"West Coast Jazz" is a loaded phrase. It likely conjures up the mellow sounds of cool jazz luminaries Gerry Mulligan and Chico Hamilton and images of dog-eared LP covers portraying icons like Shelly Manne, Bud Shank and Art Pepper. But that's not all there is to jazz on the west coast. Today's west coast musicians are creating jazz of every type, from Hard Bop to Avant-Garde, from Latin to Fusion. To celebrate the diverse music coming from the Golden State and its neighbors to North, AccuJazz Internet radio presents the new channel, "Modern West Coast." The channel is completely free to use and available 24/7.

"Modern West Coast" plays over 500 songs by musicians who live on the West Coast or have spent a significant amount of time living there. Some gems from West Coast legends like Chet Baker and Art Pepper are thrown in for good measure, but the majority of the playlist features artists who are still active on the scene today. The playlist includes everything from Avant-Garde iconoclasts like Nels Cline and Scott Amendola to swing masters like John Clayton and Bill Cunliffe. Vocalists Tierney Sutton, Bill Henderson, Lorraine Feather, Melissa Morgan and Kristin Korb are all contributing to a thriving scene in California, and are highlighted on the channel.

For anyone wondering what's been going on in the West Coast jazz scene lately, AccuJazz's "Modern West Coast" is the perfect destination. It proves that there's much more to the West Coast than the "cool school" of the 1950s.

The channel is fifth in AccuJazz's Regions category, joining similar channels dedicated to music from New Orleans, New York, Chicago and Europe. It brings the total AccuJazz channel tally to 45, including such popular channels as "Piano Jazz," "Decade: 50s," "Straight Ahead," and "Jazz Fusion." As with all AccuJazz channels, listeners can customize their experience by pausing, skipping songs, and "deselecting" artists they would rather not hear.