My heartiest congratulations go out to Herbie Hancock for his recent Album of the Year win at the 50th Grammy Awards show! This momentous occasion serves as a huge inspiration to all of us who have labored as jazz players over the years, knowing that this original American art form has been routinely marginalized by awards shows and radio. Let's take this as a sign that creative instrumentalists are finally going to start getting some well-deserved recognition.

    One of my all-time heros (who was mentioned by Herbie in his acceptance speech) passed away a few months ago. I'm speaking of the great Oscar Peterson. No one can call himself a true jazz pianist and not acknowledge the huge footprint that Oscar left on the art form. That's what supreme innovators do. They change the landscape. And they also inpire future generations to want to dedicate themselves to the art. Thank you Oscar for making me want to attempt to be even half as great as you!

      One other thing happened recently that I hope will be a wakeup call to all of jazz radio. Smooth jazz station CD 101 in New York city recently ceased operations. This is the culmination of a trend that started years ago when stations shifted from being privately owned to corporately owned. What are corporations primarily concerned with? Why profit margins and happy shareholders of course. Many of them got into bed with these "consultants" who convinced them that they had the magic formula to attract major sponsors and maintain high ratings. This formula consisted of programming the program directors--stripping them of their power and basically handing them a short list of songs and artists to play. However, they forgot about one very important element in this whole thing-----the Listening Public! You know--the humans who can turn the radio on or--off! Now suddenly--people who used to be able to call their favorite DJ and make a wide variety of requests, are being told what they must listen to, and if it isn't on that short list, well---sorry. In a large city like New York with it's diversity of people and tastes, this was surely a recipe for failure. I'm sure they (like listeners in other cities) finally got tired of being insulted by the pablum they were being force-fed.

    We artists don't wish for any station to go out of business. In fact we wish a hundred new ones would pop up. But I think the message here is clear. The station owners need to re-think their approach to this programming delimma, and realize that we're living in a time of DIVERSITY (There's a black man and a female running for president for God's sake!) and that the music that's being piped out to the various communities had damn well better reflect that!

  So to conclude--Artists-keep being creative! Fans and listeners-keep sending e-mails and making phone calls to request your favorite artists. Because, in the words of my Minnesota homey Bob Dylan "The times they are a changin!"

        Peace & love

            Bobby Lyle