James Matthew Valentine (born 1961) is an Australian musician, and radio and television presenter. As a saxophonist he was a member of Jo Jo Zep (1982), Models (1984–87) and Absent Friends (1989–90).
Biography
James Matthew Valentine was born on October 5th, 1962 in Ballarat, Victoria.[1][2] His father was a car salesman and his mother taught elocution and was a part-time radio announcer. He has two older brothers.[2] He attended Ballarat Grammar School where he learned saxophone, he described his performances in the local area, "a really bad jazz rock fusion gig."[3] In the early 1980s Valentine relocated to Melbourne to attend university, he later recalled "First year I spent studying, and then I started getting gigs, and I didn't pay much attention to uni after that because I wanted to be a jazz musician."[4]
Valentine is also the author of a series of books for teenage boys, including the sci-fi novel trilogy JumpMan.
Valentine, on saxophone, and Kate Ceberano (of I'm Talking), on lead vocals, were members of Diana Boss and the Extremes, a covers band which performed The Supremes material.[4] Other members included James Freud (of Models) on bass guitar, Barton Price (also of Models) on drums and Zan Abeyratne (of I'm Talking, with Ceberano) on co-lead vocals.[7] He described his experience, "The rhythm section of that band was The Models. When that finished, they asked me to go on tour with them and then I never left. All of a sudden I was in this pop band wearing black leather jackets."[4]
Valentine joined Models in late 1984, when they relocated to Sydney and he played saxophone with them until 1987, the group broke up in June of the following year.[6][8][9] As a member of Models he appears on their studio albums, Out of Mind, Out of Sight (September 1985) and Models' Media (October 1986).[6][8]
Valentine has been a radio and TV presenter. He was the host of The Afternoon Show on ABC TV, children's afternoon TV series, from February 1987 until 1990. He continued at the ABC as a presenter of TV TV.[4] As a radio presenter he worked on 666 ABC Canberra and has also spent more than 20 years[11] presenting the Afternoons show on ABC Radio Sydney and Upbeat, each Sunday morning on ABC Jazz. Valentine wrote and presented comedy sketches on air for the ABC's Humour Australia website.[12]
Models (1984–87): Holmgren, Magnus; Baird, Paul; Aubrey, Ross; Acosta, Lisa. "The Models". passagen.se. Australian Rock Database (Magnus Holmgren). Archived from the original on 12 June 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
Absent Friends (1989–90): Holmgren, Magnus; Francois, Ron. "Absent Friends". passagen.se. Australian Rock Database (Magnus Holmgren). Archived from the original on 29 October 2008. Retrieved 11 June 2015.