(At ChiTownSmoothJazz.com we recently launched the “Sunday Brunch” channel. It features music from my original playlists for the Brunch, assembled in the late ’80s when the show made its debut on WCLR. I’d like to take you back to the beginning of the Brunch, because it was also the start of the Smooth Jazz radio format in Chicago.)
When Smooth Jazz began in Chicago, there was no “how to” manual for the format. In the entire country there was only one other full-time station playing the same music (KTWV, “The Wave,” in Los Angeles), and it had gone on the air just one week earlier. We were definitely starting a format from scratch, something that rarely happens in radio these days. I remember the nervous energy we all felt around WCLR that February 22, 1987, when the “Sunday Lite Brunch” made its debut in Chicago.
The “Sunday Lite Brunch” was born out of a gut feeling on the part of two radio executives at WCLR, General Manager Chet Redpath and Program Director Dave Ervin. They heard about the new radio format that was about to hit the air in Los Angeles, and they wanted to lay claim to it in Chicago. Rather than risk converting their entire station to a totally unproven format, however, they decided to take a chance on Sunday morning. After all, what better time of the week to try out the concept of a show that features mainly mellow instrumental music? Since I was hosting the 8:00 am to noon time slot Sundays on WCLR, they asked me if I could help out Music Director Suzy Mayzel by listening to some jazz and New Age albums (it was still mainly vinyl back then) and pick out tracks that might sound good on the air. They were working on an experimental new show–that’s what I was told.
It was in early February, 1987, that the station had me making frequent trips to record stores in search of music for the Brunch. I went back and forth quite a few times to Rose Records, which was the leading Chicago area chain at the time. I’d scour their Jazz and New Age sections and grab the entire catalogue of the few artists whose names were familiar to me (David Sanborn, George Benson and Grover Washington Jr., for instance). Then, I’d ask someone in the store to suggest some of their own favorites in either category. That’s how I first learned about the great old Windham Hill and Narada artists of the mid ’80s. In an hour, I’d be back at the station with a stack of albums that Suzy and I would listen to, track by track, on the turntable in her office. Within a week, we had the makings of our first playlist for the Brunch: several dozens tracks we could play on the air.
The Wave, we found out, was set to make its debut on February 14, 1987. Around that time, I gave Suzy the word that we ought to be ready to launch the Brunch on WCLR the following weekend. Behind the scenes, Suzy, Dave, Chet and I were also grappling with the idea of how we ought to describe the music we’d be playing on the show to the listeners. Since the now famous phrase “Smooth Jazz” wouldn’t come along for another two years, we were at a loss. What we settled on was a mouthful. I’d go on the air and tell the listeners our show was “a blend of contemporary jazz, New Age music and vocals.” Nothing concise or clever there. But, as clumsy as it was, the phrase did the job. At least listeners would know where they could find all of this unfamiliar music at the music store.
On February 22, 1987, the Sunday Lite Brunch debuted at 8:00 am on WCLR to the strains of Chuck Mangione’s “Bellavia,” which we decided would be the opening theme of the show. The station had opted for a quiet launch. There had been no on-air promos leading up to that moment, nothing that even hinted to the audience that a brand new show was about to hit the air. I turned on the microphone around 8:03 during the fadeout of “Bellavia” and made the announcement: “Welcome to the Sunday Lite Brunch, a brand new program on WCLR.” I went on to explain the type of music we’d be playing and how we hoped people would approach the show with both an open mind and open ears. If they gave the music a chance, I added, they’d find it was a pleasant mix on a Sunday morning.
Within seconds, the request lines in the studio began to ring. I glanced over at the phone, and all five lines were lit up. I was astounded by the reaction. The only time the phones behaved that way was during a contest, when we were giving something away. I answered the first call. It was a woman saying she liked the idea of the new show. I took a second call. Another encouraging, positive comment. I took a third. Same thing. On and on it went, call after call that hour. As I played more music, listeners continued to call. Then, around 9:00, the hotline in the studio rang. It was Chet Redpath, asking what kind of reaction we were getting to the Brunch. I couldn’t answer him fast enough: “It’s unbelievable, Chet–people are LOVING the music.”
Normally, doing a music show while answering a request line that’s constantly ringing is exhausting. Not this Sunday morning, however. The calls kept coming in, one rave review after another. It was total exhilaration. As noon rolled around and I wrapped up the first Sunday Lite Brunch, I looked at my phone call log that I had filled out that morning. We had gotten over fifty calls, all of them overwhelmingly positive. That morning I had played only a handful of songs WCLR would normally have been playing at the time (a few Anita Bakers and Sade’s “Smooth Operator,” mainly), but not a single person complained. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to give Chet, Dave and Suzy a full report the next day.
At our Monday morning recap meeting, following a round of high fives, it was decided that I would publish a monthly program guide for the show and make it available to listeners on request. The following Sunday, on our second show, I started soliciting requests for the free “Sunday Lite Brunch Menu.” It look less than one week to get nearly 100 letters from listeners wanting to be added to our mailing list for the Menu.
The warm reaction to the Brunch from listeners grew into a white-hot buzz as the weeks went by. Clients lined up to become sponsors. Carson’s State Street store brought me in to help them prepare “The World’s Largest Omelet.” I hosted a night of Windham Hill artists at Ravinia that summer. On numerous occasions, while browsing anonymously in the New Age department of a music store, I’d be approached by a staffer suggesting that I try this new show on WCLR because “they’re playing New Age music on it.” The Pioneer Press came on board as our primary sponsor, giving the Brunch a full page ad in all of their editions each week to feature our growing playlist. Then, other local media jumped in. Dan Miller of Crain’s Chicago Business took us all by surprise with a glowing review. Robert Feder described the Brunch as “being as close to perfect as any radio show” in his Sun-Times column. Chet, Dave, Suzy and I agreed: in all our years in the business we’d never seen a reaction like this to any new show we’d ever been involved with.
By the end of the summer, the Sunday Lite Brunch added two more hours, going to 2:00 pm. The volume of calls kept growing. The mailing list passed the one thousand mark. Ratings for Sunday morning began to rise. And the station still hadn’t received a single complaint about the show. Positive calls and letters were outnumbering the negative, and it was a shutout: about 1,500 to 0. When WNUA finally hit the air with a full-time format of what we’d been playing the past six months on the Brunch on August 3, that station would be trading on an unprecedented amount of goodwill in the listening community with respect to this type of music. Chicago was ripe and ready for “Smooth Jazz.” Was it ever!
It was obvious the music we were playing struck a chord with listeners. I learned later on that the reaction we had gotten on the Brunch was very similar to what other stations around the country experienced when they, too, launched similar formats. To say the least, Smooth Jazz had an auspicious start. I’ll always be grateful that I was a part of it here in Chicago with the Sunday Lite Brunch.
