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Ian McLaren

Founder/creator of Desert Island Jazz, the weekly jazz program which airs Friday mornings on KCSM Jazz 91.

About Me

Ian McLaren is founder of Desert Island Jazz Productions. He has combined his long career in the London advertising, marketing, sponsorship and corporate fundraising industries with a semi-professional jazz career, performing on bass in a variety of ensembles from the 1960s onwards.

While living in Silicon Valley at the height of the late 90s web boom, he became Deputy Director of Villa Montalvo, California’s Historic Estate for the Arts, where his love of jazz led him to connect with leading figures in the San Francisco jazz world. In 1998 he created “Desert Island Jazz” for KCSM Jazz 91, the SF Bay Area’s jazz station. He went on to produce and co-present the weekly programme, featuring interviews with the world’s top jazz artists until he left the US in 2000. The programme was voted San Francisco’s Best Radio Show by SF Weekly in 2004.

He has served as Marketing Director for the Global Music Foundation.

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