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In Memoriam: John Hammond Jr., 1942–2026
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
The Jack Rudin Jazz Championship provides participating university ensembles with quality literature and a forum for celebrating excellence.
(Photo: Jazz at Lincoln Center)Jazz at Lincoln Center will conduct the third annual Jack Rudin Jazz Championship, a two-day invitational competition featuring ensembles from 10 university jazz programs in the country, on Jan. 14–15 at Frederick P. Rose Hall.
Ensembles competing in this year’s event hail from the following colleges and universities: Florida State University (Tallahassee, Florida); Ithaca College (Ithaca, New York); Michigan State University College of Music (East Lansing, Michigan); North Carolina Central University (Durham, North Carolina); Northern Illinois University (Dekalb, Illinois); Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland); Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania); Texas Southern University (Houston, Texas); University of Wyoming (Laramie, Wyoming); and Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee).
The Jack Rudin Jazz Championship honors the legacy of Jack Rudin, longtime supporter of Jazz at Lincoln Center, and his founding support for Essentially Ellington, the organization’s signature education program. Launched in 2020, the Jack Rudin Jazz Championship provides participating ensembles with quality literature and a forum for celebrating excellence. The competition introduces university-level teachers and students to Jazz at Lincoln Center’s education methodology and philosophy.
This year’s competition will be judged by a panel of leading jazz artists and educators, including Wynton Marsalis, Jeff Hamilton, Ted Nash and Catherine Russell.
“The Rudin Jazz Championship is fast becoming one of the great celebrations for jazz,” said Todd Stoll, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s vice president of education. “The love, camaraderie and fellowship are second only to the level of excellence seen on our stages.”
Tickets are on sale now at jazz.org/jackrudin. The 2023 Jack Rudin Jazz Championship will also be available to stream on Jazz Live at jazzlive.com. DB
Hammond came to the blues through the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which he experienced firsthand in New York’s Greenwich Village.
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