The Jazz Alternative

More than thirty years ago, as a young 15 year old girl, I had the unique opportunity to work at a Black college radio station.  My mother, who was a graduate of Morgan State University, insisted that I had to get a job for the summer, that I couldn’t just sit at home and get into trouble or do nothing.  From the time I was a very little girl, I had volunteered at Morgan’s Radio Station for their fundraising drives, or more accurately, I’d sat silently watching and observing for many years while my mother answered phones, or, most often, I served cakes and desserts we had baked to help raise money for her beloved alma mater.  I loved interacting with the different on-air personalities, they were like celebrities to me, and they were always so gracious and welcoming to me over the years.  I eventually started answering phones myself during the fund drives and it dawned on me that working at W.E.A.A. for the summer would be an AWESOME idea.  Duh!  There would be boys!  College-aged boys.  What’s not to love about that idea? 

Well, jazz was the only problem with that equation.  It was 1980 and Rap was funky fresh, in the most literal sense of the word, and it was brand, spanking new.  It was just beginning to emerge on the scene and I was hooked.  The idea of having to listen to jazz all day was like a torture worse than hell to my little pubescent mind.  It was a torture I had to endure if I was going to work there, however, so I sucked it up.  I worked directly under Kweisi Mfume, former President of the NAACP.  He was the program director of the station.  He had political talk show in the evenings and I would be the first face many of the guests saw when they came in to the studio. (Yes, guests actually came into the studio to be interviewed, that’s how long ago it was.)  Back then, before the internet, Black radio was the only place to get the real news and opinions of that were relevant to Black people so his show was essential because it was left-leaning and unapologetically Black.  Al Stewart was the Station Manager.  I served as the assistant to his assistant for most of the day.  The DJs were free to choose whatever songs they wanted to play but I would type out the schedules for what public service announcements would be aired throughout the day.  The illustrious Larry Dean was the head of the news department and he was nothing less than an icon in journalism.  He took extraordinary measures to teach, coach, and guide me, to show me things that a kid my age really wouldn’t or shouldn’t have access to otherwise.  He treated me like an adult.  Lamont Brooks was a newscaster and a producer.  He let me record on-air PSAs where I repeated “WEAA, the Jazz Alternative,” the station’s tag line over and over again because he liked my voice.  He forced me get my license to be a radio broadcaster because he was convinced I had a talent for broadcasting . . . again, at 15 years old. 

But it was the on-air personalities that had the most influence over me that summer.  Isisara Bey was the morning personality.  She wore what were called dreadlocks at the time, my grandmother called them “worms in your head,” and they would flow all the way down her back.  Some days she would pile them on her head in intricate designs that seemed to defy gravity to my little mind.  All I’d ever been exposed to at that time in my life were press’n combs, relaxers, and wigs.  If a woman had natural hair back then, it was only because she was homeless or a drug addict and she couldn’t afford to get her hair done and she had better hide it under a headscarf lest she suffer the scorn and ridicule of every decent Black woman.  I’d never seen a woman in real life whom had chosen to wear her hair natural so Isisara seemed mysterious and magical to me; I was awed about how she wasn’t ashamed that her hair was -- nappy.  All my life I’d been told that nappy hair was an embarrassment and there she was, breathtakingly beautiful, and her hair wasn’t straight and blowing in wind like the shampoo commercials told me it was supposed to do.  She always smelled of different oils and fragrances that captivated me and she wore copper bracelets up and down her arm that made the most melodic, rhythmic sounds when she walked.  She would take off her shoes and light incense and she played this weird music intersperse with jazz called . . . reggae.  If you had told me at the time that it was from aliens, I might have believed you because I’d never heard anything like it in my life. 

The midday jock was Phillip Johnson.  He was, without question, the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on in my life.  To say I had a crush on him is not even an understatement; it’s an egregious distortion of the very fabric of reality.  He didn’t just treat me like an adult, he treated me like a woman!  I would try to be the epitome of maturity when he was around him and I would listen to the music he played and try to learn the songs so I could impress him with my knowledge.  Of course, I’d grown up in a house where jazz was played all the time.  My grandparents played piano and were true jazz enthusiasts.  Phillip added a new element.  He wasn’t just playing jazz, he was playing innovative music, music beyond the big band of my grandparents and the contemporary jazz my mom played.  He exposed me to jazz that made me think, that made me feel something.  I didn’t want to like it but I did.  I loved it. I would rush home and listen to disco and rap and pop and New Edition (I was going to marry Ralph Tresvant) but I would actually look forward to going to work the next day for all the learning experiences but mostly to hear the new music. 

