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Your on-ramp to Jazz Radio
Scott Hopkins and Tim Wright are your Sunday evening hosts for The Colors of Jazz. Tim and Scott have been working together to bring you the very best in jazz of all colors, flavors, varieties and styles. We see jazz as a big tent, covering a wide range of styles, from the big bands of the 1930s through the smaller combos of the 50s and 60s up through fusion and some of the more experimental sounds.
Colors of Jazz covers local Tampa Bay jazz acts, something you won’t find elsewhere, and we support the local jazz scene. The Tampa Bay region has an abundance of jazz talent, and we play their recordings. This is the jazz show, where you’ll hear music nobody else plays on the radio. Tune in and find out for yourself, then tell your jazz-loving friends.
We’re your Sunday evening dinner and after-dinner music to wrap up the weekend. Colors of Jazz is your respite of relaxation before Monday arrives and the rat race resumes. Jazz radio during the daylight hours, only on WMNF.
New for 2018 is bringing local jazz artists onto the show for interviews and to play their music. The Tampa Bay area has some amazing musicians. The schedule so far is:
Serotonic 7 January
Chuck Owen 4 February
Matt Bokulic 11 March
Nate Najar 25 March
Valerie Gillespie 8 April
Allon Sams 6 May
. . . and we’re scheduling more.
Here is our review of the Tampa Jazz Club show with Fred Johnson/Michael Ross Quartet show March 11th at HCC Ybor City.
“Jazz isn’t dead. It just smells funny.” — Frank Zappa.
Local Jazz Organizations
Tampa Jazz Club
Links to local jazz bands
Acme Jazz Garage
Matt Bokulic: The Pleiades Ensemble, Jazz piano trio with a string quartet
Shawn Brown
Valerie Gillespie
La Lucha
Mike MacArthur
Nate Najar
Chuck Owen & the Jazz Surge
Michael Ross
Allon Sams
Serotonic
James Suggs
Hosted By...
Scott Hopkins
Scott began his radio career at Lehigh University, programming shows on its two sister stations, WLRN and WLVR. He was a DJ playing pop, free-form rock and everything in between. While there, he discovered the jazz library that had not been touched for years, and he began a weekly jazz show in addition to his other programs.
After graduation, Scott moved to the Tampa area, where he eventually bought a record store, School Kids Records, across from the former Schlitz plant on 30th Street, near the University of South Florida. The store closed in 1978. During that time, he was also co-editor of Music Media, a local music magazine.
In 1979, WUSF 89.7 decided to expand its jazz programming from two programs a week to a nightly jazz program from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. Scott began programming jazz there immediately and continued until 2005. For at least a dozen of those 26 years, Scott and Thomas had back-to-back programs and developed a powerful jazz friendship.
1979 was also the year that WMNF was born. Shortly thereafter, Scott was host of the original Saturday Night Soul Party, alternating weeks with Brad Sutton. He did the show from 1979 to 1980.
Scott continues to write about music locally and around the state. In 2014, his son, Spencer, surprised him with his own music blog, Tie Your Shoes Reviews. Currently, there are more than 300 concert, festival and album reviews and previews on the site.
In February of 2015, he was approached about joining the online music publication MusicFestNews. Scott is now the editor-in-chief, and most of his reviews appear there.
A meeting, chance meeting in a Public parking lot in July of 2015 reunited Scott and Thomas, and Thomas was kind enough to invite Scott to sit in on The Colors of Jazz. The rest, as they say, is history. Scott also guest-hosts on In the Groove, the jam band show on Tuesdays from 10 p.m. to midnight.
Tim's exposure to jazz began in the 1960s, the child of jazz fan parents, the hi-fi often played the likes of Ellington, Wes Montgomery, Bird, and others. With the radio tuned to WMAL, he regularly listened to Felix Grant's "The Album Sound," the gold standard in jazz radio. Tim's radio work began with doing the news at WREK, Georgia Tech's FM radio station. He discovered WMNF through the Saturday and Sunday evening jazz shows and has been a steady listeners ever since. After doing a guest host on Colors of Jazz, Tim's been part of the crew bringing jazz to community radio.
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