When it comes to the arts, it’s just me, living my life. Jaymz Bee.

This is our third post in association with JAZZ.FM91. We spoke to Jaymz Bee, host of Jazz Gone Wild, Jazz in the City and the international party, also known as The Jazz Safari ™. Passion - for music, for people, for FUN - is this man’s life. And life is for living.

photo: desh fernando

Who are you?

I’m Jaymz Bee. (That was my idea, not my parents.) I was originally from a small town in Northern Canada and moved to Toronto at 18 in 1981. Shortly after unpacking all my worldly possessions, my house burnt down and I was trapped inside of it. Almost dying and being a little bit of a bubble boy was a great thing for my life because when I came out of it, I never thought of anything the same again. I’ve had fun for the last twenty-five years. The essence of me is the positive guy who almost died and every day is a gift. 

I moved down to Toronto because I wanted to be a puppeteer on the Fraggle Rock Show (Jim Henson and Friends). I auditioned but I never knew if I got the part because my house burnt down, all my puppets died and I couldn’t use my hands. I had considered studying acting but my thespian friends were all broke and besides, I didn’t want to audition - I didn’t want to wait. I knew that I could make music and no one could stop me. I could make it on the street, in a cafe, I could make a record someday - I just knew music was the way to go.

always liked the arts, so even if I’m just finger painting, as long as it’s creative, I’ll make something and enjoy myself. Also, I have a wicked sense of humour, so I know I’m not all that…I’m not precious about art. 

How did you become a radio host?

I was in a punk, funk band. We were called Look People and we had t-shirts that said “5 Guys Who Think They’re Playing Jazz”.  My love of Jazz happened during those tours because my other musicians would be playing really heavy Weather Report and other cool jazz stuff, so I started getting jazz apart from punk and funk and rock and everything else. I started doing some radio in Switzerland (DRS3). They liked me and kept interviewing me and they said to come in and bring Canadian music to host a show of my own.

When I came back to Toronto, in the early/mid 80’s, I got a small show on a radio campus station. It was really popular and got syndicated quickly to other campus stations. It didn’t make me much money but it was really great to know that people were listening to my tastes in music.

Around 1999, I was doing talk radio. I wasn’t a very good radio host because I’d cut people off, I wasn’t being respectful enough.  I wasn’t trying to be rude and in my defence I’d add “if the guest is boring me, our listeners will be bored any second”.

Then I did Conspiracy Radio. (I always say, - play the ‘what if’ game, but don’t believe it.) While working at radio I listened to other stations, most notably 91.1FM (www.jazz.fm) in Toronto. One afternoon I heard on JAZZ.FM91 that they were doing a fund drive. I knew all the musicians they were playing on the radio and I just thought, “I should probably have a job there.” 

At first they wanted me to produce a one-hour show and then host a second show. In no time I was doing marketing for them and raising so much money that it turned into a full time job for me, for seventeen years! I was doing jazz tours, The Jazz Safari (™), and took jazz fans around the world. It began with tours of Toronto, then branched out to New York, Newport, Monterey, New Orleans, Chicago, Cuba, Panama, Italy, England and Iceland.

It’s nineteen years now, doing Jazz radio and it really remains my passion. I discovered I loved jazz in my mid-twenties which was the late eighties. Now, there isn’t a decade in jazz that doesn’t fascinate me. Aside from Duke’s “Far East Suite” as a teen I missed jazz. Most people do, I think. They find jazz in their twenties, thirties or forties, most people don’t listen to jazz when they’re kids. 

What is your role as a radio host?

It used to be very simple - to promote the music that was coming into our town. My show is a three hour show about what is playing in every club. Toronto is probably the third biggest city in North America for jazz venues. A lot of them are small. There are only a few premium venues where everyone goes and all the tourists go. If you don’t know your way around, it can be daunting, so my show was to promote every club with the same amount of fervour.

I believe the clubs and the publishers and the publicists and all the people that helped those musicians, they all deserve a round of applause. 

But now my mission is completely different. Now, because there are no clubs open, I’m going in and giving information about an artist and playing a few of their songs. I’ve even made up diagrams to make sure I don’t just wing it. I’ve made it as inclusive as possible. Toronto is a multicultural city, so we’ve never had to worry about black and white, male and female at our station. There’s so much to pick from - from everywhere.

I go into the micro now, I want to find stuff, it’s my passion to dig deeper. Who’s making music now? I feel it’s my duty now to dig deeper and find people with interesting stories and are making jazz here in Toronto and maybe have been overlooked. And I’m not afraid of music that’s way outside! My stuff is bebop and stuff that grooves. I’ve been dabbling in Exotica music, electronic music too. Still, sometimes I want to go play outside. It’s wild but without tongue in cheek. That’s Irritainment! 

Is there now, in this current climate, an added responsibility for you (as a radio host) to bring people together?

I don’t think there is (the music brings people together already) but I put it on myself anyway. I don’t think a DJ has to be worried about it but I’m innately inclusive: I want everyone to feel involved. It means more now than it used to - to bring us together, to stay positive.

