James Valentine, who has died at the age of 64, was a musician and jazz enthusiast who brought his love of improvisation and creativity to the world of talkback radio. His audience became his orchestra, and he was their conductor.
He offered great wit and wisdom, alongside an appreciation of the rich drama and hilarity of everyday life. Monday to Friday on 702 ABC Radio, for 25 years, he lifted the spirits of a city.
Valentine was born in 1961 in the Victorian city of Ballarat, his father, Peter, operating a car dealership and other local businesses, his mother, Nina, a presenter with the local radio station.
He was educated at Ballarat Grammar School, where he happily discovered a talent for performing, debating and playing music. It was there he began his love affair with the saxophone.
Music took him to Melbourne where, from 1980, he studied classical sax at the University of Melbourne. He was soon moonlighting in bands around town.
A Diana Ross covers band, Diana Boss and the Extremes, was his introduction to musicians Kate Ceberano and James Freud, both of whom were to play a part in his future music career.
In 1982, he toured with Joe Camilleri’s band, Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons, and with Kate Cebrano. In 1984, he joined The Models, with James Freud as lead vocalist.
Valentine’s saxophone became an important part of the band’s success. In contrast to the bluesy saxophone sound common at the time, Valentine’s classical training allowed him to use the full palette of the instrument, playing with a confident and determined vigour. He also brought an antic, playful spirit to the band’s stage shows.
The Models enjoyed significant success, including a number one hit with Out of Mind, Out of Sight, and a number two single with Barbados, featuring a lengthy Valentine sax solo.
Valentine left the group in 1987, shortly before it disbanded. He rapidly began a career in television, hosting ABC-TV’s The Afternoon Show – an after-school compendium of cartoons, alongside live-action shows like Dr Who and The Goodies. He presented the program from 1987 to 1990, while playing music around Sydney, including a three-year stint with Absent Friends which included Sean Kelly and Wendy Matthews. That band, too, had a big hit, with I Don’t Want to be with Nobody but You, winner of Best Single in the ARIA Awards of 1991.
Valentine caught the bug for radio after listening to John Doyle’s smart, whimsical afternoon program on the ABC’s local Sydney station, 2BL, now known as ABC Radio Sydney.
He thought “I like this”, and the station manager of the time, Peter Wall, agreed to give him a chance. Valentine quickly proved his talent for radio through an increasing number of fill-in shifts.
A permanent job followed at the ABC’s Canberra station, his success leading to a similar offer back in Sydney. After a brief stint presenting Mornings on 2BL, he was, in 1999, placed in the slot that he made his own: Afternoons.
While many defined “talkback radio” as a chance to ask listeners to recount their political views, Valentine saw the opportunity for something more nourishing and certainly more enjoyable.
Working alongside longtime producer Jennifer Fleming, he invented a revolving series of segments with names like “This is What I Live With”, “Rant” and “The Form Guide”, all of which invited his audience to delve into their own lives, often with hilarious results.
Valentine brought a curious mix of sweetness and acid to the role; his sardonic wit co-existing with an amused and loving temperament. It was jazz impro meets talk radio.
He also demanded considerable creativity from his audience, inventing sessions in which listeners would create songs, movies, poems or even (with the help of HG Nelson) plan future Sydney infrastructure. Listening to his show made you feel good about your fellow Sydneysiders.
Valentine had a crazy-brave attitude to radio that left his fellow presenters in awe. He’d set up a game or topic and then keep talking until someone called. He never once seemed to lose his nerve, however long it took for his audience to understand what, on this occasion, he was demanding of them. It was a technique that reached its apotheosis in a segment called “Nothing”, in which Valentine would confess that he had “nothing” – no game, no topic, no question to ask. But people should ring anyway.
And, remarkably, they did. Some offered philosophical thoughts about the nature of “nothing”; others simply confessed that they, too, were doing nothing, or had nothing to offer. It was extremely funny and somehow delivered an uplifting message about life. Life is worth something in itself. Even when nothing is happening.
Along the way, Valentine wrote a trilogy of books for teenagers, the Jumpman series, which was published internationally, plus a book for children, The True History of Stuff, and two books based on his radio show, The Form Guide and Spotfull.
He had success with his podcast Head Room, and with the TV and radio program Exhumed, a competition for “garage bands”, in which every member had to lack professional experience.
His jazz program, Upbeat, was a favourite on ABC Jazz. Valentine transferred to Breakfast for two years – 2022 and 2023 – before returning “home” to Afternoons in 2024, to the delight of his afternoon fans and contributors.
That delight was not to last. In March 2024, Valentine told his listeners that he was beginning treatment for cancer of the oesophagus. As usual, he shared everything, even interviewing the surgeon who was to perform the complex surgery.
Returning to the airwaves in September, he updated the tale: he’d been offered, and accepted, a less invasive operation, even though it might increase his risk of a future cancer.
The choice meant he was able to return to his show in September 2024. Then, in June 2025, some fresh bad news. Cancer had reappeared, this time in the omentum – a fold of tissue which extends from the stomach over the intestine.
Again, Valentine shared the diagnosis, with his usual frankness and humour.
“I have tumours in my omentum. Yes, omentum, I’d never heard of it either,” he wrote on the ABC’s website. “I am now way too familiar with the ‘digestive’ aisle of my local chemist.”
Would the outcome have been different had he chosen more aggressive surgery? To quote again from that piece in June, 2025: “There’s every chance that cancer cells have been out in my body for some time, looking for a place to call home, and the full surgery would not have prevented their spread. I’m not that concerned about that, the how, the why, the might have been. I find cancer, like any other major insult to my being, has a way of bringing me very firmly into the present”.
In more recent times, when well enough, Valentine returned to music with his band Upbeat, featuring Nic Cecire on drums, Sam Rollings on guitar and Darren Heinrich on keyboards.
The shows combined storytelling, humour and brilliantly reimagined jazz classics. He also recorded a solo album, Debut.
James was determined to have a good death, and I believe he did. He connected with his family and friends until the last – always funny, wise and loving.
He is survived by his beloved wife Joanne Corrigan, a clinical psychologist, and his children Ruby, who works in music marketing, and Roy, a musician. When, some months ago, we talked about the need for me to prepare this obituary, I asked him what he wanted me to especially include. It was how proud he was of the three of them.
Richard Glover, the former host of Drive on ABC Radio Sydney for 26 years, was a friend and colleague of James Valentine. “James has been the most important person in my life, in job terms. He was fun every day for a couple of decades. I’m thinking today about how lucky I was to meet him.”
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