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Sunday, January 24, 1993     Page:

A heady dose of jazz
   
A year ago, you’d pick it up if you were headed along route 115 south. Or
on
    Interstate 80 as you drove through laurels, evergreens and stony outcrops
of the Pocono MountainsWhat you’d hear where you’d least expect it — if you
were lucky or knowledgeable in tuning a car radio — was WRTI-FM, the
invigorating jazz programming of the Temple University radio station based in
Philadelphia.
   
It was a happy surprise, which in technical stupidity, I attributed to some
other-worldly solar flare or an atmospheric transmission inversion.
   
Truth is, the public radio station began transmitting out of Mount Pocono
in late 1991 as WRTY-FM (91.1), after it had become affiliated with the
Delaware Water Gap jazz festival.
   
Better still, in July of 1992, the station expanded with a transmitter in
Edwardsville. Without leaving Wyoming Valley, jazz fans can hear the station’s
round the clock jazz at 94.9 FM.
   
Honestly, Jazz FM, as the Temple station calls itself, is not for many,
much less everyone. It’s most often heady jazz for the head as opposed to
swinging jazz for the hips.
   
But it’s a far sight more friendly and refreshing than commercial pop and
rock radio. And that’s why occasionally, gradually, more and more people are
mentioning their discovery of Jazz FM.
   
“Did you hear it,” they remark in surprise. Word of mouth or accidental
tuning is about the only way they may have discovered Jazz FM.
   
“The university isn’t doing any kind of promotion,” said Joe Middleton, a
jazz fan, radio veteran and an employee at area Gallery of Sound music stores.
“People are discovering it on their own,” according to Middleton who has
witnessed the station’s influence when customers ask for certain recordings.
   
hen they’re asking for Whitney Houston or Michael Bolton, they might have
been listening to any pop station. But when they’re looking for Jimmy Scott or
Wes Montgomery…
   
“They come into the store and ask for artists. I say, `how’d you get hip to
this?’ `Well we heard in on ‘RTI’.”
   
The station was founded in 1948 to train students. Five years later, the
station was licensed by the FCC, making this year a 40th anniversary. For many
years, it’s been considered the jazz source in Philadelphia.
   
Gradually, it’s becoming a regional source; in addition to Philadelphia,
Mount Pocono and Edwardsville, the station has transmitters in Harrisburg,
Lebanon, Reading, Scranton (at 105.9 FM) and Allentown. Soon they expect to
broadcast from Dover, Delaware and Ocean City, Maryland.
   
Jazz FM has about 7,000 members who donate money, with about 200 to 300
members in the Wilkes-Barre/Pocono area. That makes the Temple station a sort
of melding of college and public radio. And a competitor as well of WVIA-FM,
the Pittston Township-based public radio station.
   
“I feel guilty,” admitted one area Jazz FM listener, “because I haven’t
been listening to our own WVIA.”
   
Both Temple and WVIA have become primary choices for the radio in my
vehicle and occasionally, with either, when I pull into the driveway, I shut
off the engine to linger and listen just a little longer.
   
Phil Rudy is another person who gets a little excited about Jazz FM. The
owner of Circles on the Square deli in Wilkes-Barre was familiar enough to
list several programming features of Jazz FM, including a news program from 9
to 10 p.m. on week nights that I hadn’t heard yet.
   
“They have blues and reggie (reggae) music,” said Rudy. “One of my
customers came in and asked if I’d heard about it.”
   
Don’t expect to hear the station when you stop into Circles for lunch.
   
“Unfortunately,” said Rudy, “my receiver (here) is old and doesn’t get it.”
   
Joe Butkiewicz is a feature writer for The Times Leader. His column is
published on Sunday.