Bruce Was Back in Town

It was good to see Bruce Nazarian back in London a couple of Sundays ago.

We took the opportunity to have a chat on the show and do some catch up on Rocco's CD. It turns out that the CD is one of those being considered for a Grammy nomination.

You can find out more in the video archive of that chat by clicking the link below.

Bruce Nazarian

A Visit from Jaared and Oli Silk

I was pleased to have a couple of guests on the show on Sunday. Peter White was in town this past week and had Jaared and Oli Silk on stage with him throughout. They all had a show out in Southend on Sunday afternoon but Jaared & Oli made it back to West London in time to pop in for a visit before moving on to Pizza Express in Soho.

Thanks to last minute permission from Les Cutmore at Trippin 'n' Rythym Records we were allowed to air a couple of tracks from Jaared's forthcoming CD "Addiction", which will be out in February 2008.

Wanna see that visit and hear those exclusive tracks? just click below...

Jaared and Oli Silk on Sky.fm

New Camera for the Studio

Well Summer has been and gone (jury's out on whether it was ever actually here in the UK) and as the availability of daylight diminishes I thought it was time to upgrade the studio camera to something that could deal with low light situations better.

Thankfully Logitech have recently come up with one featuring a Carl Zeiss lens and special light adjusting software that should hopefully make all the difference. I tested it out during the week and it looks good.

Below you can see a screen grab, and regular viewers will notice that it also gives a wider view of the studio so you should also be able to see an extra monitor screen that was previously out of camera shot.

The real road test is today so join us today at 12 noon US EST, 9AM Pacific, 5PM GMT.

The live show address is, as always http://www.sky.fm/liveshow/

The Biggest, the Best and...

...it appears that we're also the most up to date too.

So much new material comes our way these days. Largely due to the fact that we receive a hefty chuck of pre-release material from professional sources and record companies (a big thanks to Rob at Sky.fm who deals with it all so well at our end), not to mention the artists themselves.

All of which means that Sky.fm Smooth Jazz is now the oracle of all that's hot in the smooth jazz world.

Our live Sunday show has become the perfect showcase for all that's hot and current so be sure to listen in (or even look in if you so desire with our live video stream) each Sunday at 12 noon USA EST, 9am Pacific and 5pm UK time.

You'll find all the relevant links to launch the smooth jazz channel at www.sky.fm/smoothjazz or if you'd like to watch the show as well as listen go to www.sky.fm/liveshow and you can really be in on the action.

June 26th. A quiet day in radio

A large number of Internet Radio broadcasters, including Sky.fm and DI.fm are participating in a day of silence on Tuesday June 26th to help raise public awareness of the imminent threat to the continuation of Internet radio in the wake of recent raises in the royalty payments.

Sky's premium services will continue as normal.

You can read more about the day of silence on the DI Blog here.

You nearly had me there!

It's always nice to have friends in high places.

Today's Live show was broadcast at the same time as the Space Shuttle Atlantis was docking with the International Space Station.

I mentioned that it would be great if they were listening to the show up there. A little while later Rommie, one of our regular listeners in Germany posted the following picture on the Sky.fm forum.

Nice one Rommie. If only!

The clock is still ticking

It's touching to hear of the efforts of many Sky.fm listeners to keep things alive. Many have donated money to the legal battle to keep Internet radio on the air too.

At this time webcasters have launched a federal appeal against the new charges. I understand however, that the appeal might not be heard until July 15th. The day that is now becoming universally known as "The day the music dies".

Please visit www.savenetradio.org to keep up to date with developments. And, if you haven't already done so, to find out how you can contact your congressman to tell him your thoughts on the mater.

They're trying to switch us off!

Just in case you're not aware, the future of Internet radio is on very shaky ground at the moment. I speak in my position as Programme Controller of Sky.fm Smooth Jazz and Sky.fm Uptempo Smooth Jazz. My position as a citizen of the United Kingdom is powerless as the situation is dependent on United States legislation (UK Internet radio is already pretty much unworkable).

Ari Shohat, CEO of Sky/DI has posted this message in his own DI Blog, which explains the situation in full and tells how - if you are a US citizen - you can act to change the situation before it is too late. You can also find out more at http://www.savenetradio.org/.

Please take a moment to read up on the situation and then a moment longer to contact your congressperson. Don't assume that it'll all be OK. Two weeks from now ALL of your favorite Internet stations may no longer exist.

Peter White interview video now live on Youtube

I know that a lot of people are waiting for this one, so if that would apply to you, then the good news is that it's now up and running at youtube.com.

Peter visited us on Easter Sunday for the second time and stayed for nearly an hour and a half while we played some of his songs and answered questions put by Sky.fm listeners on the forum.

As usual the video is split into two parts, as follows:

Peter White - Part One

Peter White - Part Two

Peter's visit was his second to the Sunday live show. His previous one, for the benefit of any that missed it, is still live on the Sky.fm servers here.

