Jazz News From NPR

'It was never taped': There's a missing piece to Montreal's jazz history

XPN | By Raina Douris,

Published October 20, 2025 at 8:59 AM EDT

Montreal historian Dorothy Williams (left) with World Cafe host Raina Douris. — Montreal historian Dorothy Williams (left) with *World Cafe* host Raina Douris.

The Montreal International Jazz Festival is one of the biggest and most diverse celebration of the genre in the world. But how did Montreal first become known for jazz?

For our latest Sense of Place series, we sat down with historian Dorothy Williams, who grew up in the heart of Montreal's English-speaking Black community.

She says prohibition in the United States helped make Montreal a party town perfect for a flourishing jazz scene.

"People came here to drink — Americans came here to drink on the weekends," she says. "And where there was alcohol, the musicians followed."

There's just one glaring issue when it comes to studying the golden age of jazz in Montreal.

"I've asked musicologists, I've asked jazz historians — 'What was that Montreal sound?' " she says. "They have no idea either, because it was never taped."

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe's engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

Jazz News From NPR

Raina Douris

Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She was also involved with Canada's highest music honors: hosting the Polaris Music Prize Gala from 2017 to 2019, as well as serving on the jury for both that award and the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.

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Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

See stories by Kimberly Junod