Remember, no station in life is ever permanent. This is not the ‘new normal’. This may last longer than we want and it already has. You can slide into a depression and if you don’t have someone to talk to, you’re in serious trouble.

When I’m on air, I need to come up with a positive spin on these things - only a little bit of humour as I’m not making light of the situation. I try to keep it pretty much about the music, I’ll stay positive in Lockdown and say, “Don’t forget folks, one day we are getting together in person, at a real live concert”. 

Last summer, we got to reopen the jazz club I booked - but for just a little bit, a couple of months so meanwhile I started booking bands in people’s backyards. My deal is that I turn up to MC with a small PA that I set up, small and loud…it’s all so simple. All they have to do is give us one power bar and we play far away from their guests.

We set up to play for an hour and fifteen minutes and then leave. So it’s very safe. These guys get an amazing party and musicians they wouldn’t believe were in their backyard…and the bands get a little money and a chance to play together in person! 

This year, I’m going to work harder at this and the trick is - who knows what the rules will be. It’s starting to ease up but who knows? While I book private shows, I want to make sure different people get gigs. I ask the host questions about whose music they like and what they want. The host has a dozen or so friends over, and many people who attend then ask for events at their homes.  For now, this only works outdoors spring to fall. 

I would hope in this moment of pause, that all the governments could re-tweak certain things. This is a time to rethink many things beyond dealing with a pandemic. We shuffle about with too much commuting, for example.

Artists are in a unique position. For most of us, the five percent that make a living or something, we’ve never had it easy, so this is just more of that. There are sensitive artists, who are really messed up and my heart goes out to them. They have all these emotions and it can be a very dark place for them if they don’t have the option to hang around with other people. In Toronto, it felt like solitary confinement for some. 

In Canada, we have the Unison Benevolent Fund. It helps musicians with medical, mental, and financial issues. One example: If somebody breaks their arm playing piano, their rent might be covered for three months. It’s a very quick process. Now, because of this, they are overwhelmed with requests; but on the positive side they also have been raising more and being on more people’s minds in general.

Aside from the money, they do counselling and a lot of artists need that really badly. Everybody’s hurting. The people that have regular jobs are having a harder time because artists always have had a hard time. If you worked 9 to 5 and now you’re homeschooling your kids - that’s tougher than writer's block! 

When the pandemic lifts, will some of these new things continue? The backyard concerts?

I think what we’re doing now will influence what is coming up. The artists that are making music, right now, they’re all at home practising new licks, new sounds. They’re finding new things. I think they’ll take that moving forward.

I’m hoping that the people that have music at their homes now, with the backyard music, I’m hoping that that becomes a thing. We have to take what happens now and keep it with us as we move forward. What happens next won’t be completely ‘back’. That’ll be years away. 

There was a study done recently (Canadian Independent Music Association) where it was reported that in the first six months of this, the Canadian Music Industry lost two hundred and thirty-three million dollars. When they did all these surveys, they realized that this isn’t going to end quickly. I think they said that fifty-five percent of the people surveyed said that they would not be going to a concert as soon as the doors opened. They would wait a few more months until it was safe.

I booked a club called the Jazz Bistro, it’s a nice place. They can’t open for ten people. If they have fifty people, having dinner and drinking, they can do that. But otherwise they can’t open. 

When clubs open, I believe the people will be coming in. They will have waited long enough. But things won’t get settled - some will stay nervous and stay away. Meanwhile, luckily, there are people who basically saved money in the past year, so they can pay a cover and enjoy some great music in concert. 

If you didn’t do this, what would you be doing?

I’d probably be finger painting in a barn by a lake in Canada. In Ontario, we have two hundred thousand lakes, so there’s always somewhere to go. To be honest, I’m kind of looking into a farm concept of a commune of artists, that make music, hang out and come into town to do things. I think we’re a couple years away from really getting back into it, so I’m looking around for that.

I also had time and went up North, hung out in a cabin and started writing my memoirs. That’s something I’ve been doing on and off my whole life. Luckily I’ve kept diaries and things so I can hear the voice I wrote it in and laugh at my youth. It was a really nice getaway. I got to walk in the woods and the fresh air every day, eat simple food and kept writing. 

It will always be something in the arts. I was five years old when I finally asked my Dad “How much does it cost to be in a movie?” and he explained to me that actors get paid to be in a movie. I thought only rich people were allowed to act, because you had to pay for the privilege of pretending you were someone else.

I kept probing him about other jobs or careers. He explained that writing the scripts, shooting the film with a camera, painting and playing guitar…they could all be jobs. He also mentioned hobbies and how few people made a living but I chose to ignore most of that - I turned to me and said: “Dad, I’m an artist.” I’ve never stopped creating... I mean I've had some epic fails, but even the bad decisions make me laugh! 

Is what you do a job?

No, I don’t think so. In a sense, I’ve only ever had a few jobs, like fixing watches in a jewelry shop. That’s a job because I’d rather not be there! I’m not even sure about the word ‘career’. If this is a career, then I have tempered ambition, not lowered expectations. If this was my career, if I took the notion of a career seriously, I suppose someone would have every right to call me a loser because I didn’t make millions of dollars.

