Tuesday 16 October 2012

A Paean To The Wave

Thoughts on the Demise of Smooth Jazz Radio


I listened to a CD last night. One I sent off for because it contained a track I really liked, one that I had heard on radio. While I was listening to the track again last night, it crossed my mind that, when it comes to finding music on the radio, things aren’t as easy as they used to be.

When I say ‘radio’ I mean radio over the internet, because the radio stations around here don’t play my kind of music. I’ve always enjoyed what is labelled as ‘Smooth Jazz’ and had become pleased at discovering online a small number of radio stations specialising in this field.  Perhaps unsurprisingly most of these stations were in the United States.  I found that in many instances the Smooth Jazz output was offered as supplementary programming to established stations in the big cities, and is broadcast digitally on a sideband of the parent FM signal.  This is known as HD radio - an appropriate name because although it implies High Definition and sounds pretty good, it actually means Hybrid Digital.

Over the past couple of decades CBS Radio ran a string of Smooth Jazz stations, most of which branded themselves as ‘The Wave’, usually contorting their call-letters befittingly.  Yet it’s been over twenty years since Kenny Gee jammed with Bill Clinton and styles go in and out of fashion and defined formats lose their commercial impact.  Recently many Smooth Jazz stations have disappeared.  For example, KTWV in Los Angeles has moved away from Smooth Jazz into the adjacent Urban Adult Contemporary format, although it does retain a ‘classic’ Smooth Jazz output on one of its HD carriers.

Or so I believe, because I’m no longer allowed to listen to it.

In February 2010 US music stations suddenly began to disappear from the internet.  The day I discovered that my favourites weren’t there any more I contacted the station manager of V98.7, the Smooth Jazz station in Detroit to ask why.  He apologetically pointed out that “The Men In Suits” had discovered that CBS and other networks weren’t paying international royalties for internet promulgation of any music they played and that they would therefore be exposing themselves to litigation. It was a case of “So long, loyal listeners, but tough. We have copyright problems”.

Let me explain.  Here in the UK, if we see or hear American programmes it’s because a UK broadcaster has paid for the rights to show them to an audience to which the American broadcaster had no access.  This is well and good: if I enjoy JR in Dallas (again) I should pay Larry Hagman for his efforts. My payment to Larry will be an infinitessimal fraction of the tangle of income the station gets from ad breaks, my cable or satellite subscription or the licence fee we have to pay in this country.  All artists whose work is broadcast should be remunerated in a similar way.

On the internet, when I listened to Euge Groove on The Wave in Los Angeles, Euge was unlikely to receive any income from me because I’m not part of the audience The Wave presumes to receive income from. Elsewhere in LA - and, to a diminishing extent, across the US - listeners would be expected to have access to, and be familiar with, and occasionally utilise, the products and services of the station’s advertisers. People buy what the advertisers offer, the station gets paid and Euge, down the line, gets his cut. Because I’m off their map, “The Men in Suits” do not see me as part of this equation.

But Euge does receive income from me - and probably the kind he likes the most.  When I heard his track on the radio I went out and bought the album.

In February 2010, things changed.  CBS radio websites - using the "Men In Suits" - analogy apologised that CBS radio would be henceforth unavailable in my location and directed me and any other would-be listeners to Last.fm - which is okay but totally impersonal. Sites such as smoothjazz.com hint at being regular radio stations, suggesting a regional provenance and giving a call-sign on the hour, but they lack the presenters that give a radio station its roots.  A great selection of music, undoubtedly, but little else than just another iTunes stream.  Radio needs to come from somewhere.

These internet-only stations haven’t got a guy telling me about local weather or the gig he went to last night or what I might be missing out on at the weekend. They lack ownership, they lack a location.  They lack the companionship that real radio brings. 

Forget relentless chatter, which can be found everywhere. I want someone to play me my kind of music and frame it in terms of the real world.

So what are my alternatives? Somewhere in the UK we have a station called Chill, which is becoming increasingly difficult to find elsewhere than online.  Even when it was available as ‘radio’ I never went for Chill because its music majored on ‘relaxation techniques and the relief of stress’.  Sounds like a pretty negative listener base to me, and one I don’t particularly want to be part of. I suppose, if you think about it, 60% of ‘Chill’ is ‘ill’.  But 'stress'?  Me?  I always thought I felt pretty upbeat - and I like Smooth Jazz because it makes me feel even better.

