About a month ago there was a bit of excitement in the air among the smooth jazz community.  After a long streak of smooth jazz radio stations flipping to other formats, including Detroit, it was announced that Smooth Jazz was back in Detroit with 104.7 The Oasis.  And it was good news.  For many smooth jazz fans, radio is still the first place they are going to hear new music (if, indeed, they are lucky enough to tune in at just the right moment to actually hear new music sandwiched in between pop and R&B oldies).  So, yes, it’s great to have smooth jazz back on the air in Detroit.  But before we break out the champagne, it wasn’t good news for local radio personalities; The Oasis is a Smooth Jazz Network affiliate station.  In fact, 19 of the remaining smooth jazz (or just plan ‘smooth’ – as several stations have dropped the ‘jazz’ part of their name) stations are Smooth Jazz Network affiliate stations.

It’s also important to remember that smooth jazz radio basically has no one to blame but itself for making itself practically irrelevant in the first place by peddling a ‘lifestyle’ instead of good music – a topic we’ve discussed at length right here in previous Perspectives articles.  And just as we are beginning to hear CDs that have shed the obligatory smooth jazz "radio friendly" songs and are offering up more exciting and more innovative tracks, I’m not sure I want to see much of a smooth jazz radio comeback. 

Exciting, energized and innovative music has always been there; all you had to do was go to a live show by pretty much any of the smooth jazz artists to find it.  It’s just been missing from the CDs.  I’ve heard on multiple occasions someone comment, “I loved the concert the other night, so I bought a CD!  Man, was I disappointed!”  Now artists have a chance to break away from the “so-smooth-it’s-unnoticeable” tracks the radio stations demanded and put out music the listeners are demanding.  Should have been that way all along. 

Let’s not take a step backwards now, just as things are starting to get interesting again!