Smooth Jazz Now.com :

Carol - Yes, I have been very fortunate in my career to primarily work in the two formats that interest me the most and that have been Smooth Jazz and Adult alternative. I have literally jumped back and forth and sometimes they've been integrated. I started college radio here at Bellevue Community College which has a jazz station, KBCS.

Carol - When I was there active at the radio station that was 1980-81. I was a Program Director and on the air and learning about radio. When I got my first on-air job it was in 1982 and I was working at a station here which would have now been called adult alternative and that was 92.5 FM and back in those days it was KZAM. This was a radio station that was very eclectic, adult, pop and rock radio station which also mixed Jazz in.

Carol -Yes, because my college station was Jazz and actually I had grown up on the Olympic peninsula right across from Victoria. I use to be able to actually get KBCS because where I lived was up on a mountain when I was in high school which was the first time I started learning about Jazz. My family was not musical so I didn't really know much about Jazz until I started hearing this station and it was just very intriguing to me. I ended up going to College actually not to do radio but to do visual which was photography, cinematography and film but none of my instructions had any audio information. So, I just decided to take the broadcasting courses so I could learn about audio, mixing, soundtracks and editing and all that. I ended up falling in love with it and I had always loved music in general and dabbled in playing guitar and piano.

John - Because you know most broadcasters are frustrated musicians as the cliché goes.

Carol - (laughing) Yeah, I sang when I was in college and I had some musical interests but not as much talent and I just fell in love with the radio side of it. Anyway, I came over and ended up changing all by visual courses to audio courses and basically majoring in mass-media and got my first on-air job working the overnight weekends initially at KZAM. That was still only part-time doing the weekend shifts during the day but we had a Sunday morning Jazz show which I was able to host because having gone to the college that I did and learning about Jazz, I was in a position to know about the music and so I hosted that Sunday morning Jazz show. Then our AM had flipped at some point from a rock of the 80's to a Jazz station so I became their fill in person. The Program Director then left and I became the Programmer for what was then KJZZ 1450AM here in Bellevue which was owned by Sandusky as was KZAM. I programmed that radio station for a year and a half and we took it in a little bit more contemporary direction because KPLU had come on the air and they had transmitters up and down the I5 corridor, nice FM signal. So we decided we needed something that would differentiate us a little bit.

John - And you said that you were playing contemporary and this was sort of a version of contemporary Jazz?

Carol - Well the core that would be the same that we play today would be the David Sanborn, Bob James, Earl Klugh and George Benson . Also Larry Carlton who had a very strong solo career during those days and Jeff Lorber.

Carol - Well, I was in my time. (laughing) As far as the format has developed and evolved it was ahead of its time. The Wave always gets the credit for being the first biggie and they were big with a major market and giving it a go. There were those of us around the fringes that were doing it before they were though. At the time we were one of thirteen R&R reporting Jazz stations.

Carol - Oh, I am certain they don't know that. It is a funny little part of my history but a very fun one and one I am very proud of. I was also on the air tracking afternoons and I also have been voice tracking my entire career which is not uncommon because that was a little AM station and we had very few people running it and trying to make a go of it.

Carol - Now that is a pretty funny thing and it was very early computers and we had seven reel to reels which ran all the music and each reel had a different category of music on it and then the voice tracks themselves were done on cart. So I would have five breaks on one cart and they would all be the first break of each hour and the second break of each hour would be on the next one. They were stacked so the computer would say go to reel to reel number one, go to reel to reel number two and then the voice track.

Carol - Oh yeah! It was specifically programmed each day. There was a fusion reel and a vocal reel that was mainstream and then there was a vocal reel that was contemporary. There were also a couple of Pop Jazz reels in the pocket of what we would call Smooth Jazz today. The music was going through the evolution of the music itself because there was Bebop and Cool Jazz on the West Coast and then out of that really the people who were growing up with different styles, the George Benson's, the Grover Washington Jr's who were adding some Soul and some R&B into the feel and into the mix. Then there was this other split that rather than going in the Soul and R&B direction were going in the Rock direction.

Carol - We were and we were even playing Robin Trower and we would play stuff if it was simply instrumental. We had a fusion show called "Friday Night Fusion" so for a couple of hours we would kick it out, Al Di Meola screaming his guitar all over the place and highlight what was going on in the different genres within contemporary Jazz. After fusion had its peak and its heyday in the late 60's and into the 70's then it went the other direction and that was all the Windham Hill music. (George) Winston came on the scene and so did Alex de Grassi, Will Ackerman and Scott Cossu and all those guys.

