JJA Announces Winners of 2022 Jazz Awards

By DownBeat I Jun. 7, 2022

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