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by Shannon West
2008 did not start well for the smooth jazz radio format. In early February, heritage smooth jazzer WQCD in New York City changed their format to adult rock. The station had its ups and downs over the years, but they hung in there for almost two decades. Until now. From there it was a row of dominoes falling down. The station in Washington DC flipped to oldies, Houston to Top 40 and Denver to Sports Talk. Jacksonville and Savannah, two stations that are owned by a small company that is struggling financially, flipped to Urban A/C and Gospel respectively. Even a small AM in Connecticut took its hat out of the smooth jazz ring. Needless to say, there was panic from within the industry and from listeners and smooth jazz fans nationwide. Headlines in trade publications proclaimed "The Beginning of the End," and blogs and forums picked up the theme and ran with it.
What I couldn't help but wonder is, how nobody noticed that these stations had already changed formats for all practical purposes. They just hadn't changed their names. They sounded nothing like the smooth jazz stations that listeners originally got hooked on, even when the consultant that led them away from instrumental music was getting its first power surge. A new approach to the format has been in the works and stations are already beginning to adopt a new name. The format - Smooth Adult Contemporary, the positioner - Smooth FM. Had the change been so gradual that listeners didn't notice it, or had the format become such a background entity that people just played it without really listening anymore? Did they just keep lowering their expectations and settling for less and less as the musical focus narrowed and shifted to something entirely different, until they had forgotten entirely what attracted them in the first place?
Think of some big names in the genre. The ones that have some type of hit making history and draw so much adulation during festivals and cruises. These are some that come to mind: Boney James, Dave Koz, Peter White, Euge Groove, Mindi Abair, George Benson, Spyro Gyra, The Rippingtons, Bob James, David Benoit, Earl Klugh, Steve Cole, Gerald Albright, Acoustic Alchemy, Najee, Norman Brown, Marion Meadows, Special EFX w. Chieli Minucci, Ken Navarro, Craig Chaquico, Fourplay, Larry Carlton, Paul Taylor, Richard Elliot, Rick Braun, Kim Waters, Warren Hill, Hiroshima, Everette Harp, Eric Marienthal, Steve Oliver, Marc Antoine, Lee Ritenour, Eric Darius, Jeff Golub. Jeff Lorber, Joe Sample, Chris Botti, Grover Washington Jr., Kirk Whalum. The list could obviously go on, but why bother? These artists are not showing up with any regularity on current smooth jazz radio playlists unless they record a cover of an old song or have a crossover hit from the 70s that still gets some spins. Some have disappeared from the airwaves completely. Now stand back a little bit and see if what is really getting played merits freaking out over the loss. As I was sitting down to write this I hit the websites of several successful "smooth jazz" stations that post the playlist for the last hour on their websites. These are successful major market stations that have been in the format for a long time. Here is what they actually played, with a few editorial comments, when I simply couldn't hold back.
Station 1: Toni Braxton - "Unbreak My Heart", Gino Vanelli - "I Just Want to Stop", Gladys Knight and the Pips - "Midnight Train To Georgia," Marvin Gaye - "Sexual Healing" , Doobie Bros. -"Minute by Minute," Bill Withers - "Lean On Me," a cover from Kenny G ("I Like The Way You Move") and a 30 year old song from Grover ("Winelight"). They did slip Euge Groove's "Mr. Groove" in there. I guess to remind people that artists are actually still recording new material.
Station 2: Four Tops - "Ain't No Woman Like The One I Got," Ambrosia - "That's How Much I Feel," Sade - "Smooth Operator," Marvin Gaye - "What's Goin' On," Terrence Trent D'Arby - "Sign Your Name," covers from JeffLorber ("Ain't Nobody") and Boney James ("Creepin"), Brubeck's 45+ year old "Take Five," and Alpert's 28 year old "Rise." They played one original instrumental, Bob James' "Restless" from the early 90s.
Station 3: The new Alicia Keys song, "Take Five" (does everyone play this to show that they play "jazz"?), Art Of Noise - "Moments In Love," "I Just Want To Stop," a 20 year old Najee song (he has put out a lot of fabulous music since then!), 30 year old songs from the O'Jays ("I Love Music") and Billy Paul ("Me and Mrs. Jones"). They did slip Mindi's new one in somewhere between Brubeck and AON.