Record labels would send all sorts of music to the station and Phillip and I would go through the stacks of records together.  He would give me all the contemporary demos and I was the envy of all my friends because I had the extended remixes of all the popular songs.  (I had no idea what Grace Jones’ Pull Up to My Bumper was referring to at the time but I remember clearly that I had a 12” instrumental version of it long before it was on the radio and boy was I COOL.)   It wasn’t the music that he gave me that fascinated me the most, however.  I thought, if he gave it to me, he didn’t really value it, that it couldn’t be that good.  The music he kept is what intrigued me most.  They weren’t popular, well-known artists on major labels.  It was something in the records he kept that made them worthy of keeping.  Those records were, to me, truly, the jazz alternative.  

Unfortunately, I learned more about domestic abuse from the afternoon drive time DJ than I learned about jazz.  The young lady who would bring everyone home from their jobs was viscously battered by her boyfriend.  She would put on a “good face” for her listeners while hers was battered, swollen, and bruised in real life.  I heard very adult conversations, whispers behind her back about how she was a “victim” and that left a huge impression on me.  I knew that I never wanted to have a boyfriend who beat me up but I knew that what was worse was to have people scorn and ridicule you behind your back for not standing up for yourself.  I learned then that I would never be silent about the plight of women.  My mom would pick me up after work and we would go home and I would rush to listen to the rap songs and play them over and over on my cassette player to learn the words.  You see, back then, commercial radio stations didn’t play the same songs every hour.  You had to listen intently all day to hear the song you liked and have your tape player ready to record it so you could hear it until your mom drove you to the mall on a Saturday (NOT every Saturday) so you could buy the single for $.99. 

Clearly, that radio station had a huge impact on my life.  Today, I wear my hair natural.  Today, I’ve forsaken the music I once loved and grew up on, rap, because it’s become offensive to my every feminist sensibility.  Today, I can’t stand to listen to anything other jazz with some salsa, rare grooves and 70s music thrown in for good measure.  I live in a very remote area of Maryland but I make it a point, no matter how strapped I am in my budget to donate to my local NPR station because that is the tradition I was raised in.  As much as I despise, hate, abhor, and loathe Terry Gross on Fresh Air and her convoluted and absurd interviews, I respect that there must be alternative voices on the radio that speak to people beyond the corporate pabulum shoved down the throats of the masses so I give. 

I moved to Atlanta in 1997 and one of the first things I did was scan the dial to find the Black college radio station.  I was thrilled when I first heard Ken Batie’s Hot ICE in the Afternoons.  It spoke to me.  When I heard Jamal Ahmad’s The S.O.U.L. of Jazz, I knew I was listening to true jazzical genius.  As much as I love jazz, as much as jazz is a part of who I am, I’m always searching for new music to make me think and feel, just like when I was 15 years old, and Jamal has provided that and so much more.  He has not only entertained me, he has informed and educated me and provided me with exposure to artists I would have never heard otherwise.   I’ve traveled the world.  I’ve listened to jazz stations of every format from all over the country, the globe, and the World Wide Web.  There can be very little debate that Jamal Ahmad nurtured and developed the Atlanta music scene that has launched the careers of talented artists and in my humble but very informed opinion, there is no one better at what he does. 

WCLK is more than just Jamal Ahmad, I’m well aware.  I don’t want to diminish the contribution of the other on-air personalities in any way.  The collective of the entire station has been a bastion of sanity in a market that plays the same barely-literate, offensive, talentless five songs over and over and over again.  I was just in Atlanta for two weeks, returning back to Maryland the day before the station made their now infamous programming changes.  Driving around Atlanta for those two weeks, it felt like home to me in more ways than I can describe because I could hear the unique mix of jazz that formed my love for the art form.  I rolled down the windows of my truck and rejoiced in the music that made me the woman I am today, from morning until night, appreciating the artistry of all the DJs.  And what they do is truly the equivalent of sculpture or painting.  Music forms the soundtracks of our lives and they paint the pictures with sounds that create our memories. 

As I type this, Jamal Ahmad is playing some crappy, watered-down smooth jazz.  You see, WCLK decided that rather than have the original, cutting-edge, distinctive format that set them apart from all the rest, that they would conform and dictate what songs their DJs play and limit it to contemporary jazz.  Apparently, a study of 106 people, paid for by a donor to the tune of $60,000 revealed that WCLK needed to become more cookie cutter, more average, more bland, and average.  That’s how much it costs to buy the soul of the city.  Someone decided that being innovative and unique was a bad thing and that insipid was the way to go.  Now, no offense to Kenny G or anything, I’m sure he’s a very nice person, but his music gives me acid reflux.  All that saxaphonesque elevator music, redone songs from music that was mediocre in the first place, leaves a vile, bitter, unpalatable taste in my mouth.  What exactly is the point of smooth jazz?  As my grandmother used to say, “You gonna have to ask someone smarter than me cuz I don’t know.”  I’m profoundly ashamed that I never donated to WCLK while I lived in Atlanta because there is no question that it enriched my life.  I did attend Clark Atlanta for my graduate studies and I paid and exorbitant amount of money for an education that was would be generous to be described as substandard (that’s a whole ‘nutha story) so I do feel some, a teeny, tiny bit of comfort in that I indirectly contributed.  But I can’t, I vehemently refuse to contribute to an institution that makes the conscious decision to pander to the lowest common denominator and relinquish what made them exceptional in an effort to make a buck. 

