KJAZ-FM & The Spirit Archives
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The Summer of 1994 was a sad time when it became apparent that KJAZ was going to be sold and its classic jazz sound lost from the FM dial. I never worked at KJAZ, but it was the standard bearer of great locally produced jazz radio. Although my broadcast experience was in non-commercial radio, I always liked the fact that KJAZ was commercially supported, and until its imminent demise had no fund drives. It was able to stand on its own as jazz radio. KJAZ defined hip, cool, and class all at once. |
The segments from 1969 through 1974 feature Jim Toman interviewing several jazz luminaries that stopped by the station. These were taken from quarter-track reel-to-reel tapes. In some cases, print through is evident; it has been cleaned up as much as feasible. A couple of recordings were made on a variable speed recorder so the pitch and playback speed was adjusted to be as close possible to the other segments. In other cases, the recordings survived surprisingly well. Unexpectedly, there were also two 1950 Pat Henry transcriptions from KXRX in San Jose. Many thanks to Jim's son, Padric, for sending me all of these recordings; they are well worth a listen.
Most of the segments from 1985 were taken from quarter-track reel-to-reel tapes I was using to test a tape deck. They were recorded in mono, stereo, slow, and fast speeds; they captured the essence of how KJAZ sounded during the 1980s. The commercials and promotions were higher budget than those of the 1970s.
There are also two examples of Herb Wong's swinging Christmas shows from 1985 and 1986 plus part of Kevin Reed's afternoon show from 1990. Many thanks to KJAZ alum, Kevin Reed, for sending me these.
1994 was the end of KJAZ-FM. These final segments are from Hi-Fi videotape recordings that myself and others had made during the last weeks before signing off for good on July 31. Many thanks to Mark Rabin for his contribution of some of these final recordings as well as the ones from 1989-1993.
| Download the air check by right clicking on the title below | |
| Feb. 3, 1950 | 78 Review - Pat Henry with Stan Kenton and Billie Holiday. (21:22) |
| unknown | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Jimmy Witherspoon. (59:33) |
| July 1969 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Eddie Harris. (4:27PM - 5:12PM) |
| Aug 1969 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Kenny Dorham. (5:20PM - 6:35PM) |
| Sep. 25, 1969 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Cannonball Adderley. (33:42) |
| Sep. 30, 1969 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Milt Jackson. (5:00PM - 5:40PM) |
| Oct. 28, 1969 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Rahsaan
Roland Kirk. (26:24) The tape box indicated Rahsaan was standing on his head for the entirety of this interview! |
| Jan. 28, 1970 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Stan Kenton. (47:37) |
| Mar. 12, 1970 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Buddy Rich. (56:48) |
| May 20, 1970 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Leon Thomas. (2:30PM - 3:15PM) |
| July 16, 1970 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Mose Allison. (57:26) |
| May 29, 1971 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Willie Bobo. (58:35) |
| Nov. 1972 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with Jorge Santana. (27:11) |
| May 30, 1974 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Jim Toman with George Shearing. (37:16) |
| May 30, 1985 | Jazz with Jerry Dean - Part 1 (55:19) Part
2 (48:41) Evening Jazz - Bob Parlocha. (26:37) |
| Dec. 24, 1985 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Tim Hodges. (1:12:23) |
| Dec. 25, 1985 | Christmas Jazz - Herb Wong. Part 1 (2:39:18) Part 2 (1:46:08) |
| Dec. 25, 1986 | Christmas Jazz - Herb Wong. (2:52:44) |
| 1989 | The Heart of Jazz - Bob Houlehan and Herb Wong. (1:03:26) |
| Apr. 1989 | See's Sunday Night: Cedar Walton - Bud Spangler. (8:00PM - 9:00PM) |
| 1990 | See's Sunday Night: Mark Murphy - Bud Spangler. (8:00PM - 8:57PM) |
| June 21, 1990 | Jazz in
the Morning - Stan Dunn. (1:31:53) Jazz with Jerry Dean - Jerry Dean. (3:15:27) |
| Sep. 1, 1990 | Jazz in the Afternoon - Kevin Reed. (1:31:53) |
| Sep. 1993 | See's Sunday Night: Milt Jackson & Ray Brown
Set 1 (1:46:24)
Set 2 (1:37:12) - Jerry Dean, Bob Parlocha, Les Williams. |
| June 21, 1994 | Midday Jazz - Jerry Dean. (1:30:02) Jazz in the Afternoon - John Rogers. (1:20:12) Dinner Jazz - Bob Parlocha. (1:35:14) |
| June 22, 1994 | Jazz in the Morning - Les Williams. (1:26:30) |
| June 25, 1994 | Jazz in the Morning - Jai Smith. (22:12) Jazz on a Saturday - John Rogers. (1:02:17) Jazz in the Afternoon - Steve Rottman. (1:30:04) |
| June 26, 1994 | The Great American Songwriters - John Rogers.
(1:00:05) The Heart of Jazz - Bob Houlihan and Herb Wong. (1:57:28) |
| June 29, 1994 | Jazz in
the Morning - Stan Dunn. (7:40AM - 10:00AM) Jazz with Jerry Dean - Part 1 (10:00AM - 12:30PM) Part 2 (12:30PM - 3:00PM) Jazz in the Afternoon - John Rogers. (3:00PM - 5:00PM) Jazz in the Afternoon / Dinner Jazz - John Rogers. (5:00PM - 7:00PM) Dinner Jazz / Evening Jazz - Bob Parlocha. (7:00PM - 10:00PM) Evening Jazz - Bob Parlocha. (10:00PM - 12:00AM) |
| June 30, 1994 | The All Night Affair - Jack Springer.
