San Francisco Independent Film Featival, Feb. 6-18, 2025

[Chris Knipp]

CHRIS CORTEZ, SONY BUXTON, DICK CONTE AT KSSM

WADE SHIELDS, JASINE WANG, DANNY MONICO: KCSM 91.1 THE BAY AREA’S JAZZ STATION TO THE WORLD (2024)

Short feature celebrates the San Francisco bay arera's 24-hour jazz radio satation, now online

As a loyal supporter of and daily listener to KCSM, located at 91.1 on the dial, the Bay Area's 24-hour jazz radio station, I'm plelased to see this short documentary film celebrting it. The film consists of talking heads. Happily they include favorite deejays of mine like the gruff, anecdotal, vibrant 80-something Sonny Buxton, Jayn Penningill with "cohost Duke," and the very mellow Dick Conte, as well as imortant other staff members such as Tiffany Austin, Leslie Stoval, Clifford Brown, Jr., Jesse 'Chuy' Varela, Keith Hine, Greg Bridges, Harry Duncan, and the silky-voiced Kathleen Lawton. Early and present programmers like Alisa Clancy and Melanie Berzon are also herard from. Another regular I like is the learned Englishmann Michael Burman, not seen here. This is not a complete listin on my part.

The film talls us that the station is celebrating sixty years. Howeverr, that isn't my experience so I can't comment. All I know is that I was an equally loyal supporter of KJAZZ, 92.7 FM,, the San Franfcisco-based commercial jazz station (KCSM is based down the penninsula, at the College of San Mateo), which existed, moving its studios to Alameda, until circumstances caused it to fold in February 1996 (see cChronicle columnist Herb Caen's lament ("Oh woe," it began; he gave KJAZZ's age as 35).

It was sometime after that, searching the dial, that I discovered the existence of KCSM, which I'd never heerd of during the KJAZZ years. So for me at least, the age of KCSM is close to thirty than sixty years. And while the library, which they claim is the largest in the world and benefits considerably from the addition of KJAZZ's, goes very deep both in vinyl and digital, there doesn't seem to have been programming of the level of Bob Parlocha (1938-2015) of KJAZZ in his heyday, especially his "Black Masters" series, some of which have been heard on KCSM by permission of Parlocha's widow. The Miles Davis one is available online in the Internet Archive.

If Bob Parlocha was sans pareil, there is nothihng to compare with the Saturday midday broadcasts of the venerable Sonny Buxton, who is notable for his enthusiasm and the many anecdotes about jazzmen that often come from his own rich life, which included running a jazz club through which he got to know many of the legends and geniuses of jazz.

It's great that KCSM is commercial-free and listener-supported. As noted in this film, that provides more freedom of time to the deejays and they are free to choose exactly what they want to play. Something significant that KJAZZ didn't have is that KCSM is online - because there is an online, which means it has liteners and supporters all over the world.

After a slightly rough first half things deepen with footage of the deejays at work. We also learn how the station benefits from being anchored on the College of San Matteo campus, and how it is working to "grow" jazz by developing new genertions of fans. Among them are interns like the tellingly named Coltrane Frenton, who's got a jazz giant in his own name. This is a music that's less known and less widely disseminated, but its vibrancy, its richness as music, its complexity, and its evident flexibility (just listen to Miles in different decades; early and late Coltrane), and its popuilarity in Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world, make it a lot more immportant than you might realize so tune your radio or your computer to 91.1.

A nice tribute to an invaluable institution.

KCSM 91.1 the Bay Area's Jazz Station to the World, 57 mins., was screened for this review as part of SF Indiefest.
Showings – select to order tickets:
Sat, Feb 8, 2025 6:45 pm @ Roxie Theater House 1
Also available for online streaming Feb. 6, 2025 12:00 am - Feb. 18, 11:59 pm, 2025] Stream online...