Today at 4 PM at New York’s Blue Note Club will be held the Jazz Journalists Association awarding ceremony.
These are the 16th Association awards honoring musicians in 40 categories, including the award for lifetime achievement in jazz journalism. The nominations and winners are decided upon by members of the association: writers, photographers, broadcasters and new media producers professionally engaged in jazz.
Among the 200 nominations are artists like Sonny Rollins, Keith Jarrett, Gary Burton, Roy Haynes, Jack DeJohnette, Pat Mathany and John Scofield, alongside with young talents like trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, pianist Craig Taborn, tenor saxophonist J.D. Allen, guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Esperanza Spalding and drummer Eric Harland.
Nominated for the Lifetime Achievement Award are authors and critics: Amiri Baraka, Stanley Crouch, Will Friedwald, Willard Jenkins i Neil Tesser.
The Association held a Blogathon this year under the topic: Jazz In Your Community. Bloggers and authors were asked to submit posts between 13-30 April about what was going on regarding jazz in their community to show that jazz is alive, successful and productive.
You can read the interesting posts at the official Association web site.
In the meantime, listen to Ambrose Akinmusire, nominated in two categories – musician of the year and trumpeter of the year. This “one of the most talked-about young jazz musicians of recent times”, according to Chicago Tribune, will be this year’s resident artist at the 55th Monterey Jazz Festival.