Part 1(12AM - 3AM)
Part 2 (3AM - 6AM) Jazz in the Morning - Stan Dunn. Part 1 (6:00AM - 8:00AM) Part 2 (8AM - 10AM) Jazz with Jerry Dean - Part 1 (10:00AM - 12:11PM) Part 2 (12:12PM - 2:22PM) Jazz in the Afternoon - Greg Bridges. (3:00PM - 5:00PM) Jazz in the Afternoon / Dinner Jazz - Greg Bridges. (5:00PM - 6:50PM) Dinner Jazz / Evening Jazz - Les Williams. (6:50PM - 9:50PM) Evening Jazz - Les Williams. (9:50PM - 12:00AM) |
| July 1, 1994 | The All Night Affair - Jack Springer.
Part 1 (12AM
- 3AM) Part 2
(3AM - 6AM) Jazz in the Morning - Stan Dunn. Part 1 (6:00AM - 8:00AM) Part 2 (8AM - 10AM) Jazz with Jerry Dean - Jerry Dean. (10:00AM - 12:00PM) |
| July 27, 1994 | Jazz with Jerry Dean - Part 1
(10:00AM - 12:35PM)
Part 2 (12:35PM - 2:22PM) Jazz in the Afternoon - John Rogers. (3:00PM - 6:00PM) |
| July 28, 1994 | Jazz with Jerry Dean - Part 1
(10:00AM - 12:33PM)
Part 2 (12:33PM - 2:22PM) Jazz in the Afternoon - Greg Bridges. (3:00PM - 6:00PM) |
| July 29, 1994 | Jazz with Jerry Dean - Part 1
(10:00AM - 12:30PM)
Part 2 (12:30PM - 2:22PM) Blues - Greg Bridges - Part 1 (3:00PM - 5:00PM) Part 2 (5:00PM - 7:00PM) Dinner Jazz / Evening Jazz - Bob Parlocha. (7:00PM - 10:00PM) Evening Jazz - Bob Parlocha. (10:00PM - 12:00AM) |
| July 30, 1994 | The All Night Affair - Denise
Maunder. (12:00AM - 2:00AM) The All Night Affair - Roy Daniels. Part 1 (2AM - 4:08AM) Part 2 (4:08AM - 6AM) Jazz in the Morning - Jai Smith Part 1 (6:19 AM - 8:00AM) Part 2 (8AM - 10AM) The Great American Songwriters - John Rogers. (10:00AM - 12:10PM) Jazz in the Afternoon - John Rogers. (12:10PM - 2:00PM) Jazz in the Afternoon - Steve Rotman Part 1 (2PM - 4PM) Part 2 (4PM - 6PM) Dinner Jazz / Evening Jazz - Greg Bridges. (6:00PM - 12:00AM) |
| July 31, 1994 | The All Night Affair - Roy Daniels.
(12:00AM - 3:00AM) The All Night Affair - Roy Daniels. (3:00PM - 6:00AM) Jazz in the Morning - Robert Berenson. (6:00AM - 9:00AM) The Great American Songwriters - John Rogers. (9:00AM - 11:30AM) G. A. S. / Jazz in the Afternoon - John Rogers. (11:30AM - 2:00PM) Latin Jazz - Jesse "Chuy" Varela. (2:00PM - 3:55PM) Latin Jazz - Jesse "Chuy" Varela. (3:55PM - 6:00PM) Dinner Jazz - Bob Parlocha. (6:00PM - 8:00PM) See's Sunday Night - Bud Spangler. (8:00PM - 9:00PM) The Heart of KJAZ - final program with all KJAZ announcers. (9PM - 12AM) Ron Cowan's Farewell - KJAZ owner says goodbye to 92.7 FM (3:00) |
| July 31, 1994 | Two TV stations' news programs covered the last day of KJAZ on air: | KTVU 5 o'clock News coverage (2:20) KGO-TV evening news coverage (0:30) |
KJAZ operated with around 1700 watts of transmission power. Even with a rooftop directional yagi antenna, reception was difficult outside of the immediate San Francisco and Oakland city limits. The clear recordings are in mono, however, those with a bit of background hiss are in stereo and frankly a truer representation of how KJAZ sounded to most listeners. Despite its low power output, KJAZ had one of the cleanest and highest fidelity sounds of any Bay Area FM outlet. When listening to the station in the city on a good stereo system, its clarity of imaging and aural achievement was breathtaking. Considering that this was largely coming from early stereo LPs that were at times decades old, the operations standards of this little station far exceeded that of lowest-common-denominator highly-compressed audio evident in much of today's broadcast media.
The Spirit of KJAZ
After the demise of KJAZ and the short lived KJAZ cable, Jerry Dean continued to record programs for other stations. In the 1990s, Jerry, Stan Dunn, and Tim Hodges created The Spirit, an internet stream consisting of hundreds of hours of classic Jerry Dean and other KJAZ programming. The site also features many photos from KJAZ over the years. Although KJAZ and now Jerry are no longer with us, the epitome of hip, cool, and class continued on this stream through 2012. Sadly, the burden of licensing the stream and the required accounting details caused Stan to discontinue The Spirit. Also, Jazz with Bob Parlocha continued with that KJAZ feeling as a syndicated overnight public radio program for twenty years until his death in 2015.
Below are some episodes of Jazz with Jerry Dean, likely produced during the 2000s. Jerry had a program on the former KJZY that provided a straight ahead alternative to most of the station's smooth jazz programming. These were subsequently streamed on The Spirit. Many thanks to Kevin Fisher for his contribution of these recordings.
September 4, 2009
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September 5, 2009
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December 15, 2009
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January 26, 2011
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