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 Luciana Souza is among the first members of the Jazz Coalition, a new granting organization.
(Photo: Anna Webber)In an effort to assist musicians currently caught in a dire straits and to foster new creative endeavors, a recently formed nonprofit has begun work to award $1,000 commissions to performers.
The Jazz Coalition, which according to its website is comprised of “industry professionals, musicians, fans and supporters,” aims to help sustain a deeply troubled sector of the arts world during the coronavirus pandemic. Its hope in bringing new music to life, in addition to lending assistance to musicians, is to support work that displays humanity’s “collective resilience.”
On its website, charter members are listed as publicists Ann Braithwaite, Lydia Liebman and Matt Merewitz, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, vocalist Luciana Souza, DownBeat writer Howard Mandel, pianist Kris Davis, flutist Nicole Mitchell and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, among others. The organization was founded by music promoter Brice Rosenbloom, artist manager Gail Boyd and event producer Danny Melnick.
A $100 fee serves as membership dues, which then enables individuals to nominate performers for the commission grants. A timeline for the awarding process and subsequent premieres wasn’t noted on the group’s website. But it did indicate that coalition members who were hosting streaming events during the pandemic would “be featured through this site and supported through our social media channels.”
For more information about the organization, visit its website. 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.
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