Ross Porter

Photo: Don Dixon

Host of Music To Listen To Jazz By, Saturdays 9AM to 11AM, President and Chief Executive Officer of JAZZ.FM91 since July of 2004, Ross Porter is acknowledged by jazz lovers from coast-to-coast as Canada’s preeminent jazz broadcaster.

Perhaps best-known to jazz aficionados for his lengthy and distinguished career as a broadcaster and producer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s national radio network for many years, Ross Porter more recently developed, launched, and spearheaded programming for Canada’s national jazz channel COOL-TV, also managing day-to-day operations at CanWest’s 24-hour jazz station, COOL-FM and COOL Recordings.

Over past years, he amassed considerable credentials as a producer for widely-lauded network radio documentaries on jazz greats including Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker and many others. He also produced critically-acclaimed television documentaries on legends such as Oscar Peterson, Joni Mitchell, Quincy Jones, George Harrison, Brian Wilson, and Diana Krall.

Known for his impeccable taste in music, his unique delivery, and his matchless ability to articulate the colorful jazz landscape for radio listening audiences across the country as executive producer and host of CBC Radio’s highly successful daily “After Hours” jazz show, Ross Porter also shared his passion and unique understanding of the jazz genre with international air travelers as the host of Air Canada’s in-flight audio jazz channel for several years. His lengthy list of background credentials also includes stints as a respected print journalist, both as a music columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press and as a jazz reviewer for The National Post. His book the Essential Jazz Recordings was published by McClelland and Stewart and recently went into its second pressing. It is a consistent best seller in the music section of books stores.

Winner of numerous honours throughout his illustrious career, Ross Porter was accorded the 2000 CanWest Award for his ‘Outstanding Contribution to Jazz’ by friend and mentor Izzy Asper. The prestigious National Jazz Awards named him ‘Broadcaster of the Year’ in both 2002 and 2004. In the spring of 2009 Porter was nominated, by the Jazz Journalists Association, for the Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Broadcasting.

His interest in music is diverse. Porter worked in the Cultural Industries in Manitoba and helped to develop the careers of Fred Penner and the Crash Test Dummies. As a radio a radio producer and host at CBC he was helpful in assisting in the careers of Holly Cole, Diana Krall, Jane Bunnett and numerous others.

Porter was a member of the Oscar Peterson National Committee, which commissioned Canadian artist Ruth Abernethy, to create a commemorative statue at Canada's National Arts Centre. In June 2010, The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh unveiled the sculpture in Ottawa.

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