The O'Zone | Still Relevant

I keep hearing that radio is no longer relevant. I also hear that Jazz has seen its better days. I’m here to talk about why Jazz matters and why Jazz on the radio makes a difference. 

As I write this, my built in AI grammar police keeps saying I shouldn’t capitalize the word “Jazz”. It gets a capital “J” in this blog, baby, because it has earned that respect!

Jazz has changed, grown, and shifted in its place in popular culture. There was an era when Jazz was the pop music of its day, and partially because of that, its influence over other genres and social mores has remained constant (if not as obvious as before). It continues to inspire musicians and the kind of music they create.

The foundational role of Jazz has had a significant impact on the evolution of rock, pop, blues, Latin, rhythm and blues, soul, and hip hop, and their subsequent development. What’s more, Jazz provides a unique capacity for personal expression that allows musicians to reach audiences on a deeper level emotionally. As a haven for creativity, the music is undergoing both a renaissance and an evolution.

Modern forms have found their way into Jazz: it’s not just that Jazz is changing other forms of music. Hip hop and electronica have not just infiltrated Jazz: the genres keep borrowing from each other and sharing discoveries.

More ensembles are sampling, sequencing, programming, and altering the ever-changing genre with new methods of composing and performing, and thinking. Call it Jazztronica or nu-jazz or bluescreen Jazz. In the same way electric guitars, keyboards and electric basses brought their characteristics to the music in the late sixties and through the seventies, a new fusion is taking place with laptops and codes. There are many who decry the changes as a sort of sacrilege… as always, every new thing brings out those who oppose it. Eventually, it becomes accepted and understood, and in turn gets Jazzified. In answering a question about Jazz Fusion, Count Basie was welcoming. “There’s plenty of room for another spoke in the wheel.”

Beyond jazz, one other thing that’s still relevant is radio! That is evident so I won’t belabor the obvious, but the fact is that it has an enormous impact on local communities, whether in the form of news and information, music, sports, events and talk. 

Why is Jazz radio as relevant…no, MORE relevant than it has been in years? Jazz radio brings new music and new movements to the everyday audience. We’re live and local worldwide, telling you who is in town and what is going down!

I want to mention something we do at KUVO: we spill it.  We tell you about the best new music in the previous year…. NPR always has a list of the top albums every new year, as do we. It is so important to bring new artists into the light. It is important to look at what happened in the previous year so we can be made aware of new directions or even new reissues. It is so very very significant to bring that news to the Jazz listener. 

While Spotify does list new releases and tells you what you listened to it does not have your curators sharing what made them take notice. Besides that, as soon as the music is released, Jazz radio shows play it when it matters the most, within the context of the moment. The music matters at the moment it was made. But of course, the reissue factor weighs in as very important as well. Young people are learning what came before and how and why it matters. Everything old is new again… and still relevant.