My best online option in Europe at the moment appears to be Deluxe Lounge from Germany.  But it’s still a sterile, human-free feed, and I’m more likely to find myself listening to Ketil Bjornstad from Liepzig than Bobby ‘Hurricane’ Spencer from Almeda. The Almeda in LA, not Spain.

The only North American Smooth Jazz output 'with people' that I’ve found since “The Men In Suits” moved in two years ago comes from a Canadian website, a vestige of a potential Toronto radio station which failed to obtain its broadcast licence back in September.  Its playlist is very much ‘The Wave’ but, for me, it is still lacking.  I know it and I should have commonality by sharing an allegiance to H.M. The Queen but, despite this, the magic isn’t in Southern Ontario.  It’s in LA.

I really enjoyed working at my desk listening to The Wave.   A time difference of between five and eight hours would mean that every morning here in the UK I could listen to overnight and early hours programming from across the US.  Once the traffic started clogging the freeways of western Florida on WSJT in Tampa, and the breakfast presenters shuffled in with their orange juice, I’d travel north west to the cool darkness of V98.7 in Detroit. Then to the dusty heat of KHJZ  Houston.  And then finally to KTWV in Los Angeles, passing the time savouring cool and comfortable music emanating from cities across the continent as they slept.  And, all alone in most of these stations would be a single presenter, a sentinel in the night, linking the tracks and providing companionship for the sleepless, sharing a vigil through the early hours and, importantly, imbuing the music with a sense of place.

Thin support for Smooth Jazz format stations often meant that output had to be pre-programmed and, as is always the case, if things are to go wrong, they go wrong when there’s no-one around to fix them.  On more than one occasion I’ve heard the same 15 minutes go out twice, unchecked.  I preferred KTWV in Los Angeles because it has an overnight presenter who knew what he was doing.

Bill Dudley seemed a regular guy.  In his occasional interventions between the music he would gently enthuse about the artist featured and the tracks played.  Knowledgeable, yet understated, and unlike the laid-back, assured yet vacuous voices of many radio presenters, Bill’s was honest and genuine. He worked mammoth shifts to a fiendish schedule so it perplexes me that he maintained such gentle enthusiasm. I admired the courtesy with which he painted pictures of the events peppering the station’s calendar. While the music played I imagined him writing his articles for the station blog.  Perhaps he maintained his composure because the daytime clutter of phone-ins, competitions, traffic and weather was still some hours away, the remit of day-time colleagues concurrently basking in the arms of Morpheus.  It was him and the music.  Bill didn’t need to know that as he headed for home with dawn breaking over Wilshire Boulevard, I was on my way back from lunch in the Station Tap.

But it’s been over two years since I last heard Bill.  His programme, like those of all his confederates, has been deemed by “The Men In Suits” as being unremunerative.  As it sells nothing to me, no-one benefits as a result of me listening to it.

Except that I don’t think this is entirely the case, because KTWV was one big - and successful - advertisement in itself. The fact that I’m talking about it now means that I am aware of what it does.  It sells itself, it sells its music and it sells the lifestyle of the city it comes from.  Listen to it and you feel the nocturnal heat of a slumbering giant, you see the streetlights glistening towards the Pacific. High above its miles of building, you’re hearing the calm and confident soundtrack of Los Angeles as it shimmers through the night. It’s ‘Collateral’ without the menace. LA is never asleep but with Bill, for this moment, it is at rest.  More than anything, you want to be there. 

I want to gaze at glass, steel and concrete high-rises towering over empty streets, to feel warm zephyrs dancing across traffic-less boulevards, to watch stoplights change at deserted intersections. But I also want to stay in a great hotel, drive to that restaurant, enjoy drinks and the music at the bar by the ocean, experience the thrill of the concert downtown. I want to experience the world that Bill talks about - and goes home to every morning. I want to spend my time and money in LA.  Nothing could be a better advertisement.

Tell that to “The Men In Suits”.  Despite what they think, Bill and his friends did a flawless marketing job.  Because its programming was different it sounded distinctive and the place it came from sounded fabulous.  Radio deserves to be a success when the community it seeks to serve benefits from the services it provides. And those benefits are often indirect.

But that was then, and this is now.

Time to play the CD again.

Monday 8 October 2012

Travel. A Tip. An Absolute Tip.


Recent experience reveals that the Arab Spring appears to lack a constituent element familiar to those of us more familiar with the British season. The spring clean.