Carol - Is that right? Yeah, it was the late 80's when that was really happening and it started to trickle because Windham Hill was in Seattle and we were getting some of that early stuff. After a year and a half in Dec of 1984 is when KJZZ became KZAM AM and decided just to simulcast. So at that point I had a little burb, blip in between where I was at KPLU hosting the weekend show and working for John Demetrio.

Carol - What happened was KEZX was a sort of a soft AC and an adult alternative station because we would play pretty things by Simon and Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills and Nash and Judy Collins and Dylan and people like that. We were also playing different styles of Folk music, like Spirit of the West and a couple of other people, so we had a nice Folk leaning. Anyway, they came to the conclusion that they wanted to start an evening Jazz show so they called me up and asked me if I would do it. I accepted and started hosting the seven to midnight slots at KEZX in 1985 and the last two hours of the night were this soft space program.

Carol - Yes, it did so well as a matter of fact that we expanded it from seven to midnight. It was on the very pretty sort of side.

Carol - We did because that was then what was really happening in Contemporary instrumental music with Windham Hill and then it was Narada and Higher Octave and all these other record labels.

Carol - Yeah, pretty much and even the major labels had their artists who were very pretty. In our format of course on the instrumental side you tend to have a large family of independent labels and so they have always sort of been the main stay. Then as we expanded the show seven to midnight we were able to add some energy back into the show and it wasn't just about the pretty acoustic things. What evolved out of that history of the music is that it branched out. We played the soft, pretty, acoustic, lovely stuff then called New Age that sort of influenced the electronics into the feel of that music. That is when Suzanne Cianni, Enya and Ray Lynch and these other guys came in. The other side of it was the global music where the percussion came into the instrumental sound to give it some vibrancy and some life.

Carol - Yes, we do a little bit. Back then we played people who are more progressive or even a more traditional.

Carol - The music never stops evolving and it is just a matter of where it is going, where the interest is. I think thats what's driving it. George Winston is a successful artist and you turn around and everybody and his brother were putting out a solo piano or a solo guitar album. I had solo music that was incredible everywhere. What we did out of that program with Soft Space is realizing that this was something that was nice and we were going to branch out and also do a Sunday morning show, which I hosted and it was called Audio Impressions. It was all instrumental, less defined and much broader and open in scope so it would mix the New Age and the acoustic music and it could have energy or not. Then there were all the guys out of Nashville with the MCA Master series…

John - That was a great lable with John Jarvis, Billy Walker Jr, Edgar Meyer and Larry Carlton and Acoustic Alchemy were also on there.

John - I finally tracked John Jarvis down a few years ago because out of all those guys he was my favorite and of course he wrote with Vince Gill and The Judds. He was at a studio in Nashville six years ago and he was nice enough to send me is last album which he said sold 4 copies and I have all his albums. Anyway, I looked on Ebay one day and they are $50.00 U.S. albums.

Carol - I wish I had known that before I donated all of mine to the Good Will.

Carol - Oh yeah. I packed around three thousand albums for a very long time and when my CD collection got up to around that I decided it was time to let go. I went through and weeded out anything that had personal or sentimental things behind it and things I know I would be crushed if I could never find a copy again on CD. I kept about eight hundred albums and gave away the rest. I should have kept these until I was retired. (laughing) I just always felt that will anyone even remember those guys in thirty years. I mean they sold fifty albums when they were out there.

John - But people like Stein and Walder from Windham Hill you can't find their albums like Transit and I too saw that one on Ebay and someone bid $70.00 for it because they are out of rotation now since Windham Hill deleted it. I know when I was talking to George Winston he said he has no delete clause in his contract and if they delete anything they have to give him the rights.

Carol - Yes, give him the rights which makes sense since so he can continue to put it out there.

John - But not everyone thinks of that of course. Lets get back to Audio Impressions.

