KMHD Jazz Radio celebrates 40 years of ‘Jazz Without Boundaries’

KMHD Jazz Radio is celebrating its 40th year on the air this month.

KMHD is the top-rated jazz station in the nation at a time when full-time jazz radio stations are rare. It has been a staple of the Northwest music scene, celebrating a diverse array of the rich history of recorded jazz and its related sub-genres, ensuring that this uniquely American art form continues to thrive in the region and beyond.

Today, KMHD has nine full-time staff members and an expanded audience, reaching jazz fans across the country and around the world, streaming online at kmhd.org and the KMHD Jazz Radio app, and on the radio at 89.1 FM in the Portland area.

It has grown to become an award-winning, member-supported, accessible resource for jazz appreciators. It discovers new voices and talent, searches for the lost treasures of jazz, and champions jazz performances and education.

“Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a varied number of music lovers who want to share their passion for the sounds we collectively know as jazz,” said Matt Fleeger, KMHD program director, who has managed the station since 2009. “KMHD’s successes are possible not just because of the incredible staff, producers, operations or programming of the radio station, but because of the financial support of KMHD members and our audience – who truly do love this music and wish to consume it on a daily basis.”

KMHD signed on the air for the first time in 1984 from the studios of Mount Hood Community College (MHCC). This full-time jazz format radio station was intended to serve not just the east county of Portland, but the entire metro area as well. Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, KMHD grew in popularity along with the college’s Mount Hood Jazz Festival and its broadcasting program. It featured an array of volunteer DJs and hosts who had specialties in almost every aspect of the now over 100-year-old genre of music.

In 2009, MHCC and OPB developed an agreement under which OPB would fund, program and operate the station. This enabled KMHD to grow its public service mission and to preserve the sound of jazz on the radio for Portland and the world at large while relieving MHCC of most of the costs of operating the station. At that time, Fleeger was hired as program director to manage the station and 34 on-air volunteers.

In 2015, KMHD launched the “Jazz Without Boundaries” format, which presents the music as a connector point between other genres of music such as soul, R&B, funk, fusion, hip hop and global sounds that it gave birth to. This new format helped to strengthen KMHD’s mission of providing a directed musical experience to a diverse, multi-generational audience that soothes, delights and surprises.

In the years that followed, KMHD expanded its team with new talent, adding its first full-time staff. In 2020, it weathered the COVID-19 pandemic by making key operational changes to promote the health and safety of KMHD’s hosts and better serve audiences. The station implemented syndication agreements with many of its existing hosts and independent producers who were passionate about the jazz story by offering their syndicated shows to KMHD’s worldwide audience.

Additionally, in 2021, OPB was awarded a three-year grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for KMHD to participate in a jazz media lab collective with other nonprofit jazz radio stations across the country. The grant supplied KMHD with core support and innovation capital to diversify its listening base, invest in new media opportunities, engage with venues and community organizations, and build upon its meaningful relationships with local jazz artists.

As a result of this support, KMHD has not only been able to grow its staff by 300 percent since 2020, but also its audiences can enjoy a more robust experience on kmhd.org. This includes all original, staff-generated content that puts the artist first in addition to recurring features such as “In Conversation,” “Records We Love,” and “The Scene.” Web visitors also can now experience the artistic companion of jazz music – photography.

KMHD’s mobile app has also been redesigned and relaunched, with added features such as CarPlay, a broadcast schedule, social media integration, a user engagement portal and push alerts. KMHD has also streamlined its social media presence and strengthened its strategic partnership with OPB for content sharing.

This and all of KMHD’s work is made possible by the support of KMHD’s members, who now exceed 7,600 households.