Why a Podcast?

Soon, you will be hearing me with my favorite type of music again. For nine years, I played America's own Art Form Music, Jazz, on the radio for listeners in St. Louis and the Metro East. It was the best format I ever did in 22 years on broadcast radio. It's been eight years since I signed off the broadcast airwaves for the last time. This time, I'll be doing a podcast.

Why a podcast, do you ask? The Jazz Mixer was originally conceived in February 2015 as a programming proposal for KDHX (88.1 FM), the community radio station in St. Louis. The station's management really didn't want me to do a show similar to the one I did at WSIE (88.7 FM), first on Friday nights and later on weekday mornings. A podcast, in my honest view, is the best and most cost-effective way to present various styles of Jazz to the widest possible audience. It would also give me unlimited freedom to select the music I would play and allow me to control the length of each podcast. Setting up my own Internet radio station is extremely cost-prohibitive, and has limited audience potential. I learned about the limited reach of Internet radio by working at the student-run radio station at Southern Illinois University, Web Radio. Broadcast radio is definitely out; radio station purchase prices are overinflated, too few air slots are available in the St. Louis area due to corporate restrictions, and while I would love to return to WSIE, I think the students deserve the chance more than I do. The only other alternative would have been to buy air time on shortwave radio stations like WBCQ in Monticello, Maine, WWCR in Nashville, Tennessee or WTWW in Lebanon, Tennessee. That would also not be cost-effective at this point.

Why Jazz? I am not interested in celebrity gossip, nor am I interested in politics (like former 89.5 The Wave colleague Mark Bland). From 2000 to 2009, I played Jazz as a way to pay my college tuition and make a semblance of a living. I'm most closely associated with this format, so it's a natural for me. I just can't see myself doing a talk show as a podcast.

This podcast is only intended for the listener's consumption; it is not created to air on any radio station, terrestrial, satellite or Internet. I am not comfortable with having my productions sent out over the broadcast airwaves right now. Make sure you watch this blog for the release of the premiere of The Jazz Mixer podcast.