John Beaudin - Hi Roxane. Welcome to Smooth Jazz Now and congrats on the promotion to morning host at Cool FM.

Roxane Gagne - Thank you John.

John - So are you a morning person?

Roxane - You know what? I think I was ready for the morning show. I did mornings before at Magic 99.9 for a short stint about three months with Ray Walker. When they first said mornings I was a little bit nervous about it because it was a big deal for me. It's my first morning show gig where I'm the primary host not the co-host. That's what's so great about being at a Jazz station and there's an opportunity to grow on the musical side as well. It was a little nerve racking when I first heard it but I thought I can do it. Now at four o'clock in the morning standing in the shower with my head against the wall (laughing) I'm thinking geez what am I doing?

John - How many female morning people are there in the country?

Roxane - I don't know. I don't think there are that many.

John - I'm sure their out there. It has to be nice to present a morning show that isn't in that crazy "zoo" mentality?

Roxane - It is very nice for me personally growing in the radio industry in Canada you have to be a superstar and that whole jock image that you have to put on when you're a morning person. With this Jazz station the opportunity is there to be a host as opposed to an announcer or a jock is something really wonderful. It gives me a chance to relax and to develop myself and my personality on the air as someone who is a lot more relaxed because that's really who I am. I really enjoy the Jazz music so I can listen to the tune and speak out of my heart as opposed to trying to sell something all the time and that's what I really enjoy about it.

John - Obviously, I understand the morning person personality and I know why they do it but I've never ever been in the mood to listen to an over the top personality in the morning. It just wouldn't occur to me. Has doing the morning show changed your life at all?

Roxane - Oh yeah. (laughing) I can't go to the late night Jazz shows anymore. It sucks I have to be in bed by nine o'clock. We have this thing in Winnipeg called Mardi Jazz and it's just great. They bring in a lot of local Jazz artists and it's simply one of my favorite places to go but I can't take it in because the show starts at 8:30pm. There are exceptions like last Friday I went to the Clark Terry show but that's the weekend.

John - You don't do the morning person nap thing?

Roxane - Well, you know I try but I can't seem to calm down enough. (laughing) Too much coffee in the morning.

John - Tell me about that first on air shift at Cool FM in February.

Roxane - That very first air shift was quite nerve racking.

John - I can imagine it was. Everyone was listening, fans, other broadcasters and the musicians.

Roxane - Well, we knew the traditionalists were listening and the Smooth Jazz fans and yes everyone in the industry so you're feeling the pressure of that and thinking I hope I can impress everybody. You know you're not going to so it's a little bit of an expectation that you want to do the best you can and at the same time it's just that ominous feeling of "what if I screw up or say the wrong thing." We had an opportunity for a couple of weeks before we went on the air to do some dry runs which was really helpful.

John - It's scary being on live in that new category but it must have been exciting also? You were breaking ground here.

Roxane - Yeah, it's part of the excitement that's why we love radio. It's part of the immediacy of it. Whatever happens, happens and you can't do anything to change it because it's done.

John - Being a radio person are you like many, a frustrated musician?

Roxane - You know what I honestly believe is I should have played. When I was growing up my mother didn't have a lot of money so she couldn't give me music courses of any kind. It was just too expensive and then I would have had to buy a guitar or whatever.

John - Were you leaning towards any particular instrument though?

Roxane - I was leaning more towards the guitar and singing and I never really developed it and now I have an interest in drums which kind of came out of left field. That new independent thing, so I'm thinking of taking some drumming lessons. I started a couple of times and it was a lot of fun so I'm hoping I can pursue that.

John - You need to talk to Holly Cole.

Roxane - Holly Cole?

John - She's a pretty good drummer and a lot people don't know that about her. Of course, she would never admit that she's good but I hear she is. She told me she has two kits in her house.

Roxane - (laughing) Get out?

John - I'm a drummer so let me invite you to our world. (laughing)

Roxane - (laughing) It would be a lot of fun and I hope I can pursue it. I've got so much emotion and it would be a great way to expel some of that energy.