Station 4: Have A Nice Day 'cause we're doing the 70s big time! Commodores - "Easy," Stevie Wonder - "You Are The Sunshine..," Roberta Flack - "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" Isley Bros.- "For Love Of You," Gato Barbieri's "Europa" and U-Nam's cover of the Crusader's 70s hit "Street Life." They dipped into the 60s for Booker T's "Green Onions" and did tread into the 90s for a Tesh cover of Elton's "Can You Feel The Love Tonight," and Tracy Chapman's oft-played "Give Me One Reason."
Station 5: The last station I checked in on is the future that folks who still have a smooth jazz station in their market can look forward to. This is a station that has already begun calling themselves "Smooth FM" and shifted almost totally to vocals, mostly old vocals. Hall and Oates - "She's Gone," James Ingram - "I00 Ways,"(aka "100,000 Plays") Queen Latifa - "Poetry Man," George Benson - "On Broadway," Celine Dion - "Because You Loved Me," "Sexual Healing," Billy Joel w. Ray Charles - "Baby Grand," Herbie Hancock with Christina Aguliera - "A Song For You." They did play an instrumental - Paul Hardcastle's 80s hit and format staple, "Rainforest." Checking in about two hours later, I found more Billy Joel, the inevitable "Unbreak My Heart," Boz Scaggs - "Lowdown," the equally inevitable Vanessa Williams and EWF, and Kenny Loggin's "Whenever I Call You Friend." Oh, they did sneak in Koz's "You Make Me Smile."
Obviously, my reaction to the DC station flipping to oldies was, "Who will notice the difference?" These stations are already spending most of their time in the 60s and 70s!
Yeah, you can look at the smooth jazz chart and see that some original instrumentals are making it into the top 10. But dig deeper and you find that the songs that are topping the charts this year usually get only about half as many spins as songs at the same chart position a few years ago. The percentage is significantly less for songs in the bottom half of the chart. There is no way for a new song to get noticed by listeners if it is only getting played once or twice a day, and never during drive time. What is really scary, though, is the absence of the artists who should be our core image artists, like the ones listed above. Even the ones who still get some play are getting phased out, and a lot of their biggest hit songs have disappeared. The powers that be say research has shown that smooth jazz radio listeners don't want to hear smooth jazz on the radio. Comments on a blog that speculated about the future of Atlanta's station told a different story. These were "real people," not so-called jazz aficionados and their comments were overwhelmingly on the side of "please play less oldies and pop crossovers. Give us more smooth jazz. That's what we came to you for." A lot of them stuck with the station because it was still a better option than anything else on the dial. The station's ratings are in a tailspin, which would seem to reflect a good number of listeners getting tired of settling for less and just turning their radios off.
On the surface it would seem like these format flips would hurt sales, but that damage has already been done. The format already abandoned current music, quit breaking artists or creating a high profile for the ones they were playing, and became a background music format. A music mix that is designed to be unnoticeable will not motivate listeners to make music purchases. The "click to buy" links on a station playlist will just get you Greatest Hits collections by stars from days gone by anyway. The only tangible effect these flips will have is that it hurts the artists' chances of booking live gigs, which is also becoming the main way to rack up some CD sales and show your audience what you really sound like. Promoters are still stuck in a bygone era. They watch the airplay charts to see who is worth booking. Plus, a lot of bookings come from station-sponsored events. No station means no events. Passionate independent promoters are working hard to fill in the gap, but radio stations are still the most effective way to get the word out about a concert. It's much harder to draw a big crowd without them.
Turn your radio on, or go online and listen to one of the big corporate smooth jazz radio stations. Don't just turn it on and let it play in the background, really listen. You might get a Boney, Euge or Mindi if you stick around long enough but you'll have to sit through a lot of other stuff to in the process. It will be like those makeover candidates on ""What Not To Wear" when they get that first glimpse in the three-way mirror and can't believe it's really what they look like. When you listen closely, you probably won't believe what these stations really sound like.
Spring is when Southern gardeners take out the clippers and have at it. We have to do some serious pruning, because some plants only bloom on new growth and others are so overgrown that they are blocking the sun or choking out the other plants. Crepe Myrtles have to be whacked back to the base of the branches or they won't show their beautiful blooms in midsummer. Mexican Petunias and Jasmine are beautiful, but if you let them run amuck, you won't have anything else left. Looking out on a garden that has just been pruned back for the coming season is a scary thing - all those nubs close to the ground that used to be flowering bushes, all those bare patches that haven't yet been filled in with annuals. In just a few months, it will be a beautiful thing. It won't look just like it did last year, but it won't look just like it does right now either.
