| MURRAY: | I understand Mr. Vercelli has a time problem so let's go right to him and then we will hear from Mr. Corriveau. |
| VERCELLI: | Thank you for inviting us both down this afternoon. My name is Gary Vercelli and I'm the music director at KXJZ here in Sacramento. I have to get back to do an airshift this afternoon. Alithia Hermann from our station is also here and will be able to apprise me of the other testimony. I'm from Glendale, California originally--an area not known for ethnic diversity. Growing up in Glendale in 1960s, I was never exposed to jazz in the classroom nor through my peer group. My lifeline to an art form that celebrates the genius of the afro-american experience was a 24-hour jazz station, KBCA, which you, Assemblymember Murray, are probably aware of being from Compton and Southern California. I eventually went to work at that station in the late 1970s. During my tenure there, I saw an evolution in the programming concept--the station became much more commercially oriented. It was a fulfillnent of a dream of mine to work fulltime at a jazz radio station--to disseminate valuable information. I'm real glad to see Buddy Collette on your panel because he's an artist that we celebrated almost daily on that radio station. We had a general sales manager there who convinced the owner of the station that if we watered down our sound or made it more "people oriented", as he put it, our numbers would go up. So through a process of evolution in our sound we began playing more Spyro Gyra and Chuck Mangione and less Wayne Shorter, Elvin Jones, and McCoy Tyner--the authentic jazz music. For a time, our numbers did go up. Management took that as a signal to further commercialize the format. Today KBCA, now KKGO, is a 24-hour classical music station--so much for a 25-year commitment to America's indigenous art form. It used to be that you could count all the fulltime commercial jazz stations on one hand. Today, you can count them on one finger, namely KJAZ in the San Francisco-bay area. So the NPR (National Public Radio) stations have become the flagship for the exposure of jazz in this country. WBGO in newark, KLON in the Los Angeles area, WRTI associated with Temple University in Philadephia, and now, we hope, KXJZ will survive and prosper here in California's capitol. I really thank god for public radio. It's an honor and a pleasure to work in an environment where your playlist is not as restricted as it is in commercial radio. In most commercial radio stations these days the disc jockey or announcer is merely that, an announcer. They have no programming choices. My philosophy is to hire intelligent people and let them express themselves. As Phil (Corriveau) mentioned, I served as jazz music director at KXPR for 10 years producing a late-night authentic jazz show on an otherwise classical station. At first that program met with some resistance or skepticism from those who were tied to the european classical music tradition. But with time we won them over. Even some of the most severe doubters of jazz can be won over with sufficient exposure. Jazz is America's classical music and it definitely should be treated as such. That's the way we approach programming jazz on KXPR and KXJZ. We are living in a very dangerous time when there are certain stations calling themselves "jazz radio stations" that aren't playing much authentic jazz at all. This very weekend down in Catalina there's a so-called "jazz festival" that doesn't have any authentic jazz artists on its roster. The word "jazz" in our society is used to market everything from cologne to social events. I think we should be very careful in the way we use it. American television continues to woefully ignore jazz music. In my travels as a jazz journalist, i've been to Europe and Japan and I have seen the treatment by the television medium that gives much more exposure in those environments. I remember seeing Buddy Collette in Verona, Italy where he was treated as the prince that he is musically. I think we should recognize our artists here at home the way they are recognized in Europe and Japan. If it were not for public radio, i think we would still be in the dark ages in terms of recognition and respect of this great music. In terms of our programming, I feel that jazz radio will reach its next plateau of expression and prosperity when programming more accurately reflects the cutting edge of the idiom that is represented in our nightclubs and concert halls across the country. Jazz radio must strive to strike a balance between artistic creativity and the commercial realities of the times we live in. We take a globalistic approach to our programming at KXJZ, recognizing the genius of jazz music's afro-american heritage as well as important documentation coming out of Europe and Japan. For the successful future of jazz radio and music, an attempt must be made to fully expose the jazz idiom while simultaneously aiming for a continuous flow of identifiable