It began with a single employee, a handful of volunteers, and some borrowed records from local shops and personal collections. Twenty-five years later, jazz89 KUVO is celebrating its silver anniversary as Denver’s radio staple for jazz and blues. The award-winning station has 120,000 devoted listeners who tune in for diverse tunes and programs such as “A Funk Above the Rest,” hosted by Skip the Funktologist, aka Jory Reeves. About six years ago, after two other local stations turned down Skip’s idea for a show dedicated to funk, KUVO picked it up; today, the show has 15,000 KUVO listeners, airs in 26 U.S. cities, and is internationally syndicated. “I’m grateful to KUVO for taking a chance on my show and me,” Skip says. “Denver is sorely missing that culture from the airwaves. I knew, and they knew, my show would fill a void.”

Celebrate with KUVO August 3 at Jazz@Jacks, a fund-raiser for the Sickle Cell Cure Foundation, www.kuvo.org

5280 August 2010
More From The Issue