As these stations started to make their changes, a lot of the people who had been exiled from the format when a small clique took over, started speaking out. The first step in solving a problem is admitting that it is there. After the hush was broken, people started sharing ideas, and creative sparks are starting to ignite in all kinds of interesting places. The spring thaw has begun, and if it takes some drastic pruning to make way for new and better things, then we can all take care of each other as the dormant season ends and the blooming process begins again.
Link to Blog with listener comments re: their smooth jazz station.
What I couldn't help but wonder is, how nobody noticed that these stations had already changed formats for all practical purposes. They just hadn't changed their names. They sounded nothing like the smooth jazz stations that listeners originally got hooked on, even when the consultant that led them away from instrumental music was getting its first power surge. A new approach to the format has been in the works and stations are already beginning to adopt a new name. The format - Smooth Adult Contemporary, the positioner - Smooth FM. Had the change been so gradual that listeners didn't notice it, or had the format become such a background entity that people just played it without really listening anymore? Did they just keep lowering their expectations and settling for less and less as the musical focus narrowed and shifted to something entirely different, until they had forgotten entirely what attracted them in the first place?
Think of some big names in the genre. The ones that have some type of hit making history and draw so much adulation during festivals and cruises. These are some that come to mind: Boney James, Dave Koz, Peter White, Euge Groove, Mindi Abair, George Benson, Spyro Gyra, The Rippingtons, Bob James, David Benoit, Earl Klugh, Steve Cole, Gerald Albright, Acoustic Alchemy, Najee, Norman Brown, Marion Meadows, Special EFX w. Chieli Minucci, Ken Navarro, Craig Chaquico, Fourplay, Larry Carlton, Paul Taylor, Richard Elliot, Rick Braun, Kim Waters, Warren Hill, Hiroshima, Everette Harp, Eric Marienthal, Steve Oliver, Marc Antoine, Lee Ritenour, Eric Darius, Jeff Golub. Jeff Lorber, Joe Sample, Chris Botti, Grover Washington Jr., Kirk Whalum. The list could obviously go on, but why bother? These artists are not showing up with any regularity on current smooth jazz radio playlists unless they record a cover of an old song or have a crossover hit from the 70s that still gets some spins. Some have disappeared from the airwaves completely. Now stand back a little bit and see if what is really getting played merits freaking out over the loss. As I was sitting down to write this I hit the websites of several successful "smooth jazz" stations that post the playlist for the last hour on their websites. These are successful major market stations that have been in the format for a long time. Here is what they actually played, with a few editorial comments, when I simply couldn't hold back.
Station 1: Toni Braxton - "Unbreak My Heart", Gino Vanelli - "I Just Want to Stop", Gladys Knight and the Pips - "Midnight Train To Georgia," Marvin Gaye - "Sexual Healing" , Doobie Bros. -"Minute by Minute," Bill Withers - "Lean On Me," a cover from Kenny G ("I Like The Way You Move") and a 30 year old song from Grover ("Winelight"). They did slip Euge Groove's "Mr. Groove" in there. I guess to remind people that artists are actually still recording new material.
Station 2: Four Tops - "Ain't No Woman Like The One I Got," Ambrosia - "That's How Much I Feel," Sade - "Smooth Operator," Marvin Gaye - "What's Goin' On," Terrence Trent D'Arby - "Sign Your Name," covers from JeffLorber ("Ain't Nobody") and Boney James ("Creepin"), Brubeck's 45+ year old "Take Five," and Alpert's 28 year old "Rise." They played one original instrumental, Bob James' "Restless" from the early 90s.
Station 3: The new Alicia Keys song, "Take Five" (does everyone play this to show that they play "jazz"?), Art Of Noise - "Moments In Love," "I Just Want To Stop," a 20 year old Najee song (he has put out a lot of fabulous music since then!), 30 year old songs from the O'Jays ("I Love Music") and Billy Paul ("Me and Mrs. Jones"). They did slip Mindi's new one in somewhere between Brubeck and AON.
Station 4: Have A Nice Day 'cause we're doing the 70s big time! Commodores - "Easy," Stevie Wonder - "You Are The Sunshine..," Roberta Flack - "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" Isley Bros.- "For Love Of You," Gato Barbieri's "Europa" and U-Nam's cover of the Crusader's 70s hit "Street Life." They dipped into the 60s for Booker T's "Green Onions" and did tread into the 90s for a Tesh cover of Elton's "Can You Feel The Love Tonight," and Tracy Chapman's oft-played "Give Me One Reason."