I own my own company.  I create erotica for a living in fact.  I write erotica that shows the complexity and sensuality of Black people in a way that is not at all stereotypical, ghetto, or degrading.  I don’t use the N word in my erotica ever.  I’ve never once used the word bitch, freak, or ho to describe a Black woman in my erotica.  I’ve never written about adultery or women selling their bodies.  I’ve never made a story that centered on the size of a Black man’s penis or made reference to a Black woman being a nympho or even had my characters engaged in casual sex.  I don’t write soft-core, romantic erotica, I write explicit, unapologetically Black, political, socially relevant, conscious erotica.  I write the erotic equivalent of The S.O.U.L of Jazz.  I struggle to make a living because I write erotic that is outside the norm.  I could have long ago decided that I was going to write what sells, write about Summer, the beautiful, biracial Puerto Rican and Black light skinned super-model who lives in a penthouse who is struggling to get the attention of Derrick, the former football player/rapper turned investment banker who continues to have an affair with NiNi, his baby mama from back in the day . . . Oh God!  I can’t even go on, it’s the same story as every Black erotic tale on the shelves.  Hell, it’s every reality TV show on today, it’s every Black movie, it’s the foundation for every rap video.  When is enough, enough?    

I have scores of loyal, core followers and fans.  They love and appreciate my work, they support me and respect that I’m trying to give them a voice that no one else is doing.  Do they financially support me?  A few do.  Some can’t.  Most don’t.  My point is this.  I’m not going to change my brand, I’m not going to walk away from what I know is healthy and beautiful and right just to pander to the mediocre and crappy to make a buck.  The key to my success is in getting my message to the masses, lifting their standards for what constitutes quality erotica, NOT writing the same boring, offensive, bland erotica.  I’m not going to write the equivalent of smooth jazz erotica just because that’s what sells.  There is value in having standards that make you excellent.  There is no amount of money in the world, there is no dollar amount that would make me sell out just to be average. 

The key to WCLK’s future success is in better marketing, better PR, better outreach into the community.  They need to think of new, innovative ways to raise money.  They have destroyed the thing that made them stand out, that made them exceptional.  I hope it’s not too late for them.  I hope they see the error of their ways and correct it.  I need for them to go back the format that kept the loyal listeners tuned in.  It must be a terribly scary concept for the management to admit that they’ve made a mistake, to acknowledge that they had the perfect gourmet recipe and they sold it for the fast food option.  Maybe they need to start being forward thinking and come up with new ways to get their die-hard listeners to contribute more, to get more exposure.  Maybe I need to get in the kitchen and start baking cakes to sell like I did when I was a kid.  Whatever the solution, I’m 100% positive that it’s not to play ghastly versions of R&B re-done with a clarinet. 

WEAA shaped me.  It was the fact that they weren’t commercial, they didn’t play the same songs, they didn’t conform to mediocrity, which is precisely one of the reasons I am who I am today.  What WCLK has done has taken a mentor, a teacher, sage, and guide away from those who might be shaped and molded to greatness.  They have destroyed the last opportunity for children to learn about the jazz greats and to hear innovative, experimental music, to experience the world beyond the monotonous, life-draining music that’s called rap today.  We have to be a people who demand better for ourselves, not lower the bar.  The S.O.U.L. of our people resides in our ability to excel, not just exist. 

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Copyright 2013 Scottie Lowe All Rights Reserved

Erotic provocateur, humanist, relentless champion for the oppressed, and facilitator for social change, Scottie Lowe is the creative genius and driving force behind AfroerotiK.  Intended to be part academic, part educational, and part sensual, she, yes SHE gave birth to the website and the company to provide people of African descent a place to escape the narrow-mined, stereotypical, limiting and oft-times degrading beliefs that abound about Black sexuality.  No, not all Black men are driven by lust for white flesh.  No, not all Black women are promiscuous welfare queens willing to do sexual favors for money.  And no, not all gay Black men are feminine, down low, or HIV positive.  Scottie is putting everything on the table to discuss, debate, and dismantle stereotypes in a healthy exchange of ideas.  She hopes to provide a more holistic, informed, and enlightened discussion of Black sexuality so that people of color have alternatives to the one-dimensional caricatures the media force-feeds us and she dreams of helping couples become more open, honest, and adventurous in their relationships.