[Yartonbler]

I've been meaning to put in a comment about the Hot Air position but I've been in and out of town this summer and pretty busy otherwise; after having a chat with Cory today on the A-Trane I felt like sharing some of the thoughts rolling around in my head...

For full disclosure, I applied for the position and did an audition, I've heard that there were 8 or 9 folks who got to the audition stage (you know who you are - and so do I mostly) all scheduled back to back on July 7th. The audition was to do a mini-hot air with intros/outtros, a musical selection, a calendar and a short interview; I was the last one of the day and it was all pretty relaxed, all the techies except Philip Ditchburn had gone home and I hung out afterwards and got a bit of a tour of some of the new cbc facilities and some still under construction.

(But what a luxury just to talk with your guest, at the A-Trane doing an interview means carrying on a conversation and asking questions, cuing up the next track, working the sound board/adjusting levels, answering the phones, buzzing people into the station - all live to air!)

Along with the sample script was a bit of a game plan for the show which talked about feature development, plans for increasing listenership and related activities for the host which would include cross-promotion on other cbc shows, introducing concerts etc. I realized after I'd heard that Margaret Gallagher was chosen for the position, that she's been doing that kind of cross-promotion for quite a while already so her choice wasn't a really big shock or anything.

So I'm somewhere in the middle on the selection of the host, I think I get where Morgan is coming from - I think the role of Hot Air is to draw people into the music - especially new people (Morgan's mom?) - and the host doesn't need to be an expert in order to do that. In fact the main features of Hot Air (the Gods and Goddesses interviews, the blindfold test, the introductory jazz stuff, the ability to edit interviews) are all set up to put the host at an advantage. Having a host who is enthusiastic, engaging and open can be as good or better as an ambassador for the music than someone who comes in with their own tastes and agenda.

The thing that I would be concerned about is where the expertise will come from to put the music into context because I think that's where the depth of the show will come from. I think that Paul Grant grew into the position nicely and he had Neil Ritchie to fill in the gaps while that was happening. I met Philip at the audition and, although he seems like a fine and capable fellow, I didn't get the sense that he has a deep grounding in the music or is particularly well-connected to the local scene - I may be wrong but I don't think so.

As for Margaret Gallagher, I don't know her other than what I've heard on the air. By coincidence I heard her interview with Seamus Blake on North-by-Northwest (I drive to the gym early Sunday mornings) and it was an interesting contrast with an older Paul Grant interview which was rebroadcast on Hot Air a couple of weeks later. Gallagher's questions to Seamus were largely generic/context-free (how does recording live differ from studio recording, how do you compose etc.) which was a marked contrast to the Gods/Goddesses interview that was on Hot Air. That's not to say it was a bad interview, I enjoyed listening to it but I was aware that the questions were quite different than what I would have asked. But I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and see where and how things develop.

My guess is that the decision had largely been made before the auditions were done but the application/audition process was a good efficient way of identifying some potential resource people and possible guest hosts to draw on. At least I hope so, I hope that the show remains engaged with the bc/vancouver jazz community and keeps drawing people in - a good gateway drug for the A-Trane!

This week is the last of the hot air flashback shows with Paul Grant and the new regimen starts next week - good luck to Margaret and Philip!