DJ: Hey, we’re live on 106.22 Eugene Bop and today we’ve got a very special guest on today. Everybody put your hands together for Victor Miles, a student at University of Oregon. We keep getting emails asking why the world needs another jazz radio station, so we decided to bring in an expert. Thanks for coming in, Victor.
Miles: Thanks for having me—glad to be here.
DJ: So, you’re studying jazz at University of Oregon?
Miles: That’s right. Eugene actually has one of the best jazz studies programs in the whole U.S. We study the music itself, its history and the music business. It’s really great.
DJ: Sounds like it.
Miles: The goal of the program is… well, I go this excerpt off the university Web site, is it all right if I read it?
DJ: Go ahead.
Miles: It says, “our goal is to create an environment for learning that stimulates, recognizes, and rewards creativity and outstanding achievement in performance, composition, arranging, research, and education. To this end, we are committed to providing our students with the most thorough education available in jazz and opportunities for personal growth and successes in the field that are second to none.” And that basically sums it up.
DJ: Impressive! I hear you’re from Washington.
Miles: That’s right. I came down here because Oregon has some of the best places to study music. It was a hard choice between University of Oregon and Western Oregon University, because both of them have awesome programs, but in the end I decided I wanted to live in a bigger city.
DJ: (laughing) So Eugene, it was!
Miles: That’s right.
DJ: So back to our listener’s question—why should our station be playing jazz? What’s so great about it?
Miles: Jazz has one of the richest histories of all music genres. It originates from Africa, when slaves were being brought over to America to work in the fields. The music mingled with all of the different European influences that were at work in America, so jazz really is the all-American music.
DJ: Like baseball is the all-American sport.
Miles: Exactly.
DJ: Well, listeners, we’ve got to go to a commercial, but don’t switch off that radio just yet. We’ll be right back.