John - Tell me about it. I have a bad shift and I go home to drumming heaven. There must be many artist's on Cool FM that you were familiar with by name before you got there but really got to know their music on air?

Roxane - Absolutely. People like Artie Shaw. I was a big fan of Miles Davis, Chet Baker is one of my absolute favorites, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald those were just my absolute favorites and I knew a lot about those people but Artie Shaw and John Coltrane it was a whole discovery thing for me. Of cours,e I knew of Coltrane and I'd listened to him but I'd never really listened, you know what I mean? So here I've had the opportunity to do that. With the Assistant Music Director's job I've had to go through a lot of discs and catalogue all the CD's so what else do you do when you're doing all that stuff? You throw some CD's on and listen.

John - You know, I think you also have the pleasure of playing more dead people than any one else?

Roxane - (laughing)

John - (laughing) It's a beautiful things. Because Jazz goes back so far and the music has legs you're bound to so congratulation on that.

Roxane - (laughing) There's something funny that happened during the Winnipeg Jazz Festival around a tribute to Miles Davis show. Someone who was listening to my on air show swore that I had said that it was a tribute with Miles Davis. (laughing)

John - (laughing) If he came back just for the show that would make it special.

Roxane - (laughing) This started a whole thing of email bantering between a listener and the Program Director who at the time was George Raymond. Then I ended up getting a write-up in the Winnipeg Free Press about it. It was just a funny shot saying, "Roxane said with Miles Davis as opposed as a tribute to." It was a little bit humiliating although I don't remember saying that. (laughing) I'm thinking people are really listening.

John - Well, that's what the logger tapes are for. Everything is recorded for the good old C.R.T.C. you can go back and listen and what's with a listener who has that much spare time to create this much mayhem? Its only radio, I'd like to follow that guy with a tape recorder and make sure he dot's his "I's." (laughing) There are some Jazzer's out there who take this stuff really seriously.

Roxane - Oh yes they do. They want to make sure that you're saying the right information and if not their ready to pounce. (laughing)

John - Pronunciations are a big thing with Jazz. In any market even if it's a new radio format for that city there's a fair share of your audience who knows this stuff sometimes better than you do and who certainly knows how to pronounce everything. I think they just want to make sure you handle their format right. I butchered a lot of names back in the mid eighties, less in the nineties and luckily a lot less now.

Roxane - You know I had a couple like that and they kind of jar you because you know at that point that you've been saying it wrong for three months.

John - Yeah. Are you from Winnipeg?

Roxane - Yes, I am.

John - It has to be satisfying that you're in your hometown doing this and mornings at that?

Roxane - This is very cool. It was kind of a weird thing because I went to college in Belleville, Ontario and I was there for two years. I was working part time at a radio station doing weekends while I was in College. It was just an A.C. (Adult Contemporary) station and I worked there every weekend of my second year of College. I came out here to Winnipeg to do my internship with Magic and I instantly had a job right away doing production and fill-ins like being a swing announcer. Three or four months after that I was moved up to mid-days and so that was such a great experience for me because I was right in there quickly. Looking back though I don't think I took the time to develop myself by going straight to a bigger market so I needed to take a step back. So when CHUM bought out my station Magic 99 and turned it into a Bob format I was laid off. I took that opportunity to work on myself and move to Owen Sound at a Country radio station.

John - Were you familiar with Country at the time?

Roxane - Absolutely not. (laughing) It was a really big learning curve but you know what? In two months I knew it. Country is such an easy format to learn. It's just basically top 40 and that's it. I was also Assistant Music Director and from there I went to Music Director.

John - Well, how did you get back to Winnipeg?

Roxane - I got a call from a friend of mine telling me about this Jazz station opening up here. My friend thought I'd be perfect for it since I love Jazz so much so I applied for it and sure enough I got the job.

John - You were playing new Country at the other station right?

Roxane - Yeah, and we were actually playing more Country Rock.