Station 5: The last station I checked in on is the future that folks who still have a smooth jazz station in their market can look forward to. This is a station that has already begun calling themselves "Smooth FM" and shifted almost totally to vocals, mostly old vocals. Hall and Oates - "She's Gone," James Ingram - "I00 Ways,"(aka "100,000 Plays") Queen Latifa - "Poetry Man," George Benson - "On Broadway," Celine Dion - "Because You Loved Me," "Sexual Healing," Billy Joel w. Ray Charles - "Baby Grand," Herbie Hancock with Christina Aguliera - "A Song For You." They did play an instrumental - Paul Hardcastle's 80s hit and format staple, "Rainforest." Checking in about two hours later, I found more Billy Joel, the inevitable "Unbreak My Heart," Boz Scaggs - "Lowdown," the equally inevitable Vanessa Williams and EWF, and Kenny Loggin's "Whenever I Call You Friend." Oh, they did sneak in Koz's "You Make Me Smile."
Obviously, my reaction to the DC station flipping to oldies was, "Who will notice the difference?" These stations are already spending most of their time in the 60s and 70s!
Yeah, you can look at the smooth jazz chart and see that some original instrumentals are making it into the top 10. But dig deeper and you find that the songs that are topping the charts this year usually get only about half as many spins as songs at the same chart position a few years ago. The percentage is significantly less for songs in the bottom half of the chart. There is no way for a new song to get noticed by listeners if it is only getting played once or twice a day, and never during drive time. What is really scary, though, is the absence of the artists who should be our core image artists, like the ones listed above. Even the ones who still get some play are getting phased out, and a lot of their biggest hit songs have disappeared. The powers that be say research has shown that smooth jazz radio listeners don't want to hear smooth jazz on the radio. Comments on a blog that speculated about the future of Atlanta's station told a different story. These were "real people," not so-called jazz aficionados and their comments were overwhelmingly on the side of "please play less oldies and pop crossovers. Give us more smooth jazz. That's what we came to you for." A lot of them stuck with the station because it was still a better option than anything else on the dial. The station's ratings are in a tailspin, which would seem to reflect a good number of listeners getting tired of settling for less and just turning their radios off.
On the surface it would seem like these format flips would hurt sales, but that damage has already been done. The format already abandoned current music, quit breaking artists or creating a high profile for the ones they were playing, and became a background music format. A music mix that is designed to be unnoticeable will not motivate listeners to make music purchases. The "click to buy" links on a station playlist will just get you Greatest Hits collections by stars from days gone by anyway. The only tangible effect these flips will have is that it hurts the artists' chances of booking live gigs, which is also becoming the main way to rack up some CD sales and show your audience what you really sound like. Promoters are still stuck in a bygone era. They watch the airplay charts to see who is worth booking. Plus, a lot of bookings come from station-sponsored events. No station means no events. Passionate independent promoters are working hard to fill in the gap, but radio stations are still the most effective way to get the word out about a concert. It's much harder to draw a big crowd without them.
Turn your radio on, or go online and listen to one of the big corporate smooth jazz radio stations. Don't just turn it on and let it play in the background, really listen. You might get a Boney, Euge or Mindi if you stick around long enough but you'll have to sit through a lot of other stuff to in the process. It will be like those makeover candidates on ""What Not To Wear" when they get that first glimpse in the three-way mirror and can't believe it's really what they look like. When you listen closely, you probably won't believe what these stations really sound like.
Spring is when Southern gardeners take out the clippers and have at it. We have to do some serious pruning, because some plants only bloom on new growth and others are so overgrown that they are blocking the sun or choking out the other plants. Crepe Myrtles have to be whacked back to the base of the branches or they won't show their beautiful blooms in midsummer. Mexican Petunias and Jasmine are beautiful, but if you let them run amuck, you won't have anything else left. Looking out on a garden that has just been pruned back for the coming season is a scary thing - all those nubs close to the ground that used to be flowering bushes, all those bare patches that haven't yet been filled in with annuals. In just a few months, it will be a beautiful thing. It won't look just like it did last year, but it won't look just like it does right now either.
As these stations started to make their changes, a lot of the people who had been exiled from the format when a small clique took over, started speaking out. The first step in solving a problem is admitting that it is there. After the hush was broken, people started sharing ideas, and creative sparks are starting to ignite in all kinds of interesting places. The spring thaw has begun, and if it takes some drastic pruning to make way for new and better things, then we can all take care of each other as the dormant season ends and the blooming process begins again.
Link to Blog with listener comments re: their smooth jazz station.
