Station KRML and all that Jazz

By MARIE VASARI
Herald Staff Writer


People drop in to visit jazz radio station KRML for all kinds of reasons.

Some are jazz lovers looking for an obscure recording of an old favorite on vinyl, or recent converts hoping to uncover new musical treasures.

Some, said station owner and CEO David Kimball, are out-of-towners looking for a piece of Carmel to take home, while others just want a glimpse of one of the DJs broadcasting from the station's streetside booth.

And then, of course, there are the movie fans.

It has been 35 years since Clint Eastwood's directorial debut, "Play Misty for Me," immortalized the all-jazz station, and much has changed at KRML.

New artists, new radio shows, new owners.

New home, new technology.

But scarcely a day goes by, said Kimball, that someone doesn't walk through the station's doors and ask for a copy of the movie.

Demand for the movie and for the station's jazzy products, from the music and Eastwood movies to message T-shirts (Got Jazz, anyone?), helped push the Carmel station to launch an online store in July.

The site -- built onto the station's existing Web site -- offers most of the same merchandise available in the Jazz & Blues Company Store and Gallery: art posters, fine art photography and clothing emblazoned with the station's famed call letters, and Eastwood movies on DVD. Newer offerings are LPs -- what most of the younger generations now call vinyl -- drawing from the station's private collection of rare, out-of-print recordings, and Monterey Jazz Festival merchandise.

The station, which has been around since 1957, has gotten used to visitors. They first started coming around after Eastwood's movie made the station's cool, cramped quarters famous, then kept coming after the station moved from the Crossroads Shopping Center into the Eastwood Building two years ago.

The station, which beams its signal from a transmitter near the Carmel River, opened a retail store in 1994. Tucked alongside the Hog's Breath Inn on San Carlos Street near Fifth Avenue, it's the only music store in town.

KRML is a music show on several levels. There are the radio shows: Kimball, a 15-year on-air veteran who bought the station two years ago, does a big band show, while others focus on ragtime, classic standards, European jazz, local performers and the blues.

And then, of course, there's the show. Passers-by often gather on the sidewalk to peer through the windows of the street-front radio booth, watching as the hosts chat up the airwaves and make radio magic.

Tours are a common occurrence. In fact, there's a daily walking tour that includes the Jazz & Blues Company Store and Gallery as a tour stop, but impromptu station tours are frequent.

The combination of radio and retail still catches people by surprise.

"It's either one way or the other," said Kimball. "They come in to the radio station and they're surprised we had a store, or they come into the store and they're surprised we have a radio station."

The KRML coffee mugs, fleece jackets and baseball caps help promote the station -- and the all-American art form it highlights. And the selection of music likely makes the day for some music aficionados, with its cache of rare vinyls and in-studio concert recordings.

But there is no overlooking its business sense. On-air advertising generates dollars for the station, but Kimball said the retail operations make up 40 percent of overall revenues.

He has high hopes for the Web store, with a goal of 20 percent of total retail revenue within two years, and he has reason to hope: Web hits doubled in the first month of revamping the site, and this month, they doubled again.

Contributing to that, he suspects, is the ever-changing array of photos, new merchandise, blogs from on-air and retail staff, and concert schedules along with KRML's daily program schedule.

Ultimately, there is still a steady stream of Eastwood movie fans.

"We stock all his movies, but mostly, 'Play Misty,' '' said Kimball, "because people ask for it literally every day."

KRML isn't a big station, and the Jazz & Blues Company Store isn't particularly large, either.

During the week, the studio's custom-built Yamaha C5 grand piano -- whose keys have been played by 300 pianists, including Pinetop Perkins -- gets covered up by merchandise.

But in cyberspace, such measurements as square footage and signal strength mean little.

The station took its first steps into the online world of streaming audio last year, with the help of Byte-Technology. Today, Kimball sees the Internet as the future of radio and merchandising.

The same technology that lets his 97-year-old mother hear his Saturday "Let's Dance" show on her caregiver's computer in Michigan also opens up the world of jazz music -- and merchandise -- to anyone with Internet access.

"So despite the fact that we're a relatively modest-powered station in Carmel, California, we can be heard around the world," said Kimball. "It represents a leveling of the playing field.''

KRML Jazz Radio is online at www.krmlradio.com.

Radio broadcast on 1410 AM; also on 92.5 FM and 93.7 FM.

Weekly Listeners 25,000

Ages 34-54 74 percent

10-30 hours per week 71 percent

31 hours or more per week 10 percent