In a week full of holiday format flips, it was still front-page news when Smooth Jazz KTWV Los Angeles became “L.A.’s new Christmas station.” In doing so, The Wave got in ahead of the market’s traditional holiday station, AC KOST. (At this writing, on Monday morning, KOST is still in regular format.)

Whenever one of the extant Smooth Jazz stations modifies its format, even for five weeks, it makes what’s left of the format community hold its breath. KTWV has surprised nobody by adding more AC functionality under PD Jhani Kaye, and surprised many by not just hauling off and making the transition outright.

The good news is that this is definitely NOT the holiday format as heard on most Mainstream AC stations. The promos emphasize that there’s lots of music from Smooth Jazz artists and there indeed seemed to be one represented every 15 minutes or so.

As a station that effectively doubles as Urban AC for its market, one might have expected The Wave to do a more soulful holiday format than the typical AC model. In the segment I heard, there were more R&B artists in the mix, performing the holiday standards, but it was very different from the very R&B-flavored holiday format of the U.K.’s Smooth Radio. (The station does have an upcoming “Winter Wonderland” concert starring Brian McKnight, El DeBarge, and Johnny Gill.)

In fact, if anything, because the jazziness of the station lent itself to so many of the pre-rock artists heard at holiday time, the Wave actually plays a little more traditional than the average AC station. When you break up Sinatra and Bing Crosby with Al Jarreau, it almost plays like those neo-Standards/lounge formats that a number of programmers were trying to float a few years ago.

Here’s The Wave as heard early on the morning of Nov. 14:

Ella Fitzgerald, “Sleigh Ride”
Katherine McPhee, “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”
Frank Sinatra, “Jingle Bells”
Al Jarreau, “The Christmas Song”
Bing Crosby, “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas”
Kenny G., “Winter Wonderland”
Mariah Carey, “All I Want For Christmas Is You”
Kirk Whalum, “Do You Hear What I Hear”
Stylistics, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”
Amy Grant, “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year”
Peter White, “Jingle Bells”
Patti Austin, “This Christmas”