I’d say, I have a great life, I’m a happy person, I’m never bored, I’m always grateful. It feels like I’m always winning. When it comes to the arts, it’s basically just me living my life and expressing myself with wild, joyous abandon. 

What has the ‘magic of the pandemic’ brought for you?

First, the guilt. I’m up to season seven of the television show Barnaby Jones. That means I’ve seen over one hundred episodes since this time last year. Now, I didn’t waste my time. I wrote down the exact time in each episode every time he drank a glass of milk or was running after somebody. Someday, I’ll make some art out of this because watching this old guy, drinking milk, in every different dull suit in each episode, not really running because he has bum knees - it’s all a guilty pleasure but also guilt.

In some ways, it’s too easy to binge watch. That’s the one thing that’s negative. But I’d least I’m watching 70’s TV detective shows and not the current news much. 

Now the positive - I didn’t realize how much I drank until I stopped going out. My booze bill has gone from $600-$800 a week to $120 a month. I realized, when I went out - and I loved going out - I went to so many clubs and spent so much money. I’ve been doing this my whole life.

If you recall earlier, I nearly died in the early 80’s, so every day is a blessing. It’s nice to cook a little food, have a little drink and then get to writing stories, songs, music - and I find I am finally reading books all the time too. So in that way it’s been positive to slow down and reconsider how I spend my time and money.

It’s a major test on artists on how to keep moving forward, how to stay positive and what to do. What I haven’t done, is get up and do yoga every day, so I’ve got the Covid-19 pounds, (let’s say kilos). I’ve had a bad couple of days but even my bad days aren’t that traumatic. I’ll be sad for a couple of days, I’ll look at the news and watch documentaries that don’t make me happy.

I’m snapping back to working on my Christmas Album which is, by the way, ‘Yuletide Irritainment’ (!) I’m making a Christmas record, where the singers are off key and the arrangements are, in some ways, horrible. I’m tired of tasteful Christmas music, so I’m going to put out something else. My engineer, Mariana Hutton and I have been laughing ourselves silly while working on this project “A Very UnTraditional Christmas”. 

You’re like a magician.  You create opportunities where there are none…

I’m surprised you caught that so quickly. I hear that a lot. Not normally by talking for just an hour though!

I feel like a jazz Robin Hood. I don’t steal from the rich. I just convince them that philanthropy is awesome. We ask people to donate to JazzFM91. It’s a not for profit radio station, nobody owns it, it’s not the government, it’s not a business like other media businesses. We made two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, by asking people to send us some money last week. Since Covid-19, we have had more calls than ever but maybe for smaller amounts. We’re seeing that more people are saying that they love the station and it’s keeping them sane through all this. 

Radio now is more important than ever. Our numbers are up because we are not just the station that you listen to on the way to work. We’re the station you listen to when you want a friend, a familiar voice and the playlist so NOT boring. It’s not just smooth jazz or one style like some other stations. People really have a friend in the station and I’m seeing it’s easier and easier to get the jazz community involved…everyone supporting each other.

When I took our listeners (donors) to Cuba, we hung out with the legendary Bobby Carcasses. At the London Jazz Festival, we hung out with Ian Shaw and in Umbria, Jamie Cullum invited us backstage and we all toasted him. I can’t wait to get back to travelling with like-minded music fans. I miss that most of all I think.

When you talk about JAZZFM.91, you make it sound like a family.

It’s more of a family than anywhere else I’ve been. When we say it, it’s not corny. We went through a major family crisis a couple of years ago - but changes were made and it’s more like family than ever before. I think it made us stronger about our commitment to the people who support the music as well as those who actually create it. The bond between employees, musicians and jazz fans is about to be tested as clubs reopen. I firmly believe the scene will turn around.

JAZZ.FM91 is getting more and more involvement (comments and donations) from people around the world than ever and personally, I love getting email from people around the world who listen to my whacked-out-show “Jazz Gone Wild”. I’ve had more contact with people in the past few months than in the previous ten years.  

The show is on at 1am here in Toronto. In Israel it’s 8 or 9am. There’s a guy in Israel who wrote, “I wake up and have breakfast whilst listening to your show. I absolutely love it, I’m going to donate to the station.” So people around the world are listening in different time zones! I get a lot of comments from the West Coast. From Vancouver to LA it’s 10pm…Music that might be perfect after a night of drinking can be someone else’s breakfast fodder! We have so much international acclaim and I think we deserve it because this is a really good radio station. I’m always happily surprised to discover that it’s more global than we think.

Who are you?

I’m a creator. Uh, let me try this: I’m a magical spirit that’s visiting from Avalon 2. Part Brad Pitt, part Oompa Loompah. I’ve been here several times, but I can’t really remember them, so someone must have put the whammy on me. While I’m floating around in this shell, I think my job is to hold up a happy mirror, try to get people to see that life is worth celebrating even when it might look kinda shitty. There’s always a way of turning it around and looking at it another way.

It may be foolish to have the amount of positivity that I have. I used to think I had attention deficit disorder but there’s no disorder. I just jump around from project to project, treasure my friends and stay grateful for my health. Tada!