sound. Any station that calls itself a jazz station should be playing Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Buddy Collette, and Sonny Rollins. The essence of jazz is freedom and honest feeling and we should strive to reflect these qualities in our programming. Jazz programmers should strive for a happy medium in highlighting the accessible forms of the idiom, but never neglect the masters of the past or the tasteful experimentation of the future. I'm very happy to see a lot of young visionaries coming up through the ranks of musicianship these days. I think Wynton Marsalis has signaled to young musicians that you can make a living playing authentic jazz. I'm encouraged--although we've lost a lot of masters in the past few years--who we are filling the ranks with young musicians that are committed to the art form. KXJZ is intimately involved in our community, not only as a radio station but as a sponsor of concerts. We've never applied for outside funding for the concerts; we rely directly on our listeners. We don't present them as profit-making situations. We're happy to break even. |
| MURRAY: | When you present the concerts, do you broadcast them live? |
| VERCELLI: | Sometimes we have. Usually we tape them for future broadcast. We have plans to broadcast the traditional jazz festival next year if we are able to acquire the necessary funding and equipment to do so. We brought Art Blakey, Dewey Redman, McCoy Tyner, Archie Shepp, Horace Silver, Bobby Hutcherson and many other contemporary jazz artists to Sacramento, thereby making Sacramento a better place to live and changing the face of the community artistically. We also document the work of local jazz musicians, visiting artists from the bay area, and traveling musicians for broadcast on the station. We provide exposure for local arts organizations and concert producers via public service announcements (PSAS). To my knowledge we're the only radio station in town--I may be wrong--that provided exposure for this hearing (California Legislative Black Caucus) and the BAPAC (Black American Political Association of California) convention that's going on. We are committed to the community--the jazz community, the black community. Robbin Ware, who I think is going to testify later, has provided us with PSAS. We heavily weigh his PSAS in our format because we believe in what he's doing and appreciate some of the great artists he's brought to the Sacramento area. We also interview artists on the air. The philosophy of a lot of commercial stations is to keep the music going uninterrupted by talk. We believe that if an important artist is in our community, we bring them in, talk to them, and gain through their knowledge the artistic experience. We've brought in people from around the state--music journalists, those who market jazz. There was a gentleman in from Tower Records in Japan the other day who talked about the difference between the way jazz is appreciated in Japan and in the United States. We also have thematic programs on the air. All this week we have been celebrating Miles Davis with a six-segment tribute to him. I think it's important to note that it was produced while Miles was still living (Miles Davis died September 28, 1991) and initially broadcast on KXPR. It's a program that was made available to us from American Public Radio, and it's significant that they paid tribute to Miles while he was alive as opposed to waiting until his death to acknowledge his genius. Also, locally we produced a salute to Blue Note Records, an authentic jazz label, celebrating their 50th anniversary. It was aired on 20 other public radio stations across the country. We will be handing out at the end of my testimony program guides which we are very proud of. They are a 30-page magazine which we distribute to our 15,000 subscribers every month. In the guide, we detail our most played jazz albums, we profile artists, we do record reviews, and concert reviews. I encourage everyone on our jazz staff to write for the program guide. Sometimes we feel like we are working for a magazine as well as a radio station, but it's an important process and we are very proud of it. I hope you all look over our guide. You'll never hear a commercial on KXJZ. We feel that jazz is best presented within the framework of noncommercial broadcasting. As Phil mentioned, 60 percent of our operating budget is derived from listener support. A sad statistic is that only 10 percent of the people who listen to public radio support it. We feel the most effective way of generating new listeners is to have a semiannual fundraiser. Our next one begins November 1. It's 8 days of steady pitching for money over the air. We don't like doing it anymore than you like hearing it. However, it only represents 1 percent of our total broadcast time. The rest of the 6 months are devoted to providing exposure for America's indigenous art form. We strive to enlighten our listenership. Our goal is to involve people