John - I've only spent one week in Winnipeg but I loved it. It's a beautiful city and having spent ten years in Edmonton I found some nice similarities most notably the legislative grounds look very familiar. Winnipeg really has embraced the format hasn't it?

Roxane - Yes, it has actually. This is a really big city for Jazz so if there's anywhere a traditional Jazz format is going to work it's going to be here because of the music base that we have here. The people are real music fans in Winnipeg and we're very generous and friendly people and we just open our hearts to a lot of different things. I think that traditional Jazz has really been underrated in Canada but it really is a big deal in Winnipeg. I think the more we go with it the more listeners we're going to grab.

John - Having Izzy Asper at the helm of a Jazz station has to be a good thing. Tell me about Izzy? Have you had a lot of interaction with him?

Roxane - Not a lot.

John - Is he hands on?

Roxane - He is hands on mostly in the beginning. I think that now with Ross Porter at the helm things are running great. Ross is the most knowledgeable Jazz man in Canada and he is so great to have here. He can really help us steer in the direction that we want to go so that helps Izzy out a lot so he's backing off a little. Izzy is such a nice man with these incredible blue eyes and they just stop you dead in your tracks when you meet him.

John - Well, here's a guy with a true passion for the music. I don't think there's a fear of Cool FM flipping formats in five years. This is certainly more than business for the man. I don't know him but he's famous for being a true fan. A lot of people go to the C.R.T.C. and ask for Jazz or Smooth Jazz formats and pretend to love a format but you know they just want the damn license and their long term goal is to sell or flip it in five years. They don't love Jazz they just want the license. If the C.R.T.C was smart they'd look at the company and ask "Show me how you've helped Jazz in the past."

Roxane - I totally agree. Izzy just has an incredible passion for Jazz. I would love to go to his home just to see his record collection. He has a record collection everywhere he lives. At his cottage at Falcon Lake and everywhere else.

John - Getting back to flipping formats you have to feel secure at least in the format end of things and the Winnipeg fans have to be secure that this station is staying Jazz?

Roxane - No, I can't see it flipping at all. I think he's into it for the long term. I think with the Cool TV project coming on and the Cool records project it shows that they are committed.

John - Are you going to be involved with those two other projects at all?

Roxane - Other than doing the imaging for Cool TV with Ross Porter I think that's going to be all my involvement but I don't know yet. Cool TV is launching in September.

John - So Cool TV is a station with total programming dedicated to Jazz, right?

Roxane - Yeah, that's the idea. Some of the voicing that I've done have been for Cool Movies. Some have the old Jazz crooners in them like Louis Armstrong from the forties, fifties and sixties. They are also doing biographies with different artists and things like that. I'm not sure about videos but I can't see why they wouldn't broadcast them if they can find them.

John - Yeah, Jazz musicians sometimes don't have the budgets but Carol Welsman has some and there are so many concert videos out there.

Roxane - Yeah, that's true. Generally it's going to be a biography channel with movies and feature the whole lifestyle of Jazz.

John - How much Smooth Jazz does Cool FM play?

Roxane - Right now we're playing between 30 and 40 percent so it's not a bad number. We're playing the new Pat Metheny and David Sanborn and Bernie Williams. We are sticking to more of the traditional Jazz though because that's where we want to go with it.

John - If you do half and half you won't please anyone. You have to lean in one direction to show people who you are. Are you playing Les Sabler yet?

Roxane - No, not yet.

John - Check him out. He's really good and he's can-con. I know you play Brian Hughes so check out Les Sabler. I know he's sent his new album to you.

Roxane - Thanks for the tip. I appreciate that.

John - I just heard Beverley Staunton on Cool FM. I love Beverley's voice.

Roxane - I like Beverley Staunton quite a bit I think she's so wonderful.

John - Her sexy voice on that album and the production from Torben Oxbol is so slick and big city.

Roxane - Yeah, it's truly sexy sounding. It has so much sensuality and it draws you right in and it's very warm and cozy.

John - Are there other performers that blew you away when you heard them?