Carol - So, with Audio Impressions that was all very nice and at some point I went to doing mid-days at KZEX and I was the Music Director and Assistant Program Director and I programmed the evening show for the jock because they didn't know the music like I did until they had the opportunity to really learn it. I continued to do my Sunday morning Audio Impressions show.Then that radio station went through an unfortunate transition and went back to its beautiful music roots and was owned by a company that had beautiful music stations all over the country. Beautiful music was dying and we weren't sure what they were thinking but the funny thing is at KZEX was at the frequency 98.9 which is where I am now. Anyway, 98.9 KZEX I was working for Park broadcasting during those days and they went back to their beautiful music days and I left and went to 106.9 in Seattle with Gannett broadcasting and they are no longer around now. It was based on WNUA in Chicago and put on the air in Seattle KNUA and we had KNUA on the air for a couple of years in Seattle. They started out as an all New Age station which is why they never really took off as they fully didn't get the entire concept of contemporary instrumental music in my mind. One interesting thing that came out of that is that Ralph Stuart was their Music Director and he became the Music Director at the WAVE in L.A. for many years. Gannett sold the property to Brown broadcasting and they were based out of San Francisco and originally owned KKSF, another very famous contemporary instrumental station.

Carol - So KKSF owners bought KNUA and changed the call letters to KKNW 106.9 and brought out their Music Director from San Francisco and his name was Nick Frances, who is a very famous Smooth Jazz programmer these days and he came and put the radio station on the map. He hired me to do afternoons and so I worked there for two years and meanwhile I took Audio Impressions with me and then I syndicated it and kept it on the air at KZEX in Seattle. I had ten radio stations taping the program and I was bartering it. It was a wonderful learning experience for marketing because for every ten programs I sent out one person would pick it up which is pretty good.

Carol - The problem was then I got to a point where I was having difficulty making money with it and it wasn't big enough to get national sponsorships and too many of them to manage ten local sales groups.

Carol - Yes, it was a lot of work and some stations were still taking the programs on reel to reel and the shipping was killing me. I did it as long as I could and it was a great learning experience and had I been able to get connected with a syndicator or something it would have made a lot more sense. I stopped doing that but not for some time thought then KKNW switch formats and it became WAR? 106.9 and I left there. I did a show for a while in between at KMTT.

John - Let me interrupt you for a second and I am just kind of curious. I have talked with a lot of broadcasters who grapple with this sort of thing. If you are in a format that you love and they flip formats now when you left that station could you have stayed?

Carol - That is usually an individual thing based on what the scenarios are. When KJAZ flipped format I was offered a job in the company that I wasn't interested in. When KZEX flipped formats I actually stayed for two months to help them transition. I told them to please go find another Program Director and I will help them and train them and then I will leave. So, I was not asked to leave but I needed to leave because the soul had gone out of it for me and I couldn't do it.

John - So you didn't have that Maslow's triangle oh my god I need to eat kind of thing so I have to stay at this job even though I hate it sort of thing.

Carol - Well, I did stay at this job for two months and I hated it but I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to stay if I wanted it. Then the same thing happened when it flipped to WAR 106.9. I was invited to audition if you will along with other candidates that they were looking at for these positions and it's something that is usually not extended to you.

Carol - Yeah, usually you clean house and you just wipe everybody out and give everyone their final paycheck and you say goodbye and that's it. In all of the other cases except KZEX in which other staff members were invited to stay everyone was let go. Well, it was very flattering and I think for somebody anytime in their career what that does is it just speaks to your level of professionalism and that they understand that you are a radio person and not necessarily just a format person. You always have to be able to fit within the format or be able to adapt what you are doing but they saw it as a fit so again it was nice to be offered and I said thank you but no thank you just because of the awkwardness or whatever.

John - I ask because we live in a radio world where flipping is very common. I know it is like that in the U.S. and it's no different in Canada. They break a nail and they flip the format. With Smooth Jazz if you have people programming the format that don't understand it what do you think will happen?

John - Get a rocker or a die hard adult contemporary programmer to format a Smooth Jazz station and if they don't have an open mind to really learn what's made the format successful in the past or present they're doomed. You need to get sensitivity for the music. You need to do research. I just get really angry with companies who don't have a clue about the format who just say, "Oh well, the market didn't accept it." You know what they didn't accept? Your bad choices. Not the format.

Carol - Sure. The reality of most radio stations I find no matter what format is in order to be successful you have to be ready to invest in it. Investing in it means spending money in advertising, spending money in marketing and spending money in research. You know research on one level is scary because it can take the soul out of the machine, so you have to be very careful with that. I should say you can take the soul out and make it a machine. The reality of the situation is if you're researching properly you are asking the people who are already passionate about the music. They already like the music.

Carol - Yes. They go to the concerts, they buy the Cd's. Those are the people you find. Those are the people you ask. You need to ask them what do you love about this and why. So you have to figure out how to play music for them. Find out what they're idea is of Smooth Jazz. We all have our own impression on what that means. You have to get some kind of common denominator that you can base the core of whatever you're doing around. Then you'll have an opportunity in various day parts to experiment to see how much you can branch that out. Of course the core of it has to be something that's consistent and that the Smooth Jazz audience is going to like.