with the music that has suffered too long due to a lack of proper exposure by the media. I would like to encourage everyone here to get involved. Try to get jazz brought into the classrooms in your respective communities, support live jazz in your communities, and support your local public radio station because we are you. Without you there is no public radio or listener subscriptions, and without us there is no authentic jazz on the airwaves. It saddens me when I meet young people who say they like jazz and then name three or four artists who are very marginal. That's not to say that some quasi-jazz is not quality music, but I think the pure artistic forms--the Gerald Wilsons of the world should not be forgotten. That's what we're about. In closing, the late saxophonist Albert ayler told us that "music is the healing force of the universe". I'm very comfortable with the view that jazz has become more than just great music, but an international language that brings people together. I encourage us to support it in any way we can. |
| MURRAY: | How's your time? Do you have a few minutes? |
| VERCELLI: | Yes. |
| MURRAY: | What do you think can be done to enhance the listening audience? |
| VERCELLI: | Well, if we had a promotional budget, I think we could be more visible in the community. Every year we establish a promotional budget and every year we're just a little bit in the red. It's the first thing that gets slashed in the budget. |
| MURRAY: | How would you use it? |
| VERCELLI: | We would use it to provide more concerts, promote more concerts, hook up with other organizers and get our name out in the community. |
| MURRAY: | Would you do any advertising on television or other radio stations? |
| VERCELLI: | I think print media advertising would be effective. We were able to do a bus bench campaign, but it was scaled down. We wanted to do some television spots when we first signed on the air. I think most commercial radio stations, when they are starting a new format, have a lot of fanfare. We had to depend on any kind of free exposure we could get in the media. |
| MURRAY: | Do you think you could increase the jazz listening audience in Sacramento by advertising or by programming jazz on other radio stations? Let's say commercial radio stations. If we had to choose one, which one would we chose? |
| VERCELLI: | I think the future of jazz lies in public broadcasting. That's where the commitment is, and ... |
| CORRIVEAU: | If I could address that briefly, too... I think the ability to purchase print advertising or billboards which are very effective for radio is important. Most of the comments on the pledge forms I have read say we just came upon you by accident. We stumbled upon you, we were going through the dial, and there you were--this wonderful thing. Many people who have lived in Sacramento for a long time have not been aware of it. So there has to be other methods of getting the word out that this product is available. |
| MURRAY: | In the old days, some radios didn't have a FM dial which limited their audience. I believe now the law requires that all radios have an FM dial. People tend to listen to FM, especially for music, because the tone is so much better ... |
| VERCELLI: | With the exception of talk radio formats, I think an am frequency is seen as a disadvantage, the way the FM frequency was in the 1950s. |
| MURRAY: | Why do you think that jazz is better received in foreign countries--in Japan and in Europe--than in this country? It seems to be growing there and waning here. |
| VERCELLI: | I don't know of a jazz festival in Europe that is not government supported. I don't know exactly how much. . . |
| MURRAY: | So you think the difference is government subsidy? |
| VERCELLI: | Yes. In order to be fair with artists and pay them what they rightfully deserve (and some of the presenters that will be speaking today will tell you this), you can't rely totally upon ticket sales. Jazz needs funding the way European classical music has enjoyed it. |
| MURRAY: | Why do foreign governments fund it? |
| VERCELLI: | Well, I think they view it more as an art form as opposed to a commercial entity. |
| CORRIVEAU: | I would just like to add, too, that in virtually every country except this one, public or noncommercial broadcasting came first and then commercial came later. This is the only country in the world where broadcasting was started as a commercial enterprise and public broadcasting came along later. |
| MINICUCCI: | Juan (Carrillo) will remember when we had German cultural counselors visit us in 1978 (I think). They told us that the average budget of a nonprofit arts organization in Germany had something like 82 percent government funding. Whereas, you heard Juan say that in California its between less than 1 percent and 10 percent. So I think part of the problem is the scope of funding. |
| CARRILLO: | I also remember them saying that each city had an operating budget of $100 million for the arts. |