Bop City - Internet Radio's
Jazz Center of the World

Imagine that you are back in the era when jazz was expanding beyond its perceived boundaries - when jazz was an American phenomenon.

Imagine that there is a radio station spinning records on the cutting edge of jazz, giving a nod to the origins of jazz and even sneaking in some blues now and then. Bop City is that radio station.


Why Bop City?


We love classic jazz and we enjoy sharing it with other jazz lovers.

With more and more radio stations dropping classic jazz from their formats, we decided to do something about it by creating Bop City, Vintage Jazz Internet Radio.
We present a selection of album oriented jazz that is not easily found and rarely heard on the radio.

Within our playlist, we include entire albums of artists rather than only select cuts. We feel that this gives the listener a better variety of an artists' body of work and results in a playlist with a vibe that ebbs and flows from within. This concept allows our listeners to delve deeper into the world of jazz.

Bop City is Live365's best alternative for classic jazz!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Special Holiday Broadcasts

To thank its loyal listeners the world over, Bop City will be broadcasting live and commercial free on Christmas Day, December 25th and on New Year's Day.

And, Bop City's Sister Station, The Sound Cellar will be hosting its annual Holiday live and commercial free broadcast of offbeat and classic Christmas music will be on Christmas Eve, December 24th, from 5:00 PM EST until 10:00 PM EST. The Sound Cellar typically features Classic Rock, Oldies, Rhythm and Blues and Soul. The Sound Cellar also broadcasts live shows of many types of music.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Playlist Update

We've updated our playlist with cuts from Dexter Gordon and Coleman Hawkins.  And, we've added a few Christmas songs for your Holiday enjoyment.  Thanks for listening.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Kind of Blue - 50th Anniversary

The jazz world is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis' classic LP, Kind of Blue. Bop City has updated its playlist with the entire LP.

Kind of Blue
, an album that sounds like it's never been in a good mood it didn't consider fleeting or a bad one it couldn't brood its way out of. When Davis and his band commenced recording in 1959, they settled on a new form of "modal" jazz that called for improvising through scales as opposed to preordained chord changes. And even if that doesn't sound apparent to an untrained musical ear, it's suggested by a spectral sense of wandering-- an ease with uncertainty that comes across in no uncertain terms. Artists playing with Miles on Kind of Blue were Cannonball Adderly, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb.

Sony's Legacy Recordings has released a fabulous 50th anniversary edition of Kind of Blue. This will make a holiday gift that will never be forgotten for the jazz lovers in your life. You can help support Bop City's broadcast by purchasing this box set through the link below the box set's description.

The SUPER-DELUXE 12-INCH SLIPCASE BOX SET CONTAINS:

• Two CDs (original album plus studio sequences, false starts, and alternate takes from 1958-59 sessions, plus 17-minute “So What” live in Holland, 1960)
• DVD: newly-produced documentary featuring superstars of jazz
• 60-page ‘perfect-bound’ 12x12 full-color book, tons of photos
AND
• 180-gram blue vinyl 12-inch LP– first time ever in a Legacy box set!

In-depth liner note essays written by award-winning Miles Davis authorities Francis Davis and Gerald Early; session transcripts by Ashley Kahn; detailed 1957-60 quintet/sextet timeline by Bob Belden and Ken Vail

Box set memorabilia: 3-page hand-written liner notes by Bill Evans; reproduction of 1959 Columbia promo brochure; six 8"x10" photos; and 22"x 33" foldout poster.

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Playlist Update - Donald Byrd's Free Form

We've just updated the broadcast with Donald Byrd's Free Form LP.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Busy Summer

We haven't posted anything for a while. We've been very busy over the summer. Lately we've been updating the playlist with a nice variety of classic jazz and more will be coming soon.

Broadcast costs are continuing escalate. You can help us out by becoming a Live365 VIP by clicking on the link in the right margin. By becoming a VIP you can listen commercial free. And, you can listen to Bop City via Radio365, a free program that will play the mp3pro stream in excellent quality.

Thanks to everybody for listening to Bop City.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Franz Jackson 1912 - 2008

Bop City honors the great Chicago jazz artist Franz Jackson with the addition of cuts from his Riverside LP, Chicago, The Living Legends. Jackson passed away on May 6, 2008. He played and recorded with many legendary players.

We invite you to go to his website and read some excellent articles about Jackson's life in jazz. We have also posted information on the Bop City Jazz Archive.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Live Broadcast Wednesday May 30, 2008

To celebrate the end of Jazz Appreciation Month Bop City will be broadcasting live and commercial free from 6 PM to 9 PM EDT today, Wednesday May 30, 2008.

To access the broadcast go to:
http://www.live365.com/stations/bop_city/?play

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

April is Jazz Appreciation Month


Join BOP CITY and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month this April, 2008 (JAM 2008). In honor of JAM 2008 we are upgrading our broadcast and doubling the size of our playlist.

What is Jazz Appreciation Month?
The concept is simple: designate one month for an annual public spotlight on jazz. Jazz Appreciation Month (or JAM) is intended to draw public attention to the glories of jazz as both an historical and a living treasure. The idea is to encourage musicians, concert halls, schools,colleges, museums, libraries, and public broadcasters to offer special programs on jazz every April.

What are the purposes of Jazz Appreciation Month?
To draw greater public attention to the extraordinary heritage and history of jazz and its importance as an American cultural heritage. In addition, JAM is intended to stimulate the current jazz scene and encourage people of all ages to participate in jazz—to study the music, attend concerts, listen to jazz on radio and recordings, read books about jazz, and support institutional jazz programs.

What can I do to celebrate JAM?
See the list, How to Celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month on www.smithsonianjazz.org.


Saturday, January 05, 2008

One Year Anniversary, December 23, 2007

December 23, 2007 was the one year anniversary of Bop City's 24/7 broadcast of classic jazz. Over the last year we had approximately 35,000 listening hours. Listeners from every state in the U.S. and countries all across the world have enjoyed our broadcast. It has been incredible how many different countries have enjoyed Bop City's classic jazz. We need to brush up on our geography a little - there are countries that have listened that we didn't know existed.

In the last thirty days fifty different countries have listened - the top ten countries, other than the U.S. which is number one, are Germany, Canada, Japan, Brazil, United Kingdom, Italy, Denmark, Spain, Ukraine and Netherlands. As for the U.S. the top ten metro areas that have listened in the last thirty days are Los Angeles, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, Cincinnati, Washington D.C., Boston, Buffalo NY and Dallas. Our outreach has been significant. The fact that so many over-the-air radio stations have dropped classic jazz programming we felt the need to plug that hole and it seems to be working.

We have done very little promotion of Bop City. The performance royalty issue precluded us from effectively promoting the station. We weren't sure if the broadcast's plug would be pulled any and every day since the first part of March 2007. In fact, everything is still not worked out and we are still in limbo. Most of Bop City's listeners have come from word of mouth and from the jazz community on MySpace, and a few folks have mentioned us on their website. Erika Smith, business and technology reporter of the Indianapolis Star, has covered the royalty issue and mentioned our stations in her articles and I'm sure that resulted in some listeners for Bop City. We're working on some more promotion ideas and all of you good people should feel free to spread the word about Bop City.

Thanks for listening. As all of you know, Bop City is a labor of love and knowing that you listen when you can makes it all worthwhile.