The 17th Annual JJA Jazz Awards Winners Announced

Veteran saxophonist Wayne Shorter, longtime creative music trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, and newcomer Ryan Truesdell were top winners of the 2013 Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards announced today online at the website www.JJAJazzAwards.org. Winners of the JJA’s Jazz Awards for excellence in journalism will be announced at a ticketed event to be held at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City on June 19.
 
The JJA, with some 300 members mostly in North America but scattered across Europe, Asia, South America and New Zealand, too, has a mission to sustain journalism about jazz and related musics in a media landscape that currently includes both traditional and newly emergent platforms  — blogs, websites, self-produced videos, podcasts, social media and the like. The Association’s recent JazzApril campaign in support of Jazz Appreciation Month and International Jazz Day comprised, among other facets, the establishment of a 60-member Media Network and the celebration of 26 community-designated “Jazz Heroes” in 24 U.S. cities and Ottawa, Canada.
 
Winners of the JJA Jazz Awards for music and journalism are determined through a two-stage voting process, limited to the Association’s professional members. The JJA also has non-voting “supporter” and “industry associate” members, and a small coterie of non-voting student members. For further information about the Jazz Journalists Association, go to members.jazzjournalists.org and JJANews.org, or contact JJA president Howard Mandel, [email protected].