Los Angeles has one, New York has one, even New Orleans has one.
But Chicago, with a jazz history matched only by the Crescent City’s, lacks a full-fledged jazz radio station of its own.
Hard to believe? Consider the evidence:
– WBEE (1570 AM) runs jazz and blues from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. but turns to gospel overnight and Sundays. More important, its smallish 1,000-watt signal emanates from south suburban Harvey, meaning listeners in the northern metropolitan area barely can pick it up.
– WDCB (90.9 FM), the College of Du Page’s station, offers intelligently programmed jazz (such as Marshall Vente’s “Jazz Tropicale” show on Sundays) that competes with news programs, classical record features, folk music and what-not. Its signal, from Glen Ellyn, is difficult to receive in parts of the city.
– WBEZ (91.5 FM) presents excellent jazz programming evenings and overnight, but the daytime hours are given over to talk, news and National Public Radio shows.
– WNUA (95.5 FM) calls itself a “smooth jazz” station but offers more “smooth” than “jazz,” with Ramsey Lewis’ Saturday night program the station’s sole jazz oasis.
– WNUR (89.3 FM) at Northwestern University in Evanston, WHPK (88.5 FM) at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and WKDC (1530 AM) in Elmhurst each offer some jazz programming but only as part of diverse musical schedules.
So if you want to hear jazz radio in Chicago, you virtually need a road map to figure out what’s playing when-then hope you can pick it up.
“It not only surprises me that Chicago doesn’t have a full-time jazz station, it appalls me,” says Richard Wang, music professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“Surely the amount of jazz being offered on all these stations suggests that an audience would be there for a round-the-clock jazz station.”
Adds WBEE president Charles R. Sherrell II, “The biggest problem in Chicago radio is that there is no radio station that dedicates its entire programming day to jazz that can be heard throughout the metropolitan area.
“But Chicago needs a station that can broadcast jazz all the time, so that young people will hear music pioneers like Dizzy (Gillespie) and Ella (Fitzgerald) and Charlie Parker, as well as the young artists who are carrying forth the tradition.”
So why hasn’t it happened? Why does a city that broadcast jazz nationally from such fabled ’30s spots as the Grand Terrace and Savoy Ballroom fail to back an all-jazz outlet?
“It’s hard to figure, considering that jazz used to be all over the radio in Chicago,” says Wang. “The black stations on the South Side on AM had jazz disc jockeys who would play from 2 in the afternoon into the night with commercially sponsored broadcasts.
“Deejays like Daddy-O Daylie were quite popular, and that tradition went well back into the early ’40s.”
In more recent times, however, jazz radio in Chicago has been touch-and-go. WXFM (105.9 FM), for instance, was a jazz hotspot in the ’70s, with various deejays buying airtime and finding their own sponsors. But the station later was sold, converted to rock and renamed WCKG.
” ‘XFM was terrific, with jazz all day long,” recalls Dick Buckley, a WXFM veteran whose “Archives of Jazz” show on WBEZ is a highlight among local broadcasts.
“But the strange thing about radio in Chicago is that the people who own the stations tend to want as big a chunk of the pie as possible-they want to be in the Top 10.
“Now, you can make a very comfortable living broadcasting jazz,” adds Buckley, an assertion confirmed by WBEE’s Sherrell, who notes that “in the past five years, our advertising revenue has doubled. Advertisers are starting to realize that the jazz audience tends to be more affluent and has more disposable income than other audiences.”
Still, even a thriving jazz station “can’t compete in earned dollars with a big rock station,” adds Buckley. “So when you get into a market as large and competitive as Chicago, the question becomes who can make the most money, not the best music.”
Buckley may be right, considering the nature of the all-jazz stations in other cities.
Both KLON in Long Beach, Calif., and WWOZ in New Orleans are sterling jazz stations that have found unique, non-profit ways of surviving.
KLON, for instance, had been run by the Long Beach public schools since 1950 but broke away in 1981. “And we knew that the way to become self-supporting, which was our goal, was to develop a (cohesive) format,” says KLON’s Sharon Weissman.
“So we did a survey to see what was needed, and we found that nobody in the greater Los Angeles area was playing mainstream jazz, so we switched to jazz and news as an NPR affiliate.
“It went so well that later we became a 24-hour jazz station,” adds Weissman, whose station will be renamed KKJZ next month. “I can’t say that we’re rich, but we have found that there is support for jazz radio.”
Even more remarkable is WWOZ in New Orleans, which is operated by five full-time staffers, two part-timers and fully 180 volunteers.
“No doubt about it, we’re member supported,” says WWOZ general manager David Freedman, whose license is held by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation-the same organization that presents the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, as well as jazz programs all year long.
“What happened with us was that we hit a financial crisis in 1987, and the Jazz and Heritage Foundation came in and rescued us.
“Together, the foundation and the station have been able to create something unique: We help the local musicians, and they help us.
“For instance, when we do a pledge drive, Dr. John comes in to help out. . . . So this station thrives on being part of the fabric of music in New Orleans.”
Indeed, the confluence of the radio station, the music festival and the year-long activities of the Jazz and Heritage Foundation strengthens each, giving New Orleans a radio station that serves as a hub for jazz and related activities throughout the city.
Alas, no comparable confluence of institutions has occurred in Chicago jazz radio.
On balance, it’s worth noting that some observers consider it irrelevant whether jazz is centered on one station or spread among many.
“I don’t think that every format should have its own station,” says Chuck Schaden, a veteran Chicago broadcaster whose old-time radio programs have long flourished on a variety of stations, including WNIB-FM (91.5) and WBBM-AM (780).
“It’s just like with my shows. The nostalgia audience, just like the jazz audience, will find the programming wherever it is.”
Yet the fact remains that Chicago-which has no shortage of rock, country and even classical stations-lacks a single jazz outpost.
Still, there’s hope, specifically from WBEE. Though that station’s management has failed to persuade the FCC to increase its signal strength, there’s a new strategy in the works.
“Our hope is that WBEE will make so much money that we will be able to afford to buy a strong FM signal,” says Sherrell. “That’s what we want to do, possibly next year.
“If we got an FM signal, we’d go 100 percent jazz on FM, and all gospel on AM.
“We’re hoping we can pull it off.
“Obviously,” adds Sherrell, “you can make far more money programming rock or urban contemporary or even country than jazz.
“But by programming a classic art form, like jazz, you can maintain a good core of listeners who can make it profitable.
“Now, I would do jazz music even if we weren’t making a dime-in fact, there were times in the history of WBEE when we weren’t making money, but I refused to change.
“My feeling is that you cannot compromise everything. Unless we are committed to that which is artful, that which is beautiful, that which is tradition, we have nothing.”
