Jazz Radio America

This is history and analysis of U.S. jazz radio since 1945. Race and ideology, in addition to falling popularity, have played a role in situating jazz on U.S. radio. Unlike the pre-WWII network radio era where live swing music played a prominent role, jazz, ever evolving, struggled to remain significant in postwar radio’s mass audience strategies. As radio turned to formats around emerging popular music genres, jazz was slowly squeezed out of featured airplay even as jazz undertones would continue on commercial radio into the 1970s. At commercial stations, jazz could be among the programs outside the central format and on public radio today, this is once again the case. The likelihood of crossover jazz records receiving commercial radio airplay tracked closely with race, with soul jazz hits occasionally creeping onto black radio playlists and American songbook records doing the same on white stations. To a great degree inspired by the absence of jazz on commercial stations, jazz became a cornerstone of noncommercial radio. It is argued that public radio largely avoids edgier jazz music, which is more likely to be heard on community or college radio. Indeed, since the mid-1980s, jazz, and music in general has been in retreat on public radio stations chasing subscriber and underwriting revenue.