NPR Music Part I

Anne Celenza, Georgetown University: With NPR Music there is "empty space" to think, there is an intern program

Bob Boilen: we don't expect the audience to like every song, but to understand it or find it interesting

Josh Jackson: "Sometimes we have more people watching the Village Vangard than there are spaces in the club." lowering the barrier to jazz, making it "easy to come to and check it out"

Anya Grundmann :Trying to figure out how to get musicians and fans to interact in the online space

Anne: it's very transgenerational, people who might not listen to one genre are trying out other things


I didn't catch any John Davis quotes so can I say he's 1/2 of the 3rd cute boy table of the day? Can I defend myself saying i grew up reading Sassy magazine?

audience member: are you a tastemaker, or a critic, or something else (more complicatedly put)

Bob Boilen insists he picks out music for All Songs Considered because he likes it, that he blurs the line between critic and fan, tries to get facts straight but it's fuzzy, he's a music fan

Josh: This portal has started to radically change jazz musicians, especially those under 40 years old, jazz has always been an indie community, NPR allows me to add an editorial voice

John: The problem with traditional radio is when you listen to it I feel like they don't care, you feel like it's programed by a computer and in many cases it is.

(to prove my strange obsession with radio people, this is the first panel in two days that I have confidently memorized the panelists names right away)]

audience member David Baskin, Canadian jazz DJ, asks what NPR is doing to get their shows out internationally and how foreign broadcasters can get their shows on NPR

Anya: there are a lot of rights and licensing problems with international programs.
mentions that Bob was there at the beginning of the indie rock craze

(so I'm not the only one wondering how much of a tastemaker he is, so many of my friends who don't listen to indie rock/pop will have heard of a band i love because of All Songs Considered)

Bob: with the live show broadcasts, some of the bands don't tour to the smaller places people listen in from, he saw Talking Heads and Pere Ubu in this room (gaston hall) in 1978