One of the most professionally produced, and cleanly presented, indie pureplays, The Jazz Groove (www.thejazzgroove.com) crafts a listening experience of understated, elegant acoustic jazz. The station’s motto is lifted from a Miles Davis quote: “You don’t have to play a lot of notes. You just have to play the pretty ones.”
Think American Songbook standards, modern trio and quartet work, players like Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, Johnny Hodges, Bucky Pizzarelli, Diana Krall. This station doesn’t intrude or commandeer attention. Perhaps too cocktail lounge-y for some, this listening will be pleasingly nightclub-ish for others. Above all — tasteful.
The Jazz Groove is listener-supported, but doesn’t get pathetic about it on the site. We have heard an audio promo for donations.
The website has a blog, a Facebook page, and an email address for suggestions, but otherwise does not create community space as some pureplay sites do. A pop-out streamer worked perfectly in our cross-platform testing, though it lacks a Play/Stop button; you end the stream by closing the pop-out window. Which we’re not going to do anytime soon.