James Hale

Based in Ottawa, National Jazz Award recipient James Hale is a feature writer, Critics Poll jury member and a frequent CD reviewer for DownBeat magazine, and a regular contributor to Signal To Noise. He has also contributed frequently to Coda, Planet Jazz, Words & Music and The Ottawa Citizen, and his work has appeared in Jazziz, Pulse!, The Jazz Report, Modern Drummer and RhythmMusic. He is co-author of The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues (Billboard Publishing, 2005). His blog—Jazz Chronicles—was nominated as Blog of the Year in the 2009 Jazz Awards.

A former vice-president of the Jazz Journalists Association, Hale coordinates the organization’s Jazz Matters educational-outreach program, and has participated in panel discussions about jazz at the International Association of Jazz Education annual convention and at jazz festivals in Portland, San Jose, Vancouver, Victoriaville and Ottawa.

Hale has written liner notes for a diverse group of creative musicians, including Hamiet Bluiett, the World Saxophone Quartet, Gerry Hemingway, Christine Jensen, Roberto Magris, Joel Newton, Nobu Stowe and Joel Futterman, and has contributed numerous entries to the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada.

For eight years, 1979-’86, Hale was co-host and co-producer of a radio program on improvised music at CKCU-FM, Ottawa.

Hale studied drums in his pre-teen years, flailed on electric guitar throughout high school, wrote songs for a country-rock band in his 20s, and returned to percussion studies in the 1990s.

Outside of music, Hale is a communications advisor for numerous public- and private-sector clients and has written several books about travel and history.

Programmed channels

Jazz Masters

America’s contribution to modern music. The masters of Jazz are the artists who shaped and defined this wonderful and masterful musical genre.