WNUR: Chicago's "Sound Experiment"
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Northwestern University's WNUR is committed to "giv[ing] independent and experimental music a home on the airwaves," according to the station's web page. After listening to the station for a few minutes, you'll be inclined to agree.

Boasting a variety of genres, from ska to techno, and everything in between, the radio station is best described as "eclectic." One genre on WNUR, however, stands above the others.

Jazz is a staple of the station, according to Brandon Linden, a WNUR DJ. Linden is not a student but a "local jazz fan who was recruited through the local jazz base," he said. Chicago is widely recognized as one of the hotbeds of jazz, both past and present, and WNUR continues that tradition.

"WNUR offers the community a diversity of opinions and musics that are unavailable on the more commercial side of the dial," said Linden.

The station's website echoes this sentiment, stating that DJs "are given wide latitude to determine the content and feel of their own shows." This allows for DJs like Linden to serve, what he calls, "the avant jazz community."

Since WNUR dedicates around seven hours a day to jazz (5:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.), the WNUR website contains an extensive amount of supplementary information for interested users, including a schedule for DJs and interviews with musicians.

In an impressively futuristic step, the DJs are also accessible not just to their over-the-air audience via telephone, but to their Internet audience through AOL's Instant Messenger program. WNUR seems to have succeeded in tying the jazz past to the Internet future.