Roxane - Yes, Tammy Weis. I think she has an incredible voice and I think her story is very emotional and the whole reason she put together the Legacy album for her mom. Other artists include Chet Baker I really like the mellow sexy, sensual 'drag you in with that voice' vocalists.

John - Chet Baker's story is so tragic which is very common in Jazz look at Jaco Pastorius or Bill Evans.

Roxane - Yeah, with Chet Baker I think he had a really rough life. If you look back at the things that he must have gone through as a child and what kind of conspired to what he was doing as an adult. It was just a very sad thing he had so much talent but he didn't put it to waste. He used his talent but he also had a little bit of greed in there where he just had to have everything.

John - With Baker there were also periods where his music was sub-par and critics let him know that and the fans got on him too. Tell me what got you into broadcasting?

Roxane - You know what's funny about this? A cousin of mine who's a courier here in Winnipeg remembered when we were five years old when I had this bottle of shampoo and I was talking into it. My whole thing was I was either going to be a singer or a person on the radio.

John - Or have really good hair.

Roxane - (laughing) Or have good hair, exactly. It was just something that I've wanted to do for the majority of my life. I did some volunteer stuff from the time I was thirteen with a small French community radio station here in Winnipeg and I was there for six years before I decided to actually go to radio school. It was just a passion that's all it is, a passion. I know you know what I'm talking about it's just something that gets you and you can't get out of it. It's a crazy lifestyle, you work a lot of hours and you put a lot of things on hold in order to make things work for the radio station you're with but that's part of that dedication. What it is about us that makes us do those things? I have no idea.

John - Yeah, we do work but don't you find if you have to you can do it with your eyes closed? I know some people who write down every break they do which seems insane to me. Sure, I write things down and yes sometimes every word for a promo but that's rare for regular banter on air.

Roxane - Oh yeah, you can still pull it off if you had to without show prep.

John - My motto is never go in without show prep but know you could pull it off. Know you're good on your feet and that's still tough and that's something that most broadcasters work on.

Roxane - Fly by the seat of your pants radio. It's the best way to go. (laughing)

John - What are the things in other broadcasters that drive you crazy?

Roxane - I'm also a big Rock fan. I go back and fourth from Jazz to Rock. When I'm listening to a Rock station I'll hear these two guys making some cheap shot at a woman. They are making some sexually degrading comment about something and that has to be the most annoying thing anybody else can do. Then there's the top forty in your face broadcasters. I like people who are really honest and I like people who have something to say. If you're going to be on the radio what's your point here? Don't just talk to hear your voice, talk to say something important, significant, something that might change somebody's life. That to me is what it should be all about.

John - And you know the people who do this. If you've been in a market for a while chances are the person that's doing that at that other radio station is someone you know. I always find it funny when I hear someone on radio that is the sweetest person in the world on-air but when you meet them they're a little nuts, they just don't have social skills. I think that's sad. A question we ask people in this column is "how much of your true personality goes into your show?" I think some people would be barred from the mic for life if they put their whole personality on air (laughing) but mostly I think radio people are the most interesting folk.

Roxane - Trying to find your personality is a really hard challenge. I still have a problem with that at times where maybe I'm trying too hard to impress, trying too hard to make people like me. Since I've been at the Jazz station that has changed completely because I'm in my element here. Working the country format that was a challenge in itself because I didn't know the music or the lifestyle. I think if you hear somebody who is not doing something that is passionate to them you can hear it and it comes across on the air.

John - Interestingly, I don't find a big difference with you here from the person I hear on the air.

Roxane - Other than being a major drama queen and I don't think that come across on the radio (laughing) I think that's just part of my personality.

John - How involved are you with the music?

Roxane - Lately it's been with the Cool 20. I help a little bit with the scheduling but that's mostly left to John Wyndels, who's our new Music Director/Program Director. I usually get a lot of the CD's from the record companies so I hear a lot of the music. What I've trying to do about the music that I don't know is just trying to read up on the format of Jazz period. When I get home after being on the air I'll watch a lot of biographies and read books and not just on Jazz artist but the lifestyle of it.

