KLON to Change Lineup, Add NPR Jazz Shows

Radio station KLON-FM (88.1) has announced a major revamping of its jazz programming, with a new lineup scheduled to begin airing next week.

The most significant entry is a group of five National Public Radio jazz programs, missing in the Southland for nearly a year, which will be added to the station’s weekend lineup of programs.

“As KLON is the only full-time, mainstream jazz station in Southern California, I felt it was our responsibility to continue the tradition of bringing these exceptional NPR programs to this market’s jazz audience,” said Judy Jankowski, the station’s general manager.

The NPR schedule starts Thursday at 7 p.m. with the Peabody Award-winning “Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz.” (Coincidentally, McPartland opens a three-night run at the Jazz Bakery a day earlier.)

“Jazz Profiles With Nancy Wilson” debuts July 5 at 9 a.m. “JazzSet With Branford Marsalis” will be heard the same day at 9 p.m. On July 6, “Billy Taylor’s Jazz at the Kennedy Center” airs at 9 a.m. “Jazz at Lincoln Center,” curated by the center’s artistic director of jazz, Wynton Marsalis, and hosted by CBS correspondent Ed Bradley, follows at 9 p.m. The schedule continues thereafter weekly in the same time slots.

Other changes in the KLON schedule affect local programming. In the most significant alterations, Alfredo Cruz has taken over the weekday morning drive-time program, from 6 to 10 a.m., and Chuck Niles will now be heard an hour earlier, from 2 to 7 p.m. weekdays. Helen Borgers will work the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift.

“We expect Alfredo Cruz will bring some fresh energy to the morning show,” program director Scott Willis said. “And Chuck is the best-known jazz radio voice in Southern California. We hope, by shifting his schedule, to bring him to an audience in the hours before they have a chance to get home and switch on the television.”

Ken Borgers has moved from the weekday morning slot to a 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. slot on Saturdays and Sundays to accommodate his enhanced activities as a special features program producer, and Friday night’s “Jazz on the Latin Side” begins an hour earlier, at 7 p.m.