With his record label’s office located in the cozy Montreal community of L’Île des Soeurs in Quebec, Jim West’s roots have always been solidly Canadian.
The accomplished 69-year-old record producer, and founder of Justin Time Records (1983), was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2022 for his outstanding contribution to the Canadian music industry.
Jim West’s career has been stellar, from owning a humble record warehouse, to recording the likes of elite blues and gospel artists including Oscar Peterson, Oliver Jones, Diana Krall, Ranee Lee, Christine Jensen and Sheila Jordan, among many others.
The company used to have large warehouses for storing volumes of physical products, but less so now with the changes in the music industry’s digital formats. Yet Jim continues to record with the biggest names in the jazz and blues world.
“My parents listened to a lot of music and musicals, and I guess I got indoctrinated with that. I found it all quite fascinating. Subsequently, in high school we had a drop-in center near the school. It was a place where bands could practice. I met a lot of groups coming through there and started getting very involved in the music business at that point.”
Jim says he would have loved to play either the guitar or piano. Instead, his love of music became a flourishing business as a distributor and then a record producer.
In 1975 he was hired to set up a large record retailer in Montreal. In 1981 he shifted from retail to work in music distribution. When a distribution company he was working for closed their doors, Jim’s severance pay was records, LPs, and record racks, which he used to set up his own warehouse and start distributing records.
The inspiration to start a record label and produce recordings occurred when Jim saw the Oliver Jones Trio playing at a small club in Montreal called “Biddle’s Jazz and Ribs.”
This transformational experience, combined with his previous experience in retail and distribution, inspired Jim to start producing as a jazz, blues, and gospel music producer-label owner, leading to his creation of over 600 record projects.
As you might have guessed, Jim West started his inaugural recording with the exciting Oliver Jones Trio.
Jim and jazz pianist Oliver Jones have enjoyed a long-term business friendship traveling together globally. The Jones tours in Europe and Africa were exceptional and a highly illuminating experience for Jim.
Oliver is a 2023 Canadian Music Hall of Fame Inductee and Order of Canada recipient. He was the one to bring Montreal’s popular Ranee Lee to Jim’s attention. Ranee, a gifted vocalist, has also been awarded the prestigious Order of Canada.
Oliver played organ in the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir – founded and directed by the talented Trevor W. Payne.
Jim recorded about a dozen albums with Trevor and together they produced three European tours, accompanied by 50 choir vocalists.
Surprisingly, Jim West has never owned a recording studio. Instead, he rents studios, traveling to New York, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.
By not owning a studio, Jim aims to keep things simple, even in his day-to-day routines: “I set a little pad [out onto my desk] and I set the things out that I have to accomplish that day.”
If he were to do anything differently, it would probably be to have invested more time when he was younger in learning about running a business.
“I think it’s very helpful to be able to understand accounting a little better than I did. Even though you can hire people to do it, it’s good for you to have a working knowledge of all those things.”
Good business practices are important and Jim is grateful for the work habits he’s learned from other people in the industry.
“Always return your phone calls. It sounds like a dumb thing but you have to do that in business. The artists have worked so hard to make that demo tape, put a press kit together and do everything that they have to do. At least have the courtesy to respond and maybe put in some intelligent wording when you respond. Sometimes you’re busier than other times, but I think it’s important to do that.”
Jim is grateful for the opportunity to have lived the life he’s carved out in the music industry. “It [has been] a lot of fun… to travel the world and just meet everybody that you can imagine in different places and work with some of the greatest musicians in the world.”
Out of all the acknowledgments over the years, receiving the Order of Canada was one of Jim’s career highlights. “It really meant something closer to the heart.”
Jim West has now created over 600 recordings in his 40-year career as a music producer, but he also has other pursuits.
“I always look forward to riding my kayak on the lake. Kayaking is superb. I also play ice hockey on a team in Montreal.”
Every year Jim’s company does a fundraiser for the two children’s hospitals in Montreal.
“We raise $40,000 to $80,000 a year. It might not seem like very much, but it helps, and it takes us almost a year to produce. We give a cheque to each hospital – St. Justine’s Hospital in Montreal and the Montreal Children’s Hospital. We’re very happy to be able to support them in our way. We’ve raised a fair amount of money with silent auctions and different things.”
Despite all his accomplishments, Jim says being together with his family gives him the most satisfaction.
“To stay grounded you have kids and grandkids. They remind me about the ins and outs of everyday living.”
“We have a little country house up north near Mt. Tremblant which our family enjoys. It’s about two hours north of Montreal. Everyone and the kids love coming up there and jumping in the lake in the summertime, or of course, skiing in the winter. It’s a great get-together, sitting in a little home with a nice fireplace and enjoying a good home-cooked meal.”
career, with Ian Terry (recording engineer), Skip Bey (jazz bassist) and Daniel Gagné (Radio Québec) Photo courtesy of Justin Time Records
“The most important thing for me was always to be home and present as much as possible. There is a fair amount of travelling in this business and when you have kids… the thing for me was always to be home at a certain time. Be there in the morning when they wake up, be there when they go to sleep at night. That’s something I tried to maintain. I could leave at eight or nine o’clock at night and go to the studio and record until two or three in the morning. Then be awake at 7 am when the kids woke up. To have meals together, that’s important.”
Regarding other aspects of balancing out his lifestyle approach, Jim says he eats very healthy food. “But you know, we all have our bad days.”
Jim says he is winding down slowly with retirement but plans on releasing six or seven albums with their accompanying three to five singles this year. He still enjoys working within the jazz industry.
“These days Justin Time operates very differently than it did a few years back. I work out of my home office – while the team at the Nettwerk Music Group in Vancouver handles most of the backend of the label. They do everything from the largest royalty reports to the financial information, everything. They are great partners.”
“I have another management company as well [Wild West Artist Management]. And I work with five or six artists. Nettwerk is taking more and more off my load as we go along. The more they take off, the easier it is for me to do what I want to do. That’s probably the future for me.”
Jim West has built a flourishing music empire as a noteworthy jazz-preneur.
He and his team continue to bring outstanding, inspirational international jazz artists for listeners to enjoy onto the world stage.
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ACCOLADES:
Jim’s many awards are well warranted.
2001 – Jim was voted the Producer of the Year by the National Jazz Awards.
2004 – he entered the Canadian Music Week’s Hall of Fame.
2016 – the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal recognized Jim with The Bruce Lundvall Award, an award given to an extraordinary talent in the music industry who has made an impressive contribution to jazz development within the industry.
2018 – Jim was honoured with the Canadian Independent Music Association’s (CIMA) Industry Builder Award.
2022 – Jim was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.
His record label’s artists have received over 15 JUNO Awards and countless JUNO Award nominations.
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40 YEARS LATER….
For their 40th anniversary, Jim West and general manager Nancy Marley celebrated the label by putting together a compilation, 40 Years of Justin Time Records (2023). This involved going through over 600 recordings and 6000 songs to select just 40 songs for the compilation.
Gifted saxophonist-composer Christine Jensen’s contribution to the label’s album, 40 Years of Justin Time Records, from her latest Justin Time Records release, Day Moon, just won the 2024 JUNO Award for Jazz Album of the Year.
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Learn more about Jim’s work, the impressive artists, and the extensive
40-year catalogue at the Justin Time
Records website: http://justin-time.com
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