Whenever a radio format is around for a long time, there’s a lot of good music that doesn’t get played. It boils down to a numbers game: too many titles, not enough time to play them all. In the case of Smooth Jazz, it’s 24 years’ worth (!) of new releases, over a thousand titles in just the new releases pile alone—not including all the standards such as “Breezin’” and “Winelight” that were around even before the format was born in 1987. No radio station could ever sustain itself with a playlist that lengthy, because the best tunes, the ones listeners want to hear over and over, couldn’t possibly rotate around fast enough.
So, what’s a radio station to do with all those extra titles that would still sound good on the air but for which it has no more room? Sadly, no matter what the format, these titles usually get relegated to what we call an “icebox” category, never to see the light of day again.
That’s always bothered me, because the Smooth Jazz genre is filled with some wonderfully distinctive music that we never put on the air anymore. By folks such as Dan Siegel, Shakatak, Dancing Fantasy and Rodney Franklin, for instance. Songs and artists that would make you go, “Wow—I haven’t heard that in ages.”
For a long time I’ve been wrestling with the idea of finding a way to resurrect these gems and give them some airplay in the proper context, and here’s what I’ve come up with: a new feature on my show, called “Rick O’Dell Remembers.” Starting next Monday, February 1, I’ll be going deep into the Smooth Jazz vault and selecting one vintage track to play every day at 11:00 a.m.
I know we can have some fun with this feature, jogging your memory a bit each day. And, along the way, I’ll be open to requests. Feel free to suggest a favorite ol’ tune or two you haven’t heard in a long time, and I’ll see what I can do. Email me at: Rick@WLFM877.com or post your requests in the In Box at the station website.
