SOURCES

Places where you can buy or hear more of this kind of music. It's important to note that this isn't an official KZSU listing; as a nonprofit station, KZSU isn't permitted to overtly recommend any commercial action. This is just me, a guy, telling you a few places sympathetic to this music; views expressed here are not necessarily those of KZSU-FM or of Stanford University.

First recommendation in all cases is to go to the label that released something; after all, they're almost guaranteed to be offering it. And it's good to support the people who work so hard to keep good music alive and in the public ear. I've tried to include links to labels for most of my playlist entries, beginning circa 2006.

Then again, sometimes you just wanna go shopping:

• Indie Jazz
• Downtown Music Gallery, a great boutique CD store in downtown Manhattan
• Aquarius Records in San Francisco is more sympathetic to the noisy, experimental stuff, and less so to the outright jazz (although you'll find lots of interesting choices in the jazz section). If they don't have something, there's always Amoeba.
• Streetlight Records is sympathetic to a lot of this stuff. At least, the outlet in Campbell is; I haven't been to a San Francisco Streetlight in some time.
• Emusic is surprisingly open to experimental stuff. In particular, they're a source for Clean Feed, a Portugese label that's put out some great CDs from American free-jazz artists.
• CD Baby is an indie shop for artists to sell their own CDs. As you'd expect, it's got a lot of chaff, but plenty of great artists are found there, too. Quite a lot of what we play is available there.
• UbuWeb is a HUGE repository for artsy stuff including modern classical music, archival experimental music, interviews, etc. Oh, and it's all free -- this is a library, not a store.

There are more radio shows covering jazz/improv than you might think. KZSU always has several in the works; check out DJs Ben (either one; there are two of them), Your Imaginary Friend, Mufaor, Mike, Red West, Fo, David Bug, and plenty of others I'm sadly forgetting. A few other good bets:

• KFJC -- Our friendly Bay Area rival. Nights and early mornings in particular are populated with scattershot eclectic shows; lots of great unusual sounds in there.
• KCSM is our local 24-hour jazz station, something the Bay Area should be proud of. Always worth a listen, although things get a bit too soft in the evening hours for me. Of particular note is the Thursday night show, "All Out," which tracks the edgier side of jazz (think Eric Dolphy). Great stuff.
• WNUR -- Chicago station that devotes its morning to free jazz
• WKCR -- Columbia University; lots of traditional jazz, but they really honor these guys (24- hour birthday marathons!). An "Out to Lunch" midday show emphasizes the free stuff, and the afternoons often go to modern classical music, some of it really out there.
• KPFA -- "Forms and Feelings" is a reasonably adventurous jazz show, and Jim Bennett knows his stuff. "Discrete Music" is more experimental (Dean Suzuki opens his show with "4:33," or at least he used to).
• KUSF -- San Francisco State; that link goes directly to an interesting show called "Breakthrough in the Grey Room." Good source for local improv works.
• Taran's Free Jazz Hour -- A podcast from France. I haven't actually listened to it (!) but the guy's playlists look promising.
• KWVA -- Univ. of Oregon station, which is free-jazz sympathetic (for now, anyway).

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