For the last few years one of the hottest topics in the smooth jazz community has been the “aging out” of the radio format and the effect that it is having on the music. It’s a legitimate concern. Other genres have outgrown their reliance on radio as the main way to expose the music, but for reasons that may have to do with boomers clinging too long to the old ways, smooth jazz artists still focus on radio as the way to get their music heard. Radio formats that start to pull mostly listeners over 45 tend to go away because advertising agencies are just not interested in 45-64 year olds. That’s why you only hear Beautiful Music stations (aka Elevator Music) in areas with a lot of retirement communities. Now the “Cool-FM” type stations that play fifties and sixties oldies are either changing formats entirely or shifting towards a 70s-driven classic hits approach. Smooth Jazz stations, which rely heavily on oldies and songs that reference oldies, are now following suit as some heritage stations that have solid ratings have flipped to formats that appeal to a more marketable demographic. So the questions that come up most often are how do we get young listeners, where will we find the young musicians and fans that will bring some life to the format? We do need to cultivate a wider fan base, and we do need to bring in fresh artists, interesting music and a fresh perspective. But is youth really the answer? Is feeding off youth culture necessary? Is it possible that there is such a thing as too young?

When some executives saw that the average age of their audience was creeping towards 50, they freaked out and started trying to figure out how to chase 20-year-olds. There is even a lot of discussion about how to get teenagers interested. Do we really need to cater to teens, or even twenty-somethings? What about trying to lure in the bottom-end of the original target demographic: people who are in their 30s and early 40s? That wouldn’t even take a major shift. The songs that would appeal to them are already out there. They are just the deep tracks, the ones that are deemed “too exciting and too foreground” for airplay. That’s what bothered me about the chill phenomena. A few influential people heard this music being played in the background at restaurants frequented by young people in Europe and decided that was how to make smooth jazz hip. All of a sudden stations that were scared to play new music by our own artists and cowered at the thought of playing anything unfamiliar were playing unfamiliar songs by DJs and mixers that nobody had heard of. Some smooth jazz artists did chill-influenced songs that took the most accessible elements of that music, the beat and the groove, and added better melodies and instrumentation, and still couldn’t get those songs on a playlist (think Braun’s “Zona Rosa,” Paul Taylor’s “Don’t Wait Up,” or Steve Oliver’s “Good To Go.”) Songs like that would grab people in their 30s. So would the rock-influenced music that artists like Craig Chaquico, Jeff Golub, and the Rippingtons have done and up-tempo funk like Euge’s “Get Em Goin’” or great pop like Mindi’s “True Blue.” The last two songs got lots of airplay. If they defined the format instead of spicing it up once every five hours or so, we would definitely bring in the 30-40 year olds. Some younger ones would come in too, especially if they saw an exciting live performance. But that is icing on the cake, not something we need focus on.

Instead of promoting and playing mature artists who are continuing to create new and original music, marketers try to get us psyched up over pleasantly adequate music by twenty-somethings who sound kind of like Norah Jones or Sade or teenagers doing standards. Marilyn Scott, Cassandra Wilson, and Eliane Elias have all recently released thrilling CDs that show them taking creative risks and exploring new territory, but these are barely getting noticed. Where are Brenda Russell, Maysa, Gabriela Anders, and Michael Franks? Why did Al Jarreau’s brilliant “Accentuate The Positive” not get the hype that some of the standards-driven projects by extremely young singers did? Stepping down a few years, why haven’t artists like Lizz Wright, Kem, Sara Gazarek and Raul Midon reached more of the fans who would love them if they heard them?

The place radio has been most effective in motivating adults to buy music is NPR. They realized that all those listeners asking about songs that were incidental music during features and talk shows were searching for music they could relate to, so they created a successful series of compilation CDs based on those songs. Looking on the track listings you won’t find hype about how young or hot looking the performers are.  You will find a pretty eclectic selection of songs that caught the interest of a lot of people. A spokesperson said that the way to market music to grownups was to help them find songs and artists that resonate in their lives. What resonates with adult listeners is the same thing that resonates with younger listeners. Songs that reflect their lives and experiences by artists they can relate to. For the most part that means artists who have experienced a longer stretch of life. There are some excellent musicians who are very young that adults can relate to, but when that happens it is because of the music, not their youth. Don’t focus on the amount of birthdays someone has had. Focus on fresh, interesting, and exciting. Focus on music that resonates rather than fading into the background. But remember, there is room for a genre that celebrates being grown up. Pop culture may say that life ends at the big 3-0, but we know better. Grown up is good and there are a lot of grownup artists who can bring just as much life and spirit to our music as young people bring to theirs.

- Shannon West