Jazz Coalition Announces First Round Of Grant Recipients

  I  
Image

Lakecia Benjamin performs during this year’s Winter Jazzfest, which ran Jan. 8–18 in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

(Photo: Adrien H. Tillmann)

Set up in early May, the Jazz Coalition is rallying support for musicians unmoored from their regular incomes during the pandemic with a program that commissions new works through $1,000 grants. The first round of recipients was announced May 21.

Among the 51 musicians and programmers to receive funds are pianists Bertha Hope and Aaron Parks, bassist Ben Williams, and saxophonists James Carter, Lakecia Benjamin, Camille Thurman and Greg Ward. Rio Sakairi, the artistic director at The Jazz Gallery, also was allocated money.

The nonprofit currently is seeking to raise additional funds for another round of grants.

“When public assembly restrictions are lifted, commission recipients will premiere their new works at mutually agreed upon Jazz Coalition member venues, and their works-in-progress will be streamed in advance,” coalition representatives wrote in a press email. “The commissions will become a new canon of music that represents our collective resilience moving us all forward.”

For a full list of grant recipients, visit the organization’s website. DB



  • DB2016_Wayne_Shorter_Earshot_Jazz_Daniel_Sheehan.jpg

    Shorter performing at the 2015 Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle.

  • DB23_Jeff_Beck_Ross_Halfin.jpg

    “In the pantheons of guitar players, Jeff was the chosen one,” said Steve Vai of the late Jeff Beck.

    Remembering Jeff Beck

    One of an iconic triumvirate of ’60s rock guitar gods, along with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck set the…

  • img206_AFI_March_1%2C_1984%2C_Carol_Bayer_Sagar%2C_Burt_Bacharach%2C_Miles_Davis_photo_by_John_McDonough.jpg

    Burt Bacharach with Carol Bayer Sagar and Miles Davis in 1984.

  • Samara_Joy_Grammy_Win_Kevin_Winter_Getty_Images_copy.jpg

    ​Samara Joy gives her acceptance speech at the Grammys on Feb. 5.

  • Keith_Jarrett_by_Michael_Jackson_lo_res.jpg

    “There was a time I decided I was not a composer, only an improvisor, and I find that very difficult to do with one hand,” Jarrett says. “Jumping off a cliff takes two hands and two feet.”


On Sale Now
April 2023
Brad Mehldau
Look Inside
Subscribe
Print | Digital | iPad