Sidi Bou Said is a closely-packed medieval maze of houses sitting on a hilly Mediterranean promontary in Tunisia. With breathtaking views south over the Gulf of Tunis and west over the bustling capital, it is an ancient and pretty town, home to the rich and influential. Its glistening white buildings and narrow cobbled streets are consequently host to daily swarms of tourists disengorging from cruise ships berthing at the port of Tunis, twelve miles away.  Despite the tourists and the clutter of souvenir stalls set out to serve them, the streets of Sidi Bou Said look surprisingly clean.

Step a couple of yards away and you’ll find out why.
Sidi Bou Said - taking steps to avoid litter...
Rubbish, anything from incidental litter to commercial rubble more suited for landfill, has been tipped over the nearest wall.  Wander off the well-trodden tourist track, to explore the hill down to the marina possibly, or to experience the magnificent views from the hilltop and you'll soon be aware of the town’s detritus,  dumped unceremoniously somewhere close by, ostensibly out of sight.

Three miles away is the ancient city of Carthage, founded 3000 years ago, a site pivotal to the gestation of our civilised world. Dotted with temples, amphitheatres and an ancient harbour, Carthage is, unsurprisingly, a World Heritage site.  Like Sidi, Carthage is a desirable place to live and its avenues and roads are bordered with opulent and luxurious villas. 

Carthage - cradle of civilisation or cradle of filth?
Unfortunately, it takes a similar approach to rubbish disposal.

When it becomes impossible to photograph anything other than a carefully framed view already locally available as a postcard, shouldn’t tourists start to challenge the people who look after these places?  They do it with hotels and restaurants, why not other attractions too? These locations rely on an income from tourists but, unlike other comparable ventures, lack any purposeful infrastructure which can invest in the upkeep of the attraction that brings in the tourist.

So should World Heritage sites lose their accreditation if they fail to be kept up to scratch? Hotels and restaurants lose stars or rosettes if standards are let slip - why not the amphitheatres of Carthage?

Yet despite being a dump, it would be unlikely that a refuse-laden site such as Carthage would cease to feature on tourist routes because it has such intrinsic historical significance.  This significance overrides any apprehension which might arise from the comments of previous visitors. But shouldn’t there be some onus on the husbandry of such sites? And shouldn't the drawbacks of such places be given greater prominence? Shouldn't they be shamed into tidying up?

The tourist industry is pretty shrewd at avoiding such dilemmas. It conspires with locals to do little as possible about the problem.  Tourists are given few opportunities to see the rubbish: they are bussed in and out of locations and, when on foot, corralled along carefully manicured routes to either the attraction itself or accredited souvenir vendors who surround it.

If you enjoy the dichotomy of landfill sites passing off as world heritages sites you won't have a problem with this.  But if you don't, I propose a couple of solutions.

One: don't be an "organised" tourist - you're subscribing to the conspiracy if you are - and two: start taking photographs of what’s really there and show them to as many movers and shakers as possible.

Perhaps then will places start thinking about cleaning up their act.

Thursday 24 May 2012

Le Belvédère du Rayon Vert



Travel 273 miles up the coast from Valencia and the moment you cross the border into France you will find a different architectural conundrum.  Looking more wistful than winsome, is the Belvédère du Rayon Vert.

Towering above the sleepy bay of Cerbère the Belvédère du Rayon Vert is an art deco hotel designed in 1928 by local architect Léon Baille. It is a gaunt and extruded structure, proud yet lifeless, disproportionately large to be a comfortable part of the pretty little seaside town lying far below.   There should be light glinting from its windows but they are dead, empty, like the eye sockets in a skull of pallid, rotting concrete.  The building has been shamed into dereliction because it no longer serves a purpose. 
 
It was completed in 1932 to offer luxury accommodation to travellers passing through the adjacent railway station on the French-Spanish border.  Passengers would be required to interrupt their journey for customs formalities and subsequently to change trains, because the railways of neither country could offer a through journey due to a difference in gauges.  The entrepreneurs of Cerbère saw a chance to offer a service to these inconvenienced voyagers.  They built a hotel. 

These were confident times and, capitalising on the theme of glamorous international travel, M. Baille took inspiration for his design from the transatlantic liners of the day.  His hotel had its own cinema and ballroom and offered its guests the opportunity to play tennis on a roof-top court.  Created to provide a sumptuous overnight sojourn during travellers’ long hauls around the Pyrénées, the hotel’s focus extended beyond the inconvenienced rail passenger.  In an effort to attract the few but well-heeled gentry now opting to motor their way along the Nationale and across the border to the south, the hotel maintained a fully-equipped service station and garage on its ground floor. 
 
