Cool Jazz in Kent County: Yvette Hynson’s “The Sunday Jazz Experience”

Every Sunday evening from 6-8, cool jazz notes float out over Kent County from the new WKHS 90.5 FM tower in Worton.

With the equally cool and made-for-radio voice of Yvette Hynson, the station has been airing “The Sunday Jazz Experience” for almost 5 years and has captured a devoted following who love to listen to Hynson’s contagious enthusiasm as she rolls out old classics and new jazz artists.

Hynson, a Certified SOAR Case Specialist at Mid Shore Behavioral Health in Easton, says she fell into the job in 2018 while visiting the station with collogues from Sumner Hall. While there, station manager Chris Singleton was struck by her voice and asked if she’d be interested in a radio spot. Hynson didn’t take it seriously until one day Singleton called her to ask if she was “ready for her show.”

She didn’t hesitate, and now weekly, she and her cohorts, Chestertown artist Sam Moore and local historian Milford Murray not only line up the vinyl disks but embroider each artist’s piece with historical context—the banter between the three signals a lot of fun.

“We’ve drawn in a lot of people to our show because we play a mix of traditional and contemporary and a mix of blues, southern blues, blues, B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland. And that’s what, that’s what I grew up off my, my mom and dad were B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Muddy Waters.’

Hynson also sees her platform as an opportunity to showcase new artists and will invite them to the station to discuss their music as it’s played on the air.

“One of our main focuses now is to identify those independent artists who don’t get a chance to get their music out. So, if I see somebody on Instagram, I was like, who are you? And especially if they’re local. I try to call them up and go, look, can you, you want to come down to the station and interview and play on the air? Can you bring your music?”

Hynson sees the student public radio platform, now in its 48th year, as the perfect public forum to invite other non-profit organizations to talk about their roles in Kent County. With her awareness of virtually every music event scheduled from Annapolis to Delaware, the two-Sunday segment becomes a live bulletin board as she and her team review local events and discuss shows they’ve recently attended.

The Spy recently interviewed Yvette Hynson and talked about her discovering her moonlighting career as a jazz radio host at WKHS 90.5.

This video is approximately seven minutes in length. For more information about WKHS go to their website here or their Facebook page here.