The jazz world lost a tireless champion with the passing on December 26, 2018 of Yvonne Ervin, a festival producer, writer, fund-raiser, educator, broadcaster,
musician, and so much more.
During the 13 years she lived in New York, Yvonne could regularly be found at venues from concert halls to dive bars — uptown, downtown and across the far reaches of the tri-state area. It was easy to spot the quality of her listening, her intent focus regardless of the type of jazz, the relative fame
or anonymity of the musicians, or even the hubbub in the room. Yvonne had great ears.
She was raised on music, from her early years in Springfield, Ill., where she studied clarinet. She later switched to alto, then tenor, and eventually earned degrees in music performance and journalism from the University of Arizona.
Her great ears were evident on the journalism side, too, in the flow of Yvonne’s writing and the surety of her editing. She was the longtime editor of Hot House magazine, a founding member and vice president of the Jazz Journalists Association (honored by the JJA as a Jazz Hero), and a regular contributor to a spectrum of mainstream and specialty publications.
Even a brief summary of her achievements leaves no doubt that Yvonne had a gift for living life to the fullest. She produced countless concerts and events; organized Primavera, the world’s longest-running women’s jazz festival; founded the Tucson Jazz Festival and the Charles Mingus Hometown Jazz Festival. Her performances with an all-female ensemble dubbed Bitches Brew (after the 1970 Miles Davis album of the same name) led to her induction to the Tucson Musicians Museum’s Hall of Fame. As executive director of the Western Jazz Presenters Network, she was responsible for enabling grassroots jazz organizations from the southwest through California to Seattle to confer, if not unite.
She also loved to travel, as evidenced by photos and tales from some three months of international adventures with her husband, Alan Hershowitz. They were married seven years, following a long courtship. Yvonne’s daughter Kate survives her.
The jazz community, her family, friends, neighbors and colleagues will miss Yvonne for the many gifts she brought to our lives, including her laugh and great sense of humor, qualities mentioned again and again in the tributes that poured out following her death following surgery on the day after Christmas.
In her honor, the Tucson Jazz Music Foundation has established Yvonne Ervin Jazz Music Memorial Scholarship for Girls. For more information, visit tjmfdn.org/scholarships
Elzy Kolb has been Yvonne’s colleague at HotHouse, and is assuming the position of the magazine’s contributing editor.
