Tomorrow (Sunday, Feb. 15) at 3 p.m., the Limelight in East Nashville (Woodland St. across from LP Field) will host an all-star concert benefiting our great jazz radio station WMOT out of Murfreesboro. The 40-year-old station is owned and operated by Middle Tennessee State University, and the school is seriously considering eliminating it as part of sweeping budget cuts. This would be an unmitigated disaster for the life and culture of Music City, not to mention the educational mission of MTSU. We are amazingly fortunate to have a serious jazz station in our market, when most major market so-called jazz stations are fountains of smooth Kenny G pabulum. I'm astonished how often I'm swept away by flipping to 89.5 FM and hearing something familiar or something fresh, somebody local or somebody historic. I can't imagine life without it and I can't fathom that this recession could wipe something so great away forever. Please come to the show and please write to MTSU President Sidney McPhee. My letter to him is after the jump.
Dear Dr. McPhee,
I’m writing as a music journalist, a musician and a supporter of WMOT to implore you to oppose the proposed elimination of WMOT, the best jazz radio station I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. WMOT is a vital part of the fabric of Middle Tennessee’s tradition of musical creativity and commerce. It’s a great and irreplaceable radio station. If you shutter it today because times are tight, we will have lost forever one of our area’s most important cultural institutions.
There are countless reasons to keep WMOT on the air, from its role in training students in broadcasting and music careers to its support for the Nashville area’s best jazz musicians, an oft overshadowed part of Music City.
But above all, I would urge you, as an educator, to battle back against the erosion of jazz awareness and appreciation in the lives of young Americans. Jazz is the pinnacle of the hard-won artistic and expressive legacy of African-Americans in the United States, and as the music evolved to involve and enthrall Americans of every color and far-flung global audiences, it has told our national story with greater refinement, truth and passion than any other art form or cultural legacy we have.
Closing WMOT would be tantamount to shuttering a great library or selling off a great art collection. I urge you to do everything in your power to keep that from happening, and I pledge my annual support to the station if WMOT is allowed to continue to do its great work.
Sincerely, Craig Havighurst
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