John - And Cool TV is bound to help us all. There are a lot of broadcasting schools out there and we all know the drop out rate is so high if you can even get that first job. What advice would you give someone thinking of getting into radio broadcasting?

Roxane - First of all I would say if you don't have a passion for it don't even bother. For students I would say learn as much as you can and do as many things as you can. Don't just focus on one thing. You don't want to just be an announcer because that's not who their hiring anymore. They're hiring announcers that can do music, programming and production. I know every aspect of it, I was a producer at Magic for three years before this but music was where I wanted to be but I had to do what I had to do in order to get here. You have to know how to copyright; you have to know how to sell the product because that in itself is going to give you the knowledge to get into a higher position later on. I'm hoping eventually to be part of the programming team but I think I need to do a few more years to get to that point. I just want to know as much as I can about the whole business to get there.

John - Makes a big difference, yeah if you know every aspect. I started professionally in Edmonton and I paid the price for not working in a small market. It was so hard. Here I was my first job in a major market and I didn't know how to splice tape. (laughing) There are no shortcuts in life.

Roxane - No, there really isn't. You know the most important lesson I learned last year when I was laid off was this is just part of the business so I didn't let myself get too caught up in it. You know the doomsday "I got laid-off" feeling, that depression you can go into just from that whole situation. So instead of doing that I just started shooting tapes out. I put out two hundred tapes in two weeks just trying to get a job and I talked to so many people and within those two weeks I was employed. That's the whole thing with radio even if you do get laid off remember everybody in radio has been laid off at least once, if not more than once. You just have to go through it. You know there's always someone who's going to pick you up if you're good.

John - Is that how you handle your life in general? If the world throws you in the corners you start swinging back?

Roxane - I try to yeah. There are not many things that can hold me back.

John - Well, look at you now? You're doing okay!

Roxane - (laughing) I just bounce back really quickly. I think the whole motto for my life is I'm just looking for happiness. My being serene, calm, relaxed and not dealing with things in the drama queen way that I was so used to is my focus. That focus brings me to a point where I don't need to seek approval from other people, I can just find it within myself. I think I'm getting closer to that more and more everyday. I think it's a matter of seeing things with an open state of mind and just knowing no matter what happens it's not the end of the world.

John - I hear you. I like looking back at those highly drama filled days especially in my twenties and understand that I needed to be there then and I needed to feel my way through that to understand that I don't need to be there anymore.

Roxane - Yeah, that's correct.

John - I think most of us can't listen to the old "Don't do that" advice I think we need to be hands on with these lessons and sometimes learn them the hard way.

Roxane - Exactly, I totally agree.

John - How do you recharge your batteries?

Roxane - Oh, sleep if I can. (laughing) I do a little bit of meditation and some prayer. The meditation is late night sessions in my bed just trying to get out of myself and out of my brain and focus on nothing so I can clear my head. I do pray quite a bit too and that helps me a lot. You know Cyrus Chestnut is such a spiritual guy. When I met him it was like a beacon for me at that point. You can feel the difference between a person who's feeling good about themselves and confident spiritually. You can feel that difference. If that's the kind of stuff I can emanate I'd rather do that than be a cranky miserable person who complains about everything.

John - I think that kind of vibe or feeling must come out in your show. Tell me who's been the biggest mentor in your life?

Roxane - The biggest mentor in my life was my dad. He is a very positive and giving person. He gives so much of himself he'll always give 150% to everybody to a fault sometimes. Now that I'm an adult the pedestal has probably descended quite a bit but still I see that quality in him has really drawn people to him. He's able to really comfort people when they really need it and that's something I really seek for, that ability to just comfort people. To make them feel good about themselves and to encourage them and to give as much as I can. I think the more I take the more selfish I become. My dad projects the image of a guy who gives more than he wants to receive and I think it will help him more in the long run.

Watch for part three of our interview with Roxane Gagne coming soon.