The five-storey building teeters on a narrow, rocky triangle of land between the railway and a precipitous cliff which tumbles down to the cobalt blue Mediterranean.  Whether any of the residents of yesteryear gazing from its verandas out to sea in the moment before sunrise ever glimpsed the elusive ‘rayon vert’ is not recorded, although the romantic notion of doing so would be intrinsic to the luxurious atmosphere pervading the seductive elevations of the Belvédère.

But the Belvédère du Rayon Vert has been disused since 1983.  It stands today crumbling and neglected, without purpose and, despite being listed as a protected monument in 1987, anyone who wants to look after it.  Squatters occupy a handful of top floor rooms. The mirrors in the ballroom are broken and the lobbies stand derelict.  Chunks of concrete are missing from the exterior staircase and the flourishes of its flamboyant design lie in a parlous state.
 
There are few reasons to pass through Cerbère these days. The international E15 motorway replacing the coast road passes through the mountains far inland.  A dozen or so local trains arrive at the local station from both countries during the day, but connections are poor.  Land travel is not the means by which Europe now elects to visit Spain and today the sky above the town is criss-crossed by vapour trails as aircraft speed travellers to their destinations.  Journeys are now completed in a couple of hours. No overnight stay is required en route because arduous customs procedures no longer exist.  The hotel is totally redundant.
 
Yet even though the Belvédère du Rayon Vert no longer takes guests, it remains a formidable piece of architecture, well worth a visit. 

Even if you can’t stay.




   




The Devil in the Detail


Pardon me slipping into the Valencian for a moment but the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciènciese (the City of Arts and Sciences) is possibly Europe’s most beautiful architectural achievement of recent decades.  Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and completed in the late 1990s, it is a collection of monumental buildings spread along the abandoned bed of the River Turìa in Valencia.  These are giant, organically elegant structures that not only embody purity of form but serve a cultural purpose too.  Concert halls, cinemas, museums and galleries are enclosed within outstandingly elegant exteriors whose overall design is rightly applauded across the world.  I adore the overall look of the place. 

But the devil is in the detail and something is amiss in the City of Arts and Sciences.  

The colossal size and shape of Calatrava’s structures mean each is recognisable from far away.  Yet what if a visitor en route to the Planetarium needs to visit the lavatory? How are the locations of such lesser amenities to be identified?  A signage system is required. 
Many visitors will come to experience the whole site for itself.  Some form of transportation will be needed to assist them to travel around, because this vast project covers many hectares and an hour’s walk in the debilitating heat of the Valencian summer is out of the question. Also, all that heat means refreshment will required, so some form of catering facility will be needed. 

Did any of this appear on Calatrava’s brief?

These are all minutiæ that make up - and, in fact, finalise - the successful execution of a project envisioned to capture the engagement of the general public. We can assume that if Calatrava had been responsible for the design of such minutiæ, they too would incorporate an iconic allure consistent with the rest of the project. 

But he wasn’t.

Someone else was. Someone who hadn’t a clue.  As a result, these almost inconsequential aspects of the appearance of The City of Arts and Sciences are now as glaring in the valley of the Turìa as a wart would be on the nose of the Mona Lisa.

The sign system is reminiscent of a holiday camp: sticky letters on arrowed board featuring a questionable graphic interpretation of what walking looks like.  If the cinema can look like a giant eye, why can’t the walker look like he can walk?
Transport around the glistening ethereal arena is in plastic railway wagons, pulled by a noisy diesel-powered replica 19th century Wild West steam locomotive.  
The cafeteria is of a style reminiscent of a East London dog track.  Rubbish bins stand sentinel to a crate-laden fast food stand around which are scattered chairs and tables. It is tucked into a niche at the base of the Science Museum like a grimy rash of mould on an uncleaned bathroom floor. 
Yet the organisation's management appears to be unbothered with these incongruities and its official publicity appears impervious.  To what extent do these component flaws contribute to the the “bold strokes” and the “futuristic image” of the design of this iconic City of The Arts and Sciences?  Signage is blunt, crude almost.  The train is the antithesis of “avant-garde” (or "21st century") and the catering stall spectacularly fails to “harmonise” with the “architectural complex of exceptional beauty” it seeks to serve. 

It is bewildering that those responsible for permitting the design of these aspects can remain insensitive when they are immersed in the workings of such a fabulous project. Confidence and imagination oozes from every square millimetre of their surroundings. 

