2016 Year In Review
2016 Year In Review
We Say Goodbye To 2016
With A Review Of The Year
Consideration and preparation to pursue a new jazz station began in 2012, long before
the application to the FCC for a new 24 hour frequency and construction permit to build
the new jazz station was submitted in October of 2013. Since 2013, our small group of
jazz enthusiasts worked feverishly and made many sacrifices to bring jazz back to Cen-
tral Ohio radio. One could only have guessed so many obstacles would arise along the
journey to bring jazz back and keep jazz alive. This Holiday season, we’re blessed and
pleased to have made the journey and are extremely proud to present our gift to Central
Ohio in the form of your new jazz station, Jazz 98.5 FM, WSAX-LP.
Happy New Year Columbus.
Below, we present a review of our 2016 SEMM Foundation and Jazz 98.5 FM station inno-
vations and achievements in support of our community. Thank you for your support.
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2016 Year In Review
Jazz Brew Concert Series
Our Jazz Brew Concert Series was developed as one of our fundraising efforts and more. The series has four goals;
1) Pay forward and give back
to the community through musician performance oppor-tunities, increased venue choices and provide free entertainment for seniors, when possible;
2) Bridge the demographic gap between patrons that attend based on the type of jazz they enjoy, exposing them to other jazz styles;
3) Bridge the gap in the education, understanding and appreciation of the various jazz sub-genres;
4) As a nonprofit, help raise money for our foundation’s operations, student music education programs and new 24 hour jazz station operations.
More Jazz Brew Information - www.myjazzbrew.com
Jazz Life Moments - 411 For Live Entertainment
Jazz Life Moments, or JLMs, as we affectionately call them, grew from the announcements of live music events provided once a week during our Saturday mid-morning
Jazz Life Show, hosted by Marilyn “The Jazz Diva”
Coleman.
JLMs are a series of daily "Short" promos that provide a brief description or announcement of local, Central Ohio and Regional live jazz music events and festivals (or other similar live music events), providing information about the artist/group performing at select local or regional venues on a daily basis, along with the start time for each event.
In collaboration with the website JazzColumbus.com, infor-mation is gathered, edited, recorded and provided each day
at the top of the hour by Marilyn Coleman and Paul T. Young.
Listeners enjoy having the ability to quickly discover what entertainment choices are available each day, 24 hours a day. Visitors to our website can also listen to each days individually recorded JLM at their convenience.
Jazz At The AMP Concert Series
With a chance meeting of a Westerville City Official that happened to be a jazz lover, SEMM Foundation’s Jazz
98.5 FM radio was able to enter into an agreement to co-sponsor a new outdoor
jazz series at the Westerville Amphitheater.
We organized four free concerts during the months of June, July, August and September. Except for a couple of rainy days, the concerts were well attended and became the catalyst for expanding the 2017 Jazz At The Amp to 7 concerts beginning in July 2017. The 2017 series will feature an extended day of multiple jazz performances
The 2017 Jazz At The Amp promises to be even better. Seven (7) concerts have been planned to occur weekly on Saturdays from July 1 through August 19, with the final day to feature an extended day of multiple jazz concerts.
More Jazz AMP Information - www.myjazzbrew.org
Multiple Jazz and Other Music Streams
Because we recognize that jazz has come to mean and represent many different things to our listeners, from those that appreciate the art in its Classic forms or Urban Contemporary Smooth jazz forms, to those listeners that are just discovering jazz, we've created several separate music streams for our station website visitors to choose from. 8 Separate Streams
Listen To These
Sample JLMs
Westerville Homegrown Musicians
Library Collection
Central Ohio, and all of Ohio, has a storied reputation of producing great musicians that have contributed to making jazz the American art form we know today, worldwide.
We’re proud to have been a catalyst in developing a separate section in the Westerville Library by donating our Homegrown Music library to help establish a separate section for the display and borrowing of the music of our Homegrown musicians by our listeners and the general public. We'd like to do the same for Bexley and select Columbus libraries. Of course, we recognize
the contributions by our Homegrown musicians and respect that they can't "give" away too many of their CDs.
The Launch of Jazz 98.5 FM, WSAX Broadcast
In late March, we started the preliminary broadcast testing of our new 24 hour 98.5 FM, WSAX-LP frequency to determine our reach and broadcast quality. We had hoped it would be the final hurdle in the licensing process but quickly discovered additional testing and equipment would be required to resolve interference from a nearby station using the same frequency. We moved to our new tower on October 7th. New antennas will follow. After close to five years, we’re proud to have been able to bring jazz back to Central Ohio and while more work is ahead of us, we think all of Columbus will be proud of the broadcast and quality of the content and presentation by our staff. In fact, we think you’ll truly enjoy us brewing jazz just the way you like it. We appreciate the support of our staff, Board, contributors, listeners and key individuals, such as local engineer, John Anderson, New Jersey Engineer, Neal Newman, Washington consultant, Michelle Bradley, Washington counsel Lee Petro and local counsel Gary Gitlitz, White Oak Partners, NAI Ohio Equities, Larry Rinehart, our Homegrown Musicians, Whitehall City Schools, McConnell Arts Center. Staples and many others. Thank you and watch with your ears.
2016 Pictures In Review
Pictures courtesy of Dave Turner, Sax Johnson and James McCloud
