…and accessible online and via its app, is the voice of jazz, blues, salsa and more in Denver. But its takes more than being a great-sounding radio station for KUVO to live up to its tagline“Your Oasis in the City.” KUVO Jazz is also a vigorous and valuable force for good, uniting diverse communities while spreading both knowledge and joy. For its most loyal fans, KUVO Jazz isn’t just a music provider. It’s a precious part of their life.
Hundreds of volunteers and employees should be applauded for launching KUVO Jazz on August 29, 1985, and keeping it fresh and vital each day thereafter. But Carlos Lando, who came aboard a couple of years later and ultimately rose to the positions of president and general manager over the course of three decades-plus, deserves more than his share of credit for fostering the mix of sounds and sensibilities that have made KUVO such a gift to music lovers in the Mile High City and around the world.
Colorado Music Hall of Fame’s choice to induct him along with KUVO fills Lando with pride. In his words, “It’s quite an honor when you consider the people who are in the Hall of Fame and just really something very special to me. It’s been a long journey.”
…that relocated often, Lando evolved into a self-described radio nerd – the type of kid who would listen to broadcasts late into the night. So he was thrilled when, as a high school junior living in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, he landed a job at the station serving Ramey Air Force Base. At first, he filed albums and did other grunt work. But a kindly program director saw potential in young Carlos and allowed him to train for an on-air role, and he proved to be a quick study. In January 1968, he began manning the overnight shift on the weekends, since he was still attending classes during the week. By the time he graduated, he was ready to start his career in earnest.
Lando landed a job with a commercial-radio station in Puerto Rico that led to an opportunity in upstate New York at one of the country’s first underground-rock FMs. But the weather in the area, combined with homesickness, prompted a return to the island, and after a few unsatisfying stints, he was given an opportunity to produce and host Jazz Where It’s Been and Where It’s At on a station called WZAR.
The program, which featured interviews Lando conducted with Count Basie and other legends, established the template for his life’s work – but it would take a while for him to find the right long-term platform. He briefly taught broadcasting in New York City before his 1980 move to Denver and a music-and-program-director position at KDKO, a vaunted soul-music station. He subsequently jumped to album-oriented rocker KBCO but was only there for a year when he heard about a management-level opening at a relatively new station he greatly admired.
KUVO came to life largely due to the dedication of Florence Hernández-Ramos, a onetime radio novice who fell in love with the medium. She lined up grants and financing needed to make the station a reality and kept it on track and on message after its debut. But by 1987, she needed someone to take the operation to the next level – and when she met Lando, she realized that she’d found the person to help her achieve her mission.
With Hernández-Ramos as president/CEO and Lando as program director and DJ (The Morning Set, his signature show, became one of Denver’s favorite ways to wake up), KUVO flourished. In 1988, the station received a Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and was recognized as Best Jazz Station by Westword newspaper – and the accolades would continue to accumulate. KUVO was given the Major Market Jazz Station of the Year award by JazzWeek magazine in both 2005 and 2006 and was singled out as one of the planet’s three top jazz-and-soul internet radio stations by The Telegraph in 2014.
…and GM in 2012, five years after Hernández-Ramos moved on to other challenges, the reasons for the station’s success went well beyond the decision to focus entirely on jazz and professionalize the presentation. Mutually beneficial relationships were created with kindred spirits such as El Chapultepec, the revered jazz venue inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame alongside its endearing owner, Jerry Krantz, and select non-profits. In addition, works by the finest Colorado musicians – examples include Greg Gisbert, Eric Gunnison, Ellyn Rucker and Ken Walker, who would all find their way into The Hall together – were incorporated into the main playlist rather than being played only as part of specialty hours. There was also a devotion to education, as evidenced by partnerships with high schools and colleges such as the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music and the University of Northern Colorado. Appropriately, Lando is the namesake of the Carlos Lando Colorado Music Educator Award, presented under the auspices of Rocky Mountain Public Media.
With indispensable contributions from Lando, who transitioned into a consultancy role with the station in 2021 as a precursor to retirement, KUVO Jazz is well into its second century of making Colorado sound better.
By Michael Roberts
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