Peter White was a surprise guest on Easter Sunday

It was all a bit last minute, in fact I only had it confirmed about two hours before the show went live, but we were graced with a guest appearance from Peter White on Easter Sunday. A sort of anniversary of his previous appearance which was on Easter Sunday last year.

As it was such a last minute thing, many will have missed it, so I'll have it on Youtube in a few days from now.

Meanwhile (and my apologies for the lateness) the video of the appearance of Greg Carmichael from Acoustic Alchemy back in January is now available for viewing. Part of the reason for the delay is because the actual video part is very jerky due to the bandwidth problems we were having at the time, and I was undecided about whether to use it. But I'm sure that a lot of Acoustic Alchemy fans would love to hear what was said in spite of the video quality anyway.

The video is split into two parts because of the length restrictions on Youtube. Here are the links

Greg Carmichael - Part One

Greg Carmichael - Part Two

The Best of 2006

Here is my annual list of the best smooth jazz tracks from this year, as played on the live show December 31st 2006.

I should point out that these are my personal choices and not compiled from any sales figures, listener stats or the suchlike. And with that in mind I make no apologies if you think that anyone is overrated or underrated, missing or otherwise. It is however typical of the playlist here on Sky.fm Smooth Jazz, so if you like the output here and you are looking for some smooth jazz for your personal collection, then these guys might be a good place to start...


1. Rocco Ventrella – Soulful Strut
2. Peter White – What Does It Take
3. Shilts – Look What’s Happened
4. Michael Lington – It’s Too Late
5. Peter White – Déjà Vu
6. Rocco Ventrella – Alleria
7. Pieces Of A Dream – Sailing
8. Fourplay – Cinnamon Sugar
9. Oli Silk – Eve’s Song
10. Shilts - Say Something
11. Bob Baldwin – Never Can Say Goodbye
12. Steve Oliver – Tradewinds
13. David Benoit – Neat With A Twist
14. Rocco Ventrella – Feel Like Making Love
15. Adrian Conington – Neon Nights
16. Igor – Brazilian Nights
17. Chris Standring - I Can’t Help Myself
18. Jazzmasters – World In Action
19. Boney James – Hypnotic
20. George Benson/Al Jarreau – Morning
21. Rippingtons – Costa Del Sol
22. Peter White – One On One
23. Nick Colionne – You Were There For Me
24. Fourplay – Sunday Morning
25. Adrian Conington - Open To Persuasion

Oli Silk Video

You can now see the archive of the interview with Oli Silk, that took place on the Sunday live show December 10th. We did have a bit of a laugh. Hope that you enjoy it!

Oli Silk Interview

Rocco Ventrella Video

At last, the video (or should I say videos) of Rocco's Visit on December 3rd. He came to the studio with Bruce Nazarian who also produced and played on the forthcoming CD. You can hear quite a few of the tracks on these vids. At the time of writing they are still being played exclusively on Sky.fm Smooth Jazz! The appearance is split into two parts. Just click either link below to visit Youtube.com and play the video...

Part 1

Part 2

World firsts!

We were honoured today to be the first radio station in the world to feature a couple of tracks from Rocco Ventrella's forthcoming CD. They are now part of our playlist and even better news, Rocco will be live in the studio himself with even more material on next Sunday's show (December 3rd)

Free Download

Many thanks to Rene ("Smoothnews" on the Sky Forum) for alerting me to the following.

Artizen Music are offering a free download of the Paul Brown remix of Shilts "Look What's Happening" for a limited period. Wanna copy? Then visit http://www.shiltsmedia.com/ . The download link is on the lefthand side.

Oh er, I wouldn't hang around on that one if I were you. Limited time only.

Getting Up To Date

OK to catch up with things. I visited New York along with the family back in October, and whilst there took the opportunity to broadcast the Sunday live show from the Sky.fm offices in Manhattan. The video of that show (which also features Sky founder Ari Shohat) has found it's way onto Youtube.com here. It's in two parts, so if you've never caught the live show before, now's the chance.

If that leaves you gagging for more, there's an archive video from the London studio when Peter White visited back in Easter of 2006 to be found here. Thats a Windows Media Player file BTW.

The most recent development at Sky from a smooth jazz point of view is the launch of our new uptempo smooth jazz channel (the link is on the right), which is proving to be a great success. My aim with this stream is to create a breakfast show/morning drive kind of vibe. Enjoy it with your morning coffee or to get you motivated for a day at the office. It's smooth jazz on caffeine! Don't be surprised if it gets you dancing.

Well Here Goes....

I thought it was about time to enter the world of blogs. As there's usually a bit of gossip to be had the Sky.fm Smooth Jazz world.

Ironically, some of the latest news and events have already happened, so my first observation in blogdom is that it's a shame that you can't backdate your entries. Ho hum.

So hang in there for a short recap on what's been happening recently...