Soul jazz, hard bop and fusion with Portland roots.
KMHD went on the air in 1984 from the Mt. Hood Community College campus in Gresham, a jazz and blues station run almost entirely by volunteer announcers, many of them Portland-area musicians or broadcasters. After a cut in state support the college handed programming, operations and fundraising to Oregon Public Broadcasting, which took over on August 10, 2009 and moved the station into its Portland studios, though the college still owns it and the 89.1 call letters never changed.
It bills itself as jazz without boundaries, and a day of its playlist bears that out, with soul jazz and hard bop sitting beside fusion, jazz-funk and the odd Italian easy-listening record. Bri Drennon's Takin' Off covers drive time with straight-ahead jazz and its neighbors, Derek Smith hosts The Wind Down, and the whole day leans more on the record shelf than on any single era.
The record collector's commute.
