Soul & Salsa

Nearly two months now since CBC FM (or "Radio 2") relaunched itself in its own heavily branded image.

The operative word here is "image". As Lawrence Welk used to exclaim during my childhood, "Turn up the bubble machine-ah". Or, as they never tire of saying now on Radio 2 (much though I tire of hearing it), "wherever music takes you." It's always said with a very big smile (you can tell when someone's speaking with a smile on the radio).

Katie Malloch, predicably, has been elevated from Sunday-night obscurity to primetime (6 to 8) every weeknight. Predictable, because her blend of poise and verve, her apparently sincere love of jazz, are impeccable. She was/is the best voice on Radio 2, and was underexposed. Now, she's 10 hours a week at dinnertime. What's lost in the bargain? Unsurprisingly, her program's been watered down from consistently high-caliber concert and studio performances into a breezy affair heavy on dinner-friendly jazz, soul and salsa.

I don't want to sound cranky. Granted, the station was tired in the extreme and needed a revamp. For example, Danielle Charbonneau's unfocused, limply named "Music For a While" occupied prime time on weekday evenings, playing tepid classical interspersed with her too-careful, painfully-perfect French-flavored diction.

A welcome addition prior to the re-launch has been Tom Allen in the morning slot -- at least, when he curbs his enthusiasm and avoids becoming manic. Jurgen Gothe still plies the 3-to-6 rush-hour airwaves, and still sounds very tired -- I'm certainly tired of the salon music and accordion tangos that lard his program, Disc Drive -- though it was funny hearing him chafing at having to do his share of "plugging" and "selling" of the new radio format.

Interesting how much of the plugging and selling over the past few months has emphasized how the new format is concentrating on broadcasting taxpayer-subsidized concerts ("from coast to coast to coast", as the cliche goes) -- a sort of your-tax-dollars-at-work justification (i.e. our tax dollars are somehow under-utilized unless these often obscure concerts find their way onto the airwaves). Evidently, that should appeal to the traditional Radio 2 demographic -- cranky old classical music buffs who've been somewhat brushed aside by the Radio 2 makeover's appeal to younger audiences.