New York --The Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) Jazz Awards 2005, the ninth annual presentation of honors to jazz musicians and their supporters by the organization representing more than 400 writers, broadcasters, photographers and new media professionals worldwide, will be held on Tuesday, June 14, at B.B. King’s Blues Club and Grill, 237 W. 42nd St. in New York City from 4 to 7 p.m. The Jazz Awards is a benefit for the Jazz Foundation of America's Musicians Emergency Fund, and for the Jazz Journalists Association's educational initiatives.
Celebrity guests scheduled to appear at this year’s celebration are actor Robert Wisdom, of the gritty HBO dramatic series “The Wire”, and Kym Hampton, niece of the late Lionel Hampton and founding member of the Liberty basketball team. The cocktail-and-supper party will have musical entertainment provided by: Sy Johnson's 75th Birthday Septet, Jack DeJohnette on solo drums, singer Nnenna Freelon, and ASCAP Young Jazz Composers competition winners Maurice Brown, Quamon Fowler and Bob Reynolds.
Additionally, the JJA will honor an “A Team” of jazz advocates, altruists, activists, aiders and abettors of the art form. These Awards honorees, determined by the JJA board, will be introduced at BB King’s as well as at the JJA's 3rd annual Left Coast Jazz Party, also a cocktail and supper event with music by the Joe McPhee, Freddie Redd, Vinny Golia, Bobby Bradford and others on Sunday, May 29 at the Jazz Bakery, Los Angeles. More information about these honorees is posted on www.JazzJournalistsAwards.com.
The 2005 “A Team” of advocates, altruists, activists, aiders and abettors to be introduced at the New York event include Dr. Marc Bremmer, a podiatric specialist who has contributed extraordinary care to Sweet Georgian Brown, Al Grey, Lionel Hampton and Tito Puente, among others; Chicago Jazz Partnership -- representatives of Bank One, The Boeing Company, Chicago Community Trust and Kraft Foods, for new, innovative philanthropic support of Chicago jazz; Douglas Duchak, President of Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, home of the Jazz Foundation of America's circle of volunteer doctors for jazz musicians in crisis; Olga Garay, arts program director of the Doris Duke Foundation, which provides fellowships for jazz musicians, by Chamber Music America; the Heath Brothers--Jimmy, Percy (posthumous), and Tootie --for several lifetimes of music; Martin Mueller, executive director of the New School University's Jazz and Contemporary Music Program; and A.B. Spellman, author of Four Lives in the Bebop Business (reprinted as Four Jazz Lives) and Art Tatum: A Critical Biography (a chapbook), among other works, and recently retired Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
“A Team” Award recipients at the Left Coast Jazz Party will be Kenny Burrell, guitarist and professor, director of Jazz Studies Program, Department of Ethnomusicology, UCLA, NEA Jazz Master; Charlie Haden, bassist, composer, activist, founder of the jazz program at California Institute of the Arts; Wadada Leo Smith, trumpeter, theorist, music educator at University of New Haven, Creative Music Workshop (Woodstock, NY), Bard College, Dizzy Gillespie Chair at California Institute of the Arts (1993-present); Dr. Craig Springer, USC Los Angeles Spectrum Cultural Arts emeritus, executive director Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts; and Gerald Wilson, composer, arranger, conductor, big band leader, trumpeter, broadcaster (KBCA-FM), educator (San Fernando Valley State College, now California State University, Northridge; UCLA).
BET Jazz will broadcast the JJA Jazz Awards 2004 ceremony tonight, Thursday, May 19 at 10pm ET and on Sunday, May 22 at 12pm, 8pm and 11pm ET. The legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter won “Musician of the Year" and “Small Ensemble Group of the Year," while his 2003 disc, Alegria, won “Jazz Album of the Year." Some of the other illustrious artists at the event included Cassandra Wilson, who won “Female Jazz Singer of the Year," free jazz pioneer Roswell Rudd, who nabbed an award for “Trombonist of the Year," the ever-youthful Roy Haynes, taking home a trophy for “Drummer of the Year," and a verbose Sam Rivers, whose classic 1964 LP, Fuchsia Swing Song (Blue Note) won “Jazz Reissue of the Year." Other prominent musicians in the house were saxophonists Bobby Watson, Joe Lovano, Miguel Zenon, and Dewey Redman; pianists Andrew Hill and Frank Kimbrough; drummers Babatunde Lea, Matt Wilson and Jeff Ballard; bassists Ron Carter and Ben Allison; trumpeter Jon Faddis; and clarinetist Buddy DeFranco. Click here for more information http://www.bet.com/BETJazz/
The Jazz Awards 2005 recognizes excellence and accomplishment in performance, recording, presentation and documentation of jazz from April 15, 2004 to February 28, 2005.
The complete list of JJA Jazz Awards 2005 nominees is available online at www.JazzJournalistsAwards.com, as is the history of the Awards and its past winners.
Previously, the Jazz Awards has been held at Jazz Standard, Birdland, South Street Seaport, the Knitting Factory and Alice Tully Hall. A full roster of Jazz Awards 2005 nominees is on view at www.Jazzhouse.org, as is the history of the Awards and its past winners.
Among the supporters of the Jazz Journalists Awards this year are: ASCAP, BET Jazz: the 24-Hour Jazz Channel, Concord Records, HIP Health Plan of New York, Madison Square Garden, New York Times and WBGO FM.
Tickets to this year's JJA Jazz Awards at B.B. King's Blues Club and Grill are $50 to JJA members (purchasing up to five) and nominees (after their two complimentary tickets) and $150 to the public. Tickets for the JJA Jazz Awards West Coast are $25 to JJA members, $75 to the public. Tickets may be bought by check made out to the Jazz Journalists Association, sent c/o Arnold J. Smith, 436 State St., Brooklyn, NY 11217, or by credit card at www.JazzJournalistsAwards.com, where there are photos and sound samples of many nominees, plus news of celebrity guest hosts and musical performances at the Awards. Reservations only, no tickets issued; seating will be assigned, check-in at the door.
For more information, please contact JJA Executive Director Howard Mandel ([email protected]) or JJA elections officer Ken Dryden ([email protected]).
For more information about the Jazz Foundation of America, please visit the website www.jazzfoundation.org.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
