KCSM Jazz 91KCSM Jazz 91

KCSM went on the air in 1964 as a training facility — somewhere students at the College of San Mateo could learn how radio worked, licensed to the county's community college district rather than to a broadcaster, a company or a church. It never stopped being that. A professional staff runs the station, and it carries NPR and Public Radio International affiliation, but it doubles as a working laboratory for the college's digital media department: a jazz signal that is also a classroom.

KCSM is the only station in the Bay Area with a round-the-clock jazz format, and a second channel, KCSM HD2, runs alongside the main signal. Its presenters tend to be practitioners — veteran musicians, educators, seasoned jazz broadcasters, frequently all three at once — hosting programmes the station produces itself, so the voice between records often knows the music from the bandstand.