John - They're a good audience to foster a relationship with because of their passion for the music. I really found that in Vancouver and Edmonton. I love that they listen for long periods of time - I love their passion.

Carol - Yeah and I agree with that. It's certainly been my experience with it. It's scary when people come up to me and say "I've been listening to you since KJAZ because we're going on twenty years now. (laughing)

Carol - Oh Yeah because they got all the press. They made it sound like they were the very first radio station in the world doing this. I was thinking hey wait a minute.

Carol - Well here if you're in L.A. or New York you're going to get on the map and that map is going to be oriented around you.

John - Congratulations on being nominated for Program Director of the year from R&R last year? Also KWJZ was nominated for Smooth Jazz Station of the Year; Dianna Rose was nominated Music Director of the Year.

Carol - Thanks. We had an exceptional year in 2003. Everything clicked and came together. The market was such that we're able to really hold our own. We've definitely been able to hold our own for a while but we made some serious headway in 2003. So it was a very nice pat on the back after working on the format so hard for so long. I had forgotten when we were talking earlier that when I was at KEZX in 1987 they had bought an AM 1150 frequency and added it to our facility. It was known as KEZX AM and we called it the Oasis.

Carol - Yes but it was before the Oasis came on the air in Dallas. KEZX AM the Oasis was a spin on contemporary instrumental in that it was 80% of what I would call New Acoustic and 20% light classical.

John - Really? Some satellite stations are doing that now and it's a nice sound but they were doing this on an AM station?

Carol - Yeah it was an AM station. Anytime you're doing music that really needs the full width and breath of a full FM broadband but you're on AM then that's a challenge. For what it was and what it did I think it was a nominal success. I always forget about that little station but I programmed it. (laughing)

Carol - Well the funny thing is this. When I left KKNW I was doing a show on Sunday nights and I started working for AEI Music Network. I freelanced for them in the mid-eighties doing all of their Jazz programming. AEI used to stand for Audio Environment Incorporated and they were the first ones outside of Muzak that started doing music for business applications with original music and not recreated orchestrated versions of Pop songs. So they were playing the original artists music which is of course a standard in the industry now. They were the ones who got started on that whole thing. I used to program all their mainstream and contemporary Jazz programs on a freelance basis. When KKNW blew up they called me and asked me to look at programming KEZK again as a Smooth Jazz station. I said I was interested in talking but I knew the company and I knew how they did things which was not with any investment. I knew that would be a disaster. I told them that I'd love to do this because I think Seattle is a market that can sustain it. I think top five 24-54 with KKNW proves that. The thing is you can't just slide it on the air and hope that people catch you. If you've been a beautiful music station you've pretty much blown everybody away. They're all gone now.

Carol - (laughing) No Kidding. That was the whole deal. You have no audience and the audience you have are 65 plus. That is not going to sustain a radio station. So I asked for a marketing budget and I wanted advertising budget and a budget to hire good staff who know how to communicate and who know this music. So they kicked it around and came back and said "we don't really see this happening in the way that you envisioned." So they did what they did and it did exactly what I suspected they would which was unfortunate. They just started sliding George Benson in between 101 Strings and
Montavani. So people who would occasionally catch a Smooth Jazz tune would go "Oh great" but then hear another song and go "this is awful."

John - Talk about confusing the audience. If you're going to be a Smooth Jazz station just do it. Get off the fence. I've always said this but if you're half and half you sound like horseshit all over the road. You end up not pleasing anybody.

Carol - Yeah thats true. They really confused them. That was very sad. What happened was Roy Park of Park Broadcasting passed away and his wife sold all of his properties and this was also around the same time of deregulation from the FCC for owning media properties in the states. Sandusky who I worked for in the early days bought it in 1996 and they called me up and said would you like to program a radio station.

John - (laughing) You've received a lot of positive reinforcement in your career!

Carol - (laughing) I really have. You know three people called me and told me Sandusky had bought it. They brought in Bob Kaake as a consultant. He now works for WNUA in Chicago. I called Bob and he said "Your name keeps coming up to me." So we met and they offered me the job of programming KWJZ. It was so funny because it was Sandusky who I worked for before.

John - The fact that you can still be in your home state. It's hard in radio we're hillbillies.

