BY ANDY EDELSTEIN andy.edelstein@newsday.com
4:54 PM EST, February 5, 2008
Goodbye Grover Washington Jr. Hello, Radiohead.As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, after 20 years, WQCD (CD 101.9) has dropped smooth jazz, flipping to what its owner calls "an innovative new Adult Rock format."Now known as WRXP, the station will feature such artists as Bruce Springsteen, Nirvana, The Who, Oasis, R.E.M., and Radiohead.
Station owner Emmis Commununications cited "declining audience" as the reason for the switch. The smooth jazz format can still be heard on the frequency's HD2 channel.The first song played by the new station was the Velvet Underground's "Rock and Roll."
Huh?? What is this??? Did ya'll hear this one family??? Dang! No warnings, no protests, no farewell show, no nothing....this was done very quietly. My homegirl Deb told me about this yesterday, we always played this station while we played Scrabble. While I am not the biggest fan of jazz lol...just about every laundromat in Harlem kept their radios on CD 101.9 while you waited for your clothes to wash and dry. This station has been a part of my musical life for as long as I can remember....along with WCBS-FM ("We Play Your Favorite Oldies...") I am saddened to see it go and alarmed to see that Jazz is being relegated to "underground" status. It still one of the purist forms of music to still exist.
I wonder what station my laundromat will leave playing now.
"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order."
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