By Luke Willson
It’s rush hour. You’re stuck in your car on the Dan Ryan at fifteen miles per hour. You have no internet. No XM Satellite. And you’re desperate for… jazz radio. What do you do? What Do You Do?
Before last January, the clear signal of WBEZ 91.5 provided Chicago with jazz eight hours a day, four days a week. These days, listeners are forced to sift through the static of WDCB 90.9. And, most aficionados would probably puke before listening to the smooth sounds of WNUA 95.5.
“Historically, Chicago is such an important growth place for jazz,” said Bradley Williams, a Jazz Studies Professor at DePaul University. “It seems strange that it’s faded away here. Hopefully, it’s just temporary, but I’m not sure the people who are making records have a place to be heard on the air.”
That’s a concern echoed by Chicago Public Radio’s Dan Bindert, local host of Weekend Edition and jazz enthusiast. He says that musicians have lost forty to fifty percent of exposure due to the switch to the news format at WBEZ last January.
“When WBEZ cancelled jazz programming, people wrote to the editor and wrote articles that all seemed to jump to the conclusion that it was cancelled due to a lack of audience,” said Bindert. “But, we had a large audience.”
Nevertheless, there seems to be a reservation that the glory days of jazz on the radio have disappeared. Even college stations have stopped playing it.
“Our target audience is primarily young adults from 18 to 24,” said Scott Vyverman, Faculty Advisor for WDRP Radio DePaul. “It is fair to say that jazz music is probably not the music that our target audience listens to with great frequency.”
He might be right. While Northwestern University Radio WNUR 89.3 has fairly extensive jazz programming, it can’t be picked up in the city. Other local colleges, such as DePaul and Columbia, have very little jazz in their programming at all.
It seems that Chicago’s jazz lovers are going to have to enter the 21st century, even if their tastes remain in the 20th. Online radio is replacing terrestrial radio, and, in some ways, is doing a better job. Broadcast stations have little chance of pleasing all jazz listeners, let alone everyone else. With the amount of fragmentation in tastes and styles, coming to an accepted definition within the genre is impossible.
“In general, people want variety on the radio up to a point,” said Bindert. “The person who tunes in for a Lester Young record from the ‘40s doesn’t want to hear somebody plugged in to an electric guitar with screaming syncs, electronic effects and hip-hop influence. It’s hard to connect all the audiences. There are a lot of open-minded people out there, but it becomes unwieldy in the radio format”
Online radio can reach millions, separated by thousands of miles. Now that listeners can stream stations dedicated to specific styles, from Dixieland to Avante-Garde, the possibilities for jazz may be growing.
It’s rush hour. You’re stuck in your car on the Dan Ryan at fifteen miles per hour. You have no internet. No XM Satellite. And you’re desperate for… jazz radio. What do you do? What Do You Do?
Before last January, the clear signal of WBEZ 91.5 provided Chicago with jazz eight hours a day, four days a week. These days, listeners are forced to sift through the static of WDCB 90.9. And, most aficionados would probably puke before listening to the smooth sounds of WNUA 95.5.
“Historically, Chicago is such an important growth place for jazz,” said Bradley Williams, a Jazz Studies Professor at DePaul University. “It seems strange that it’s faded away here. Hopefully, it’s just temporary, but I’m not sure the people who are making records have a place to be heard on the air.”
That’s a concern echoed by Chicago Public Radio’s Dan Bindert, local host of Weekend Edition and jazz enthusiast. He says that musicians have lost forty to fifty percent of exposure due to the switch to the news format at WBEZ last January.
“When WBEZ cancelled jazz programming, people wrote to the editor and wrote articles that all seemed to jump to the conclusion that it was cancelled due to a lack of audience,” said Bindert. “But, we had a large audience.”
Nevertheless, there seems to be a reservation that the glory days of jazz on the radio have disappeared. Even college stations have stopped playing it.
“Our target audience is primarily young adults from 18 to 24,” said Scott Vyverman, Faculty Advisor for WDRP Radio DePaul. “It is fair to say that jazz music is probably not the music that our target audience listens to with great frequency.”
He might be right. While Northwestern University Radio WNUR 89.3 has fairly extensive jazz programming, it can’t be picked up in the city. Other local colleges, such as DePaul and Columbia, have very little jazz in their programming at all.
It seems that Chicago’s jazz lovers are going to have to enter the 21st century, even if their tastes remain in the 20th. Online radio is replacing terrestrial radio, and, in some ways, is doing a better job. Broadcast stations have little chance of pleasing all jazz listeners, let alone everyone else. With the amount of fragmentation in tastes and styles, coming to an accepted definition within the genre is impossible.
“In general, people want variety on the radio up to a point,” said Bindert. “The person who tunes in for a Lester Young record from the ‘40s doesn’t want to hear somebody plugged in to an electric guitar with screaming syncs, electronic effects and hip-hop influence. It’s hard to connect all the audiences. There are a lot of open-minded people out there, but it becomes unwieldy in the radio format”
Online radio can reach millions, separated by thousands of miles. Now that listeners can stream stations dedicated to specific styles, from Dixieland to Avante-Garde, the possibilities for jazz may be growing.