Carol - (laughing) I'm a rarity. I was born in Tacoma; I was raised on the Olympic Peninsula. I graduated from Belleview Community College and I've been on the air in radio ever since. I'm a fortunate soul really.

Carol - No. Not in my opinion. To me there's a difference between a broadcaster and a programmer. There are a lot of people who got into this industry because of the music and I'm one of them. No matter what genre of music that drew you in this industry it's still because you love music. A bulk of people who are in programming got their start that way. Jocks are something else. I'm a disc jockey if you will. I'm on the air right now. I'm a programmer first and a disc jockey second. There are a number of people who got into the industry because they're actors. They need to be in the spotlight.

John - I don't know about you but I can pick one of those guys out of a crowd.

Carol - Yes. They can work in pretty much any format with any energy level and they can mix and match and frankly they don't care what they're back announcing. It has nothing to do with the music, it's all about them. That's fine, we need those people too. There are so many people who blew up their careers because they didn't agree with what an owner or manager was doing. This is a seventy five million dollar property. It's their choice to choose what they want to do to it.

Carol - These people give me a paycheck. I deliver them something. This relationship we have right now is equally and mutually beneficial. However if they choose to be a country station tomorrow I can choose to program that radio station for them because I am not format specific (laughing) I have been blessed to be able to do the two formats that I love the most but I also love music. I keep up with a lot if different genre's and styles. I can turn around and program a different style of radio station if I needed to. So In some ways I'm a broadcaster. I just understand it's a business. These guys aren't paying me because they think I'm nice. They're paying me because I'm delivering them a product that's working.

Carol - It was. In the northwest we have Puyallup Fair that's fifteen miles south of Seattle. The fairground have their month long festival in September and they bring in all kinds of genre's and artists and that was the one and only time I met Grover.

Carol - Absolutely. I was so pleased that I had that opportunity. He was genuinely an incredible soul. We had a meet and greet with some listeners and one of the couples had three sons. The couple had purchased tickets so the three sons could go to the show. We let the three sons come back for the meet and greet with their parents. One of the sons was a musician and Grover sat down with him and I mean sat down and they talked about his music and how it was going and what instrument he had chosen. They spent about fifteen minutes together and Grover would not be rushed or moved from this young musician. They got lots of pictures with him and when they were all done Grover said, "When I come back to town you get a hold of me through the radio station or the promoter and when I do my sound check we can play together." And they played together.

Carol - I didn't see his performance or what would have been his performance on that last day on TV. I mean it immediately became news because he was in a broadcast facility when it happened. I don't really remember how I found out. I don't know if it was my station because as a Program Director I flip through the dial a lot when I come in to work.

John - I find I do that too. I think most radio people do but I find with Smooth Jazz I listen to my station more than the days when I worked other markets.

John - Are there any Smooth Jazz artists out there that you think are very underrated? I used to use Chris Botti as the quintessential example of that but with his success in the last few years he's received the attention he deserves.

Carol - Well, that's a very good question. That's pretty difficult because on one level all these guys are underrated. They often do not get what they deserve. I feel like I'm constantly fighting for them. These guys are really incredible musicians. What I may choose to play on the air are the pop songs that will work in somebody's workday that's not who they are in their entirety as an artist.

Carol - Yes live and whatever else you're going to find on the album will blow you away.

John - I've said this many time on this website and I'll say it again but these musicians are the warmest, deepest most sincere people I have ever met. At the end of my chat with Chuck Loeb he said, "Well I feel like I've found a new friend." That was very touching and he gave me an hour and a half interview which was very generous. No diva moments here.

Carol - I would say the only time you get Diva moments and it's rare, it's not usually from the artists it's from their handlers. I've seen Bob James, Larry Carlton, Nathan East and Harvey Mason sign autographs for two hours with my listeners.

John - I know that KWJZ is in the community a lot. You're really part of the listener's lifestyle.

Carol - Oh yes. I think in order to be successful as a radio station you need to be. You speak to the lifestyle. When I first got here I just stopped doing all events until I could work with people who understood what this was. So we stopped doing things with an up and coming artist doing a DAT show with a recorded band at a small tavern. I said the next show we will do will be David Sanborn in the Paramount, it will be George Benson at the Opera House. This is what we do. This is how the audience see's themselves and this is how we market ourselves. We can take this up and coming new artist and we can put him on a bill but and introduce him at a Jazz festival.

Carol - It'll be year number seven this year. It's a Saturday and Sunday thing with four acts each day. The tickets go on sale to the general public usually the first week in May.