The Jazz Journalists Association proudly announces its slate of 2024 Jazz Heroes, people who go beyond their job titles to have have significant impact in their local communities by supporting jazz music, musicians and musical culture. Thirty-three “activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz are hailed by supporters from their local communities, with JJA help nto disseminate news of the honors broadly. Read their bios and dig the diversity of efforts to present, promote and support music now, from the borderland of Baja California, Mexico – San Diego to the Lowlands of South ..read more

The Jazz Journalists Association has announced the schedule for its spring 2024 Jazz Heroes and Jazz Awards campaigns. Thirty-three “activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz” in 29 locales will be celebrated with personality profiles and portraits at JJAJazzAwards.org, followed by in-person presentations to the Heroes by members of the communities from which they’ve emerged. The class of 33 Jazz Heroes represent the diversity of Americans united in loving this music — as featured in a collage of their faces, formatted for social media distribution. The 2024 Jazz Heroes live ..read more

JJA members love jazz all year long — but April is the hippest month, and 2024 is special, as Willard Jenkins, a JJA founder, has been named a Jazz Master!!!, getting the A.B. Spellman Award for jazz advocacy, from the National Endowment for the Arts! Big time congratulations to Willard! He’s done even more than birth the JJA. Heear his NEA-produced podcast, and watch Willard’s investiture (along with fellow new honorees Amina Claudine Myers, Gary Bartz and Terence Blanchard) and the gala NEA’s tribute concert on April 14, 7:30 pm ET, on www.JJAJazzAwards.org! Also see the full display, portra ..read more

Vid Jeraj , the JJA’s man in Serbia, talks with Hayden Chisholm, the genre-defying alto saxophonist and entrepreneur from Down Under, now based in Belgrade. A genre-bending saxophonist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Hayden Chisholm was born in New Zealand and raised during multifarious cosmopolitan travels. Based since 2017 in Belgrade, Chisholm researches a-path-not-so-often-taken of ethno-fusions, namely ones related to gypsy and chamber music. Having been a mainstay in Cologne for 20 years, in Belgrade Chisholm set out for entrepreneurship and opened up a music club called BAM, Balkan ..read more

Spring already? Yep — with March half over, with JJA members disseminating all sorts of news and views of jazz! For instance, hear The Buzz: The JJA Podcast on how we compile Best of Year lists, with Michael Ambrosino hosting Jordannah Elizabeth, Mark Lomano and Gene Seymour. And another episode, with Paul de Barros, Monika Herzig and John Szwed talking about intersections and tensions of jazz journalism and jazz education with JJA president Howard Mandel? And upcoming: an interactive Seeing Jazz Business Roundtable with Stuart Brinin, Enid Farber, Luciano Rossetti (among others) talking profe ..read more

The Jazz Journalists Association launches its annual Jazz Awards season with announcement of 12 nominees and nine Honorable Mentions in two categories of Book of the Year (2023) Awards. Winners of the “Best Biography/Autobiography Award” and “Best Book of History, Criticism, Culture Award” will be determined by voting of the JJA’s approximately 250 international active members. Nominees in most Jazz Awards categories are determined through a open-to-members nomination process, winners coming from second-stage voting. Book Award nominees screened by the committee and announced in advance t ..read more

Reuben Jackson, an acclaimed Washington-based jazz historian, radio host, poet, teacher, music critic, died on February 16, 2024. The previous week he suffered a stroke. He was 67. [Ed.’s note: A longtime member of the Jazz Journalists Association, Reuben Jackson published poems at JazzHouse.org as well as a celebration of Duke Ellington, pianist and is heard recently speaking about jazz archives on The Buzz, the JJA podcast.] Although he was born in Augusta, Georgia, on October 1, 1956, Jackson mostly grew up in Washington, D.C.’s Petworth neighborhood. His father, Pierce Jackson, was an elec ..read more

As platforms for music criticism seem to shrink, jazz is in danger with losing one of its most important kinds of documentation: the review of live shows, illustrated with photos of the events. Los Angeles-based photojournalist Chuck Koton‘s column “Gratefully Live” rates favorite shows he attended in 2023, offering what performance reviews are all about — reflecting what’s fleetingly heard, using words and pictures to take us there. JJA member Koton, a contributor to All About Jazz for 15 years, has been listening to live jazz for nearly half-a-century. — Ed. Gratefully Live: Favorite shows o ..read more

We love jazz, JJA members do, in all its manifestations. On page two, see how we’ve been demonstrating our devotion during the dark days of January. New members are Rusty Aceves of Martinez, CA, copywriter and editor for SFJAZZ and freelance writer, and Gary Finney of Erie, PA, a radio/tv host/producer heard regularly on WQLN-FMxcv]qw. Welcome! Now as to what some of the rest of us have been doing ————>>> ..read more

With regret but also appreciation, the JJA turns out-of-house for coverage of notable musicians whose lives ended in the calendar year 2023. We strongly recommend Jazz Passings by the redoubtable Andrey Henkin as the place to go to see who’s gone. With the unexpected demise of Ken Franckling on March 24, 2023, the JJA lost an esteemed, loyal and highly productive member, who for several years had assiduously compiled information on musicians and music business participants who had died. Ken drew from international sources to provide an impressive and capacious, if not comprehensive, of the wor ..read more