Broadcaster shares love of jazz on web show
The Infidels, Reinert’s weekly hour-long broadcast on Mixcloud, is addictive listening
If you are a jazz musician in Vancouver or a jazz music fan, chances are you know, or know of, Tim Reinert.
A tireless supporter of the genre and well-known to audiences at the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival as a stage MC, Reinert now puts his extensive knowledge (and record collection) to work to produce a weekly program called The Infidels. The hour-long show broadcasts on Mixcloud and is updated “every Monday-ish!”
Episode 1 hit the Net-waves on July 22, 2019. Episode 39 went up this week.
“I have loved music since I was a child and, at one point, held vague aspirations of becoming a professional musician,” Reinert said. “Then I eventually realized that, in order to become a professional musician, you are required to posses a modicum of talent, which I didn’t. While I listen to all kinds of music, jazz was something I fell in love with at age 14 and it is always going to be my first love and the genre that I keep on coming back to.”
Like so many diehard music aficionados, Reinert did time working in record stores and other music-related businesses. A mega-fan, he never lost the love of seeking out special orders and putting in considerable time to source sounds. If you’ve driven by one of Main Street’s many record stores and seen the long lineups in front of them on Record Store Day, you’ve seen Reinert.
The Infidels has been in the planning stages for quite some time.
“I’ve been wanting to do a variation of the show I’m doing now for a long time, first hosting a show for the folks on No Fun Radio for about a year,” he said. “Unfortunately, they shut down a year later, but I realized I didn’t want to give it up. Thankfully, the technology exists to do my own show just the way I wanted, so I do.”
Reinert has long produced annual “best music of the year” compilations posted online that are phenomenal in both content and curation.
He brings that same level of meticulous expertise to The Infidels, often focusing in on a specific topic. One such was the recent episode on March 23 dedicated entirely to local jazz musicians and promoting purchasing of the albums featured on the program. For anyone with even a passing interest in the local scene, the episode is a fantastic introduction.
Reinert does a lot of research to arrive at the artists he deems to play on The Infidels.
“On average, I go to 15 to 20 shows a month, sometimes two or three in a night as it’s easier to group them together to go out fewer nights,” he said. “It has been a bit of a lifestyle change, for sure, but I’m not complaining because I’m not one of the people who needs to make a living off of that. It’s so great that so many musicians have been able to perform live streams, and I encourage everyone who can to please donate something to these talented folks.”
With a voice that was made for radio, he recounts little-known facts, liner note minutiae and more to make his show both about listening and learning. This is not one of those programs that requires anyone to be the cool kid in school to follow, either. Reinert jokes that his wife’s razor-sharp ability to poke fun at his love of avant-garde and free jazz keeps him “honest.”
Everyone starts somewhere, and certain conditions can push a listener one way or another. For a long time, music with lyrics wasn’t allowed in his childhood home. That gave jazz a big leg up.
“Music with lyrics or vocals was carefully monitored, whereas jazz didn’t matter because the parents didn’t understand it,” he said. “So I began my education in earnest, I read books on the greats and by high school had probably a 15-year-long pile of old back issues of Downbeat and I went through every one cover to cover. That was a big part of my early education, as was playing in the school jazz band.”
It was on a tour with that band that he saw his first jazz show: Legendary swing drummer Louie Bellson performing with honours high school musicians. That’s a pretty good place to start. The Infidels is a good place to start too. Reinert’s excitement and thrill for jazz and the art of musical improvisation is addictive listening.