channel 7. The audience was there, but relatively expensive production (i.e., local, non syndicated) and an undesirable advertising demographic meant this well-loved show was axed.


Obviously, WGBH is pursuing a long-term goal of grabbing audience share from WBUR, which has had a lock on the local upscale-NPR news/public affairs audience for a long time. Taking this kind of action, for bottom line reasons (and what other reason could there be?) is ok, if you don't mind the acrid whiff of Bain Capital and Mitt Romney. 


There will be pushback. It remains to be seen if a critical mass of music partisans can have any influence on a local media outlet whose mission, over the last couple of years, has grown foggier and foggier.

"Boston Jazz Radio and Government Funding" by Steve Provizer

Looks like the NEA will cut the Jazz Masters program and government funding for PBS and NPR is in jeopardy. How will such cuts effect jazz? I'll just bite off a small piece of it and focus on Boston media.


There's little jazz on TV. Public television has a small stake, carrying awards ceremonies at the Kennedy Center, White House specials, a rare American Masters and the odd Ken Burns documentary. Mr. Rogers used to have great jazz guests. RIP Mr Rogers. Maybe Sesame Street does some. There's no homegrown jazz TV hereabouts. Some years ago, I tried and failed.

In Boston, radio's a different story. Jazz has a strong presence here and an NPR affiliate is one of the major players.

In sheer number of hours, the biggest providers of jazz programming here are WHRB-FM and WGBH-FM. WHRB runs jazz every weekday 5am-1 pm. It is the Harvard-affiliate and not a public radio station. 

There are a number of other college stations which have jazz programs. Jazz Boston.org lists them all, although the list is not necessarily up-to-date (2 of my defunct shows are still listed). Some of the hosts are college students who know little of the music, but some are knowledgeable community members and/or musicians.

WGBH, a powerhouse NPR affiliate, runs local jazz shows 8pm-midnight weekdays and overnight. Their jazz hosts are knowledgeable, if not very adventurous. Last year, WGBH shortened weekday jazz shows by an hour and swapped in a syndicated show for local DJ's overnights.

So what impact would the loss of funding have on local jazz radio? First of all, it would have no direct effect on any of the college stations-including WHRB's 35 hours of jazz a week and their orgy period, which often features hundreds of additional hours of jazz.

And WGBH?

A recent enormous build-out and move combined with the bad economy have forced WGBH to cut back on tv and radio programming budgets. Losing the c. $11 million they get every year from the govt. would be a blow. It's important to note that last year, WGBH made moves to seriously re-position itself in the Boston radio market. In order to challenge the primacy of WBUR-FM and its all-news and public affairs format, WGBH juiced up its talk, eliminated all blues and folk programs and off-loaded its classical programming to a station it acquired-WCRB-FM.

So, it seems a simple enough deduction that, given any significant shortfall in income, WGBH would continue its trajectory and only retain the syndicated overnight jazz programming. Their major jazz show, 4 nights a week, is Eric Jackson's "Eric in the Evening." This is the major shmooze spot for jazz musicians playing in the area. Not my cup of tea, but I think these interviews do help to get people into the seats of local venues(albeit usually the mainstream ones). If "Eric in the Evening" did shut down, local stations with stronger signals than college stations would probably readjust programming to try and grab some of that audience-a pretty desirable demographic.

So, I think the loss of Federal money would not affect the sheer amount of jazz radio programming in Boston. It could de-centralize the radio audience, which might have a democratizing impact on audiences, with higher end acts and venues possibly negatively impacted, but smaller venues getting a boost.

But this is just Boston- a unique radio situation. In many other markets in this country, Public radio provides music, news and public affairs programming that would otherwise simply not be available. I say Federal funding should continue, but that whenever possible, the money should be used to create or buttress local programming that would not otherwise exist in a particular market. 

Abbey Lincoln-"Throw It Away"-by Steve Provizer

I've been a real intellectual yente for the last several posts. I hope those posts have not been without emotional weight, but the death of Abbey Lincoln makes me want to write a piece where emotion leads and analysis creeps along far behind. In the late 1960's, I went to the old WGBH studios to see her then-husband Max Roach record a TV show. I didn't think twice about the fact that she was also performing. I was dazzled initially by her looks, but her voice was much more charismatic than I expected, given the recordings I'd heard. The voice was cloudy, but not smoky; carrying some vibratto, but not a heavy load. Sometimes the edges were sharp, sometimes rounded. She gave songs character and obviously chose material that could handle that investment. Soon after, she went into a period of seclusion, and re-emerged in the 1990's. Then, in 1995, she released the lp "Turtles' Dream." On that album was a song called "Throw It Away" which caught me completely off guard and which remains sui generis in my life. You've heard me say that concerts have made me scream. Movies can sometimes bring a tear, but I never cry to music; except for that damn song. Incredibly, 15 years later, it still has the power to evoke the same intense reaction. Most of the time, I actually try to avoid it, because if I hear it, the rest of the day becomes mere prelude or postlude. On the other hand, when something intense is happening in my life, and I can't get to the emotional root, I seek it out. It burns away the bullshit. You can find the song here and the lyrics here.