When did the inspiration run out?
"... like mouldy grout on an uncleaned bathroom floor".


Monday 26 March 2012

A Swift Two-Thirds

I read in the newspaper the other day that Heineken were introducing a new size of glass for their beers.  At two-thirds of a pint, the new size is seen to offer an attractive option to people who don't particularly want the volume of a pint yet dislike the ignominy of being seen holding a half.

A sensible idea.  The glass is an elegant and agreeable design and, I was informed, a legitimate measure for serving beer, as two-thirds of a pint has become an officially recognised capacity for the presentation of alcoholic drinks in the UK in the last year or so. I seem to remember one third of a pint, or a 'nip', as having been around for some time: it was a sensible means of being able to enjoy stronger drinks which if presented in any larger sized glasses would swiftly render the imbiber senseless.

So making a glass twice that volume available for normal strength beers is a good idea, and especially so for those who feel they might wish to cut down their intake. The idea of having three drinks yet only two pints is an appealing one.

In practice though, I'm still undecided whether this glass is better or worse than the others. In order to find out, I had two-thirds of a pint in one, then a regular pint in a pint glass, then a half in a half glass, and I couldn't decide.

So I had another, then a half, and then a pint but sill couldn't make my my up.

After anoth two pines then one of the new thingy ones I think a half but the pine 'cause the two thirty one more the half is pints best.

Two thirs ver good, super ide. Ver good.

Backing a mo. Just going to...

Thursday 15 March 2012

Disappointing Pizzas

The huge black stones from which the walls are built around the old town in the heart of the chaotic city of Naples may well be volcanic.  However, I wonder if their greasy and almost unattractive patina might possibly be down to the fact that they enclose the birthplace of the pizza, and that their glistening sheen might therefore the result of hundreds of years of oil and cheese hissing, spitting and bubbling away as pizzeria ovens carry out their daily work.
 
Yet a visit to the ancient city a couple of years ago was disappointing - on the gastronomic front, that is. The pizza has conquered the world, so one might assume that here, in the square mile of its conception, a definitive recipe may still exist.

Well, it does. Unfortunately.

Extensive research revealed a very limited number of variations.  Trudge the stone-sett streets and peer into the tiny cave-like pizzerias tucked in to the base of those titanic stone colonnades and in the old town of Naples you will find only three kinds of pizza on offer.  Cheese, tomato and (for those who feel like splashing out) cheese and tomato.

And that's it.  Half a mile to the west, the glistening Mediterranean teems with anchovy, octopus and shellfish.  The hills of Campania towering over Italy’s fourth richest city abound with cattle, poultry, fresh vegetables, olives, nuts and fruit, yet none of these make it across the A56 autostrada at Capodimonte and into the city to embellish what is a disappointingly frugal repast.

It has taken the rest of the world to acknowledge that Naples has only created a base (literally) to work from. Wonderful, imaginative and delicious variations crowd the menus of pizzerias around the world, yet Naples is bereft. In some puritanical way, the Neapolitan has eschewed the attempts of incomers to corrupt his staple meal and, as a result, since the dawning of the pizza age, nothing has been allowed to change.  Even in 2004, a law was passed to ensure that the recipe for a true Neapolitan pizza remains constant: wheat, yeast (the law specifies which kinds) tomatoes, oil and salt. The cheese, if added, must be a locally sourced Mozzarella.

Of course, if anyone wanted to change what the Neapolitans started all those years ago, it is not just the weight of the Italian legal system that they would find coming down on them.  The people of Naples can count on some pretty influential cronies to help them preserve their status quo...

So it is the rest of the world that has taken the pizza by the horns and dragged it into the 21st century.

In Rwanda's bustling capital city of Kigali, there is a very popular Italian restaurant which offers a comprehensive range of pizzas on its menu.  Last week, my man there paid it a visit with a group of friends, and they all enjoyed a meal together. However, having glanced through an internationally familiar menu and ordered, he was a little put out when his pizza arrived.  It was of distinctly vegetarian appearance, an attractive presentation of red, yellow and green peppers.  But it wasn't what my man thought he had ordered.  "Where's the sausage?" he wondered.

He called the waiter over and asked to see the menu.  Sure enough, my man had made a simple oversight, and not even in reading the small print.  Somewhere down the line into darkest Africa, the transliteration had gone askew.  Yet the kitchen had obediently adhered to what was printed in the menu. 

My man hadn’t ordered “Pepperoni” after all. 

He'd ordered “Pepper only”.