Hazel Friedman
Jazz enthusiasts in Cape Town will be forgiven for thinking they are somewhere on the west coast -America’s west coast, that is.
The source of their confusion is P4 in Cape Town – a new jazz radio station that got airborne on September 1. After the 6am news bulletin, listeners would have been greeted by the strains of George Benson, Earl Klugh, Grover Washington, even Sade, and the rest of the smooth jazz crew who encapsulated the “no chinks in the cloth” style of American music in the 1970s and 1980s.
“We’re avoiding heavy avant- garde and going instead for mainstream revival jazz,” explains Rashid Lombard – news photographer and now P4’s station manager. In America the revival of smooth jazz is one of the fastest- growing trends and our market research in South Africa shows that local listeners are also in favour of this style of music. But Lombard insists that the 24- hour-a-day all-jazz station will not focus on recycled American imports.
“We will give 50% of our airtime to South African urban contemporary jazz. Leaders in this genre include Robbie Janssen and Winston Mankunku. Targeted at the 25- to 54-year-olds, P4 anticipates that black listeners will make up at least 70% of its market. The rest, according to Lombard, will include “upscale, progressive-thinking whites”.