Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Vocalist Sheila Jordan was honored for Lifetime Achievement in the Jazz Journalists Association’s 27th annual JJA Jazz Awards.
(Photo: Lauren Deutsch)Singer Sheila Jordan, who at age 93 calls herself a “jazz child,” was hailed for her Lifetime Achievement in Jazz in the Jazz Journalists Association’s 27th annual JJA Jazz Awards, the results of which were announced May 3.
The 2022 Jazz Awards also honored Grammy-winner and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste as Musician of the Year. Tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana was named Up ’n’ Coming Musician of the Year, and Kenny Garrett’s Sounds From The Ancestors won Record of the Year. John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle was voted Best Historical Record.
The JJA Jazz Awards also celebrated the late Greg Tate — author, columnist, critic, lecturer, founder of the Black Rock Coalition and leader of Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber — for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism, posthumously; Tate died at age 63 last December. Writer-blogger Ted Gioia, Washington, D.C. radio program host Rusty Hassan and photographer Carol Friedman have also won JJA Jazz Awards.
Two awards were given to books: Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, by Deanna Witkowski, won the Biography and Autobiography category, and She Raised Her Voice! 50 Black Women who Sang Their Way into Musical History, by Jordannah Elizabeth with illustrations by Briana Dengoue, won as Book of the Year about Jazz: History, Criticism and Culture.
Almost 300 jazz musicians, journalists and media makers, recordings, books, documentaries, podcasts, photographs, were nominated for the 2022 Jazz Awards. This year’s winners are being asked to participate in an innovative online event, tentatively scheduled for mid-July. Awards will also be presented to winners before their audiences at outdoor performances throughout the summer.
For the complete list of winners in 47 categories, visit jjajazzawards.org. DB
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
Feb 3, 2025 10:49 PM
In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
Jan 21, 2025 7:38 PM
Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
“The first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” says Renee Rosnes. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole.”
Jan 16, 2025 2:02 PM
In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a…
As Ted Nash, left, departs the alto saxophone chair for LCJO, Alexa Tarantino steps in as the band’s first female full-time member.
Mar 4, 2025 1:29 PM
If only because openings for JLCO’s 15 permanent positions appear about as frequently as sub-freezing days on the…
