Best Jazz Radio Program

Musicians around town often complain that Miami's reputation as little more than an international playground makes it difficult for them to play styles that depart from the tourist-oriented mainstream. It's certainly true in the local jazz scene, a genre that has a tough time, commercially speaking, almost anywhere in America...

May 11, 2000

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Musicians around town often complain that Miami's reputation as little more than an international playground makes it difficult for them to play styles that depart from the tourist-oriented mainstream. It's certainly true in the local jazz scene, a genre that has a tough time, commercially speaking, almost anywhere in America. All of which makes Steve Malagodi's long-running The Modern School of Modern Jazz and More such a treasure. This two-hour smorgasbord of avant-garde artists following their muses (wherever they may take them) isn't just a great radio show by Miami standards; it's a great radio show, period. In fact you'll be hard-pressed to find many of the jazz staples regularly programmed here -- from seminal Art Ensemble of Chicago cuts to the latest from Ken Vandermark -- on the FM dial anywhere else in the nation. Sure the witching-hour time slot (Saturdays from midnight to 2:00 a.m.) isn't always convenient, but it does foster the illusion that you've stumbled across some wonderful radio secret, perhaps being broadcast from an offshore ship straight into your living room.

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