by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Moz Taylor

Age: “Still calculating.”

Occupation: Radio jock

Bio: Only two short years ago this velvety-smooth NDG buck was living in the wilds of New Hampshire, composing music for various PBS television productions and devoting an enormous amount of time and effort to pushing his self-financed “indie pop record,” Let It Flow (2001). Returning to la belle province in 2004, Moz, a proud graduate of Concordia University’s music program, was offered the opportunity to host a radio show on CINQ 102.3 FM and quickly seized the moment to launch Jazz Boulevard, “a labour of love” that has occupied the station’s prestigious Friday night/Saturday morning midnight to 2 a.m. slot for the past year and a half. A big supporter of the city’s local jazz scene, Moz attributes his supple radio jock voice to copious amounts of caffeine and Fisherman’s Friend cough drops.

A random sampling of stuff you’ll hear on Jazz Boulevard: “Diana Krall, a lot of Effendi artists, Miles, Art Farmer, Coltrane.” Go to www.jazzboulevard.ca for more info.

Something that messed with his head a bit: One wild, wacky New York morning in September, 2001. “I watched it all go down from the Brooklyn Bridge. It screwed me up, but I didn’t realize it. I just couldn’t digest what had happened. After that, I kept waking up every morning at 3 a.m., bang, wide awake, and having to watch TV for an hour or two. And I usually sleep like a log. Finally, one night at a party, I was talking with a psychologist about 9/11 and he asked if I’d experienced problems sleeping afterwards, and I suddenly realized, ‘Ah yes, of course.’ But I’d never connected the dots before.”

Another way those pesky al-Qaeda kids affected Moz’s destiny: By effectively destroying the lower Manhattan recording studio he was working at, encouraging Moz to finish his album at Studios Piccolo here in Montreal.

Another unbelievably exciting moment he can thank Osama for: Meeting Celine Dion, who was also recording at Piccolo. “She’s really skinny but has a great handshake. You don’t meet people like that often. I mean, she’s totally skinny and everything but, think about it, this woman can stand in front of millions of people and sing a tune without being distracted! Imagine the chutzpah that takes?! She’s solid, she’s got the confidence.”

Might Celine’s confidence partly be the result of wearing rose-tinted glasses when she looks in the mirror so as not to fully experience the savagery that is her houndface? “Hey, she’s a great singer! Have you ever heard her scatting? She’s amazing!”

Did Moz hide under Celine and René’s plastic sheet covers to learn of their scatting activities? “Huh? No, scatting is when a jazz singer starts to sing like scat.”

Something he’s doing to earn a few bucks: Hiring himself out as a DJ to clubs looking for “ambient music for their 5 à 7’s, cocktail parties and other jazz/lounge-type things.”

Musical preferences: “Everything from the Cars to Coltrane—except I don’t like opera.”

Last book read: Bitch Goddess, by Robert Rodi.

Words of wisdom: “We choose from the choices we think we have.”

Comments? dimwit@hdot.net