The 15th Annual Gala Celebrating the Jazz Journalists Assoc. Awards | June 11th, 2011
Jazz Journalists Association Announces
Musical Lineup For Awards
Tickets On Sale Now
June 3, NEW YORK CITY—Vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater, Rebecca Martin and Gretchen Parlato, saxophonists Joe Lovano, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Lew Tabackin and Sam Newsome, guitarist Marc Ribot, trombonist Steve Swell and percussionist Adam Rudolph are among nominees confirmed to attend the 15th annual gala celebrating the Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards, on Saturday, June 11 from 1 to 5 pm EDT at City Winery and live-streamed as video at www.JJAJazzAwards.org.
In addition, Jazz Awards satellite parties have been confirmed for Chicago, Nashville, Arcata CA and Tallahassee, joining BerkeleyCA, Boston, Phoenix, Portland OR, Seattle and Washington, D.C. as sites at which jazz fans and musicians will gather to watch the proceedings at City Winery. There, winners of Awards for excellence in 39 categories of music-making and documentation will be announced, and pianist Randy Weston headlines a musical lineup including trumpeter Wallace Roney‘s Sextet, saxophonist/flutist Jane Bunnett with pianist Hilario Duran, vocalist Gregory Porter and the Hammer Klavier Trio from Hamburg.
Tickets for the gala are now on sale to the general public at www.JJAJazzAwards.org (attendance at the satellite parties is free). The Awards gala is a fundraiser for the JJA, a 501 (c) non-profit professional organization dedicated to training and networking the people who maintain the profile of jazz in all media platforms. The JJA is currently running the highly successful eyeJAZZ program in which some 60 individuals from around the US and Canada are learning to create short-form video news about jazz.
“Jazz Heroes,” local activists in the cities where the satellite parties are taking place, will also be honored at the Awards gala and on the live-streaming video. These heroes are: singer and drug abuse counselor Ed Reed (Berkeley), drummer and festival organizerMike Reed (Chicago), Dr. Maiterya Pudakone (dentist doing pro bono work for the Jazz Foundation of America, New York City), cultural philanthropist Peggy Cooper-Cafritz (Washington, D.C.), festival and jazz tour organizer Don Z. Miller (Phoenix), executive director of Earshot Jazz John Gilbreath (Seattle), Roger Spencer and Lori Mechem of the Nashville Jazz Workshop, managing co-owner of Bohemian Caverns Omrao Brown (Washington, D.C.) and Elynor Walcott and her sons, proprietors of Wally‘s Café Jazz Club (Boston).
Bios of the Jazz Heroes, list of all nominees for 2011 JJA Jazz Awards, details about the satellite parties and information about the Jazz Awards‘ many industry sponsors are available at the Awards website JJAJazzAwards.org.
Jazz Awards headliner Randy Weston, 85 years old and a recently named Guggenheim Fellow, is a nominee for the JJA‘s Best Book of the Year Award for his autobiography African Rhythms (“arranged” by former JJA vice president Willard Jenkins). Weston‘s performance and that of singer Gregory Porter, whose album Water was nominated for a Grammy as vocal jazz cd of the year, are being supported by Motema Records. Trumpeter Roney, whose band includes his brother Antoine on tenor saxophone, is presented by High Note Records. Pianist Hilario Duran, born in Cuba and residing in Canada, has been nominated for two Juno Awards for his 2010 album Motion; saxophonist/flutist Jane Bunnett is Duran‘s duet partner on Cuban Rhapsody, a new release from Alma Records. The Hammer Klavier Trio, presented by Jan Matthies Management, is the subject of a JJA-nominated Short Form Video of the Year, and appears at the Jazz Awards as part of its debut American tour.
The JJA Jazz Awards is the only broad-based, independent, international celebration of jazz excellence. Begun in 1997 as a collaboration between the Jazz Journalists Association and Michael Dorf (then executive director of the Knitting Factory, now director of City Winery). It has been produced annually since 1999 by the JJA.