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This
year our mainstream jazz and big band music radio show, in one
incarnation or another, will be in it’s twentieth year of
broadcast. We have seen a lot of the great players pass away.
We’ve been through an unexpected swing dance craze and
numerous station buyouts. And as you’ll read below, to keep
our program on the air, it has taken a modicum of perseverance
as well.
Our
little adventure in jazz broadcasting began in 1985, when we
hit the airwaves of Central California with a weekly big band
music radio show that lasted one whole hour. In humble
surroundings, over AM 790, we broadcasted from a little, beat
up wooden building, on the outskirts of Fresno. Our weekly
"one-hour of glory" was called the Sentimental
Supper. The only thing worse than the announcing was the
smell of the ridiculous food we actually cooked up on a hot
plate over the air during the show. The setting of the show
was supposed to be an old big band era style hotel, as we
claimed to be broadcasting from the Grill Room of the Ecstasy
Hotel (our call letters were KXTC.) A dinner music loop-track,
complete with crowd noise, was run under all announcer segues
to give the impression we were really there. We used a corny
little dinner bell when requests were honored. When the
station was sold in 1987 and for our last show (then a
whopping 2 hours long) we had a character named Julia
Childless come in and prepare a gourmet meal in the kitchen.
She promptly burned the place to the ground and we signed off
with Happy Trails.
During
this period it suddenly became apparent that being a child of
the rock and roll era didn't do much for old Parker's
knowledge of jazz history, the big band era, swing music or
anything else outside of loud amplified guitars and screaming
men posing as vocalists... unless of course it was soul music,
or folk artists doing protest songs. Anyway, we figured since
the chicks weren't actually beating down the doors or lighting
up the phones (at least the ones under, say, 65) maybe we
should start learning a bit about jazz history and the big
band era and buying records to supplement the overabundance of
Martin Denny and Kay Kyser records the radio station had in
its library.
We
embarked on a mission of really learning about big band music
and the history of jazz, buying up anything we could find in
the way of reference books. We also listened to any other big
band and jazz radio shows and stations we could find on AM, FM
or Shortwave to get ideas. One shot of inspiration came from a
very unlikely source, a locally produced, extremely funny
morning team known as Dean And Don who broadcast their
Breakfast Club over 105.9 FM KKDJ. Growing up south of
Cleveland and listening to East Coast radio, Parker was pretty
hard to impress, but these guys at KKDJ really had it going
on. Under many of their theatre-of-the-mind type comedy bits
ran old big band songs and jazz instrumentals by guys like
George Shearing and Oscar Peterson. Old time radio type
announcer intros used before skits, and well timed sound
effects were also part of the lure. As fate would have it
these two immortals of Fresno radio used to listen to the big
band radio show we did on KXTC (probably for a laugh) and
friendships developed. We were quite surprised to find the two
really did love big band jazz and swing music. Being roughly
the same age, suddenly it became not so weird to be immersed
in what seemed to be a dying form of music.
Following
the 1987 sale of KXTC, our new home became KEAP AM 980.
Fortunately there were no playlists at KEAP either so once
again we were able to free-form it, adding more and more
mainstream jazz tracks to our ever increasing jazz radio
library. But while the KXTC studios were humble, the KEAP
studio was just a down right dump. We used the premise BYOTP
while affiliated with KEAP, standing for "bring your own
toilet paper." There were a number of wasp nests in the
attic and in the summer, without fail, those pesky suckers
would get into the studio long about 9 PM. Let me tell ya,'
you learn how to read radio copy and smile in a radio studio
full of wasps baby, and you can read copy through anything.
Yikes!
KEAP
was sold in 1989 and we got out of the hornet's nest landing
head first at KAAT-FM. Initially KAAT’s broadcast frequency
was 107.1, but then moved in the 1990s to 103.1. At that point
the KAAT had only one studio, located in Oakhurst. Often this
meant a drive of nearly two hours depending on which point the
bread and butter job happened to be that Saturday.
Then
in 1994, our old buddy Dean Opperman, of Dean and Don fame,
came back to Fresno after a number of years in Santa Barbara
radio. Dean was placed as program director at KKDJ and
instructed to resurrect it back to its former state of glory.
KKDJ had a 50,000-watt signal and could be heard from
Bakersfield to Modesto clear as a bell. Lo and behold Opperman
convinced management that a jazz show would work on Sunday
mornings. So, with a bit of trepidation, Parker became the
"Jazzmaster" at KKDJ and was heard Sunday mornings
from 6 AM to 10 AM. This was the top of the mark for old
Parker. A killer signal, fantastic ratings, a great time-slot,
tons of calls, and oh yes, multitudes of chicks...well maybe
not, but four out of five ain't bad.
As
is the case in radio these days, KKDJ sold out in 1995 to a
big business radio station holder called Infinity. When it
sold, Parker immediately baled and within weeks the staff was
told the station would became Spanish. Luckily Larry Gamble,
the owner of KAAT, was gracious enough to allow us back on the
air. In 1995 we rebuilt the old white wooden one story out on
the back forty of the KAAT complex and opened it up every
Saturday as the jazz juke joint called Parker's Place.
That lasted until early 2005, when KAAT was sold to the Moon
Broadcasting Company, which operates Spanish language radio
stations throughout the west. And that of course brings us to
our current program, now known as Jazz Joint Jump, airing
every Sunday afternoon on 90.7 from 2 pm-4 pm. We are thrilled
to uphold the tradition of our big band jazz clambake playing
the highest quality CD re-masters of 1930s and 1940s jazz and
big band music; by mixing in mainstream jazz and hi-fi big
band recordings; by playing only the finest jazz grounded
modern swing bands; and by adding new jazz recordings weekly
to an already nearly endless play list.
Broadcasting
big band swing and classic jazz music isn't lucrative, but it
comes with its rewards (except for the chicks.) We were on the
air the Saturday following the passing of Frank Sinatra with a
four-hour radio special; we were on the air the Saturday after
Peggy Lee passed away with a two-hour tribute. We have also
bid our adieu to Les Brown, Jonah Jones, Al Grey, JJ Johnson,
Rosemary Clooney, Ray Brown, Lionel Hampton, and most recently
Nina Simone, Benny Carter, Billy May, Ray Charles, Barney
Kessel, Illinois Jacquet, and now Artie Shaw.
Jazz
Joint Jump
includes music from the masters of jazz in the 1930s and 1940s
and follows many of the great Swing Era soloists and
bandleaders throughout their careers. Attention is also given
to the mainstream jazz instrumentalists and vocalists of the
1950s and 1960s swinging the songs of the great songwriters of
Tin Pan Alley. You’ll also hear a number of modern day jazz
musicians and soloists on the play list. From Duke Ellington
to Diana Krall, Jazz Joint Jump runs the full gamut of
jazz that swings.
The
show does come with a disclaimer: it is ill advised to listen
while attempting to take a lazy Sunday afternoon nap. However,
many listeners have found that doing yard work while listening
to the show is much more tolerable, in some cases even
increasing productivity. Our suggestion is to barbeque up some
chicken or ribs, hangout, and enjoy the music.
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Jeff Parker hosts Jazz Joint Jump, Tuesdays 4 pm- 6 pm on 90.7 KFSR. Note: Jeff also runs the excellent jazz website www.swingmusic.net
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