Heart of San Mateo jazz hits funding mark

KCSM will not hold another fundraising event until January, when they will once again batten down the hatches and attempt to raise money to keep jazz alive from their office located on the San Mateo Community College campus, where KCSM made their broadcast debut in 1964.

"Jazz is a community of music," said Berzon.

"We consider ourselves part of a chain, the first link is the music, the second audience, third clubs and jazz organizations." All of which, Berzon says, are dependent upon the creators who for the most part, are underappreciated in a country where 7% of the population listen to jazz.

Arbitron, the Nielsen ratings of radio, shows that those who support KCSM are approximately 35-75 years in age, middle to upper class, well educated, and, despite KCSM's predominantly female staff, male. Arbitron statistics also show that since 1998, listenership has risen by the thousands--an audience noted for their loyalty according to Berzon.

KCSM's 1.5 million watt broadcast signals are line of site transmissions, coming into frequent mountains and hills which block reception: Mt. San Bruno and Mt. Diablo are two formidable obstacles to KCSM's radio waves. "We'd like to reach Santa Cruz and Monterey in the South, and Marin and Sonoma in the north." Berzon hopes that in future years the station will acquire translators, a piece of equipment which would allow the signal to circumvent obstacles and bring jazz to more of the coast.

Since the proliferation of Internet technology, KCSM's listenership has grown. For those with access to a computer, they can download software on KCSM's website at www.kcsm.org and listen to the station. This technology has allowed listeners from all over the world to hear KCSM, and pledge money from far away as New Zealand and Japan, and as close as San Mateo itself.

Music Director Jesse Chuy Varela, known as Chuy, hosts the Sunday Latin Jazz show, and cohosts a show with Berzon on Monday. Chuy worked at KPFA for five years before coming to KCSM.

"When I first got here, people complained about calling my show Sunday Latin Jazz," said Chuy, "San Mateo is a city still dealing with diversity and multi-culturalism -- we've got to bring ourselves out to make a change for a better world, and get past little idiosyncrasies like language," Chuy said smiling.

One way in which Chuy is trying to accomplish this goal, is by transferring his love of music to listeners, who he says are living in an interesting time of jazz, "There's a transition going on, a new generation is emerging," said Chuy, "Miduski Martin and Wood, John Scofield, Larry Goldings of the Voodoo dogs -- more funk, DJ's mixing jazz with electronic beats."

The next generation of music to which Chuy refers, is meeting head on with the old school jazz listeners, who, Chuy says, keep the station on the straight and narrow. "There will be an interlude with rap and people will call in and complain, or the 20 yr. old will call and say that was bad, I dug that." Regardless of age, Chuy says that the format grid laid out by Berzon, tries to please all -- usually consisting of old school jazz while finding a balance with the contemporary.

Recalling his beginning days as an intern, Chuy recounted the first day he walked into KJAZZ, one of the oldest jazz stations in the United States, where "I went crazy dude, I would record the music with tapes." When asked what he looks for in interns at the station today, Chuy said he looks for people who feel that music is the most important thing -- the holy grail before them. "So when you see somebody come in and there's that gleam in the eye, you try to get them into shows, and try to do something for them," said Chuy.

Leila Shunnar, an intern with an associate degree form San Mateo City College, and a B.A. from San Francisco State in Broadcasting, has her own radio show on Wednesday from 9 p.m. - 2a.m., during which time she says she loves, "being surrounded by that much music... It's like paradise to me. Discovering musicians I've never heard of -- they're like gems."

A proud hard bop, soul jazz, Latin jazz, fusion, and cool jazz fan, Shunnar enjoys the access to KCSM she receives through the University internship, a program she says is most effective when one takes the initiative.

KCSM recently inherited KJAZZ's music library, which was one of the country's oldest jazz stations, founded by Patrick Henry, whose library, in the past year, was handed over by Ron Cowan, the last owner of the station since its closing. Shunnar, working with other interns and volunteers are presently merging the two radio station libraries, bringing the number of LPs to 18,000, and the number of CDs to 10,000.

A goal of the station is to create an archive comparable to major East jazz archives such as the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers, and the library of Congress. "We're one of the top 10 collectors in the country with a collection reflective of the West Coast," said Chuy. A library unique from other collections because during the 50s and 60s many small west coast labels only distributed their albums to the west coast, which, "Makes it a real jam, a Bay Area thing, a West Coast thing."

Having recently received a seed grant, KCSM will digitalize their vinyl library -- digital turntables which will play music that has been transferred to a computer hard drive. "We process it," said Chuy, "take out all the clicks and pops. The music will be available as wave sound files, so we can download music with real players, and preserve all the classic music for another generation."

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