Mar 18, 2025 3:00 PM
A Love Supreme at 60: Thoughts on Coltrane’s Masterwork
In his original liner notes to A Love Supreme, John Coltrane wrote: “Yes, it is true — ‘seek and ye shall…
Tomeka Reid has been named a “Jazz Hero” by the Jazz Journalists Association.
(Photo: Courtesy the artist)Another team of superheroes has assembled, these of a more musical sort. The Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit organization of media professionals, has announced its annual list of “Jazz Heroes.” Artists and individuals that exert significant musical influence on their communities—whether they’re musicians or not—these heroes will be celebrated in 20 U.S. locales throughout April, which has been designated Jazz Appreciation Month.
From Atlanta to Washington State, Minnesota’s Twin Cities to New Orleans, the San Francisco Bay Area to Brooklyn, individuals that the JJA identified as “activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz” will receive engraved statuettes at public presentations, often accompanied by official proclamations from municipal or state officials, continuing a tradition of recognition stemming back to 2001.
This year’s roster includes Jazz Heroes of immigrant backgrounds and descent—San Diego trumpeter-band director-mentor Gilbert Castellanos, for instance, and Asian Improv aRts co-founders Jon Jang and Francis Wong—as well as women who are changing the sound of jazz (Chicago’s improvising cellist Tomeka Reid), documenting it (photographer/historian Andrea Canter of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Judith Korey of the Felix Grant Jazz Archives) and sustaining its humanitarian legacy (Fran Morris Rosman of the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation).
Tallahassee hero Adam Gaffney teaches jazz appreciation from his special perspective as a blind listener. There are veteran presenters such as Jack Kleinsinger (producing Highlights in Jazz in Manhattan for 45 years), Marty Ashby (30-year executive producer of MCG Jazz in Pittsburgh), Viola Plummer (22 years running Sistas’ Place in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood), Sam Yi (formerly of Atlanta’s Churchill Downs) and Jason Patterson of New Orleans’ Snug Harbor.
The organization will also recognize entrepreneurial musicians including pianists Wayne Horvitz (Seattle) and Darrell Grant (Portland, Oregon), as well as broadcasters and journalists (Lew Shaw, W. Kim Heron, J. Michael Harrison and Richard Henderson).
Organizations collaborating on Jazz Hero events this year include the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (Philadelphia), the Mason Tavern (Atlanta), Jazz in the Neighborhood (San Francisco), Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago), B Sharps Jazz Café (Tallahassee), Black Dog Coffee and WIne Bar (St. Paul), Portland PDX Jazz Festival, the Arizona Classic Jazz Society, the International Jazz Day AZ Foundation and the Calvin Jones Big Band Festival at University of District of Columbia.
Sponsors of the Jazz Heroes initiative and the subsequent 21st-annual JJA Jazz Awards include the Jazz Foundation of America, the Jazz Institute of Chicago, Brother Thelonious Belgian Style Abbey Ale, the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation, Century Media Partners, Sunnyside Records, Scott Thompson Public Relations, High Note/Savant Records, Motéma Music, Braithwaite & Katz Communications, Thirsty Ear Records, Jazz Promo Services and the Tucson Jazz Festival.
For further information on the 2017 Jazz Heroes and to view a complete list of winners, visit jjajazzawards.org. DB
“This is one of the great gifts that Coltrane gave us — he gave us a key to the cosmos in this recording,” says John McLaughlin.
Mar 18, 2025 3:00 PM
In his original liner notes to A Love Supreme, John Coltrane wrote: “Yes, it is true — ‘seek and ye shall…
The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.
Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
“I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.
Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
“At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”
Apr 15, 2025 11:55 AM
DownBeat has a long association with the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, the premiere…
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
