WWOZ streams jazz, blues, zydeco, Cajun music, and the broader musical heritage of New Orleans and Louisiana, and you can hear it free on Radio Shuffle from anywhere in the world.
Born Above a Legendary Music Club
WWOZ signed on for the first time on December 4, 1980, the work of brothers Jerry and Walter Brock, who set out to build a community radio station for New Orleans with help from community radio pioneer Lorenzo Milam, according to the station's own history page. The call letters nod to The Wizard of Oz, a signal that the music itself, not the personalities behind the microphone, would always be the point. For its first months, the station broadcast from a room above Tipitina's, New Orleans' legendary music venue, and DJs would literally lower a microphone through the floor to capture live sets happening in the club below and send them straight out over the air.
From a Nightclub Floor to Tremé
Within six months the station acquired proper broadcasting equipment and moved on from Tipitina's, eventually relocating in 1984 to a three-room building inside Louis Armstrong Park in the Tremé neighborhood, putting it within walking distance of the Rampart Street and French Quarter music scenes it exists to cover. By 1987, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival Foundation took over operational control of the station, giving it the financial stability of a major cultural institution behind a community radio license.
The Night WWOZ Went Off the Air for Katrina
WWOZ shut down just after 10pm on August 27, 2005, ahead of Hurricane Katrina, giving its programmers and staff time to evacuate the city. The last song to play before the signal cut out was "What the Heck, Let's Discotheque" by Side Effect, spun by DJ Soul Sister. The storm damaged the studio and wiped out power at Louis Armstrong Park, but the station's transmitter atop the Tidewater Building on Canal Street survived intact. Within a week, WWOZ was back, broadcasting online as "WWOZ in Exile" through servers borrowed from fellow freeform station WFMU, keeping New Orleans music on the air even while the city itself was underwater.
Why Tune In
WWOZ carries more than four decades of New Orleans music history into its current broadcast, from a mic dropped through a nightclub ceiling to an exiled webcast that refused to go silent during the city's worst disaster. For listeners who want jazz, blues, and Louisiana heritage music from the source, it delivers exactly that.
Listen to WWOZ free on Radio Shuffle, streaming New Orleans jazz and heritage music live.