I just wanted to personally thank you for creating and organizing this great event. It was a testament to the music and the people in the jazz community. Bravo. — Ralph Miriello, blogger
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City Winery is by far the best venue for this so far, with ample room to move about and press the flesh — which of course is the main thing. And congrats to Yvonne [Ervin], not only on her nuptial, but for the neat way she handled Joe Lovano’s multiple awards — a great finale. — Dan Morgenstern
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Beyond their ceremonial function, these Jazz Awards have become an annual hang for the extended family, a place where musicians and managers and publicists (and critics) take a moment to acknowledge their common ground. That in itself is a worthy thing. [Read more.] — Nate Chinen, winner, Helen Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Review and Feature Writing
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The excitement and success of this year’s JJA Jazz Awards was tempered by the announcement of Chicago saxophonist Fred Anderson’s illness. Anderson is indeed a giant in this music, with a titanic voice and an enormous and benevolent heart. Our thoughts and prayers remain with him.
Here in Seattle, we were fortunate to receive a satellite broadcast of the awards. Appreciation must go to John Gilbreath, Executive Director of Earshot Jazz, who continues in his efforts to bring the Seattle community closer to the music.
One highlight was the acknowledgement from many musicians of the importance of jazz journalism. I remain humbled by the level of passion, commitment and care by the jazz writing community. As someone mentioned after receiving an award, “we are all in this together.” — Lloyd N. Peterson
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Congratulations on another wonderful JJA awards presentation, ceremony and reception. From all accounts everyone enjoyed themselves, greeting, congratulating, lingering,and sharing stories with each other with good wine and champagne from the City Winery. A successful event. I went out for dinner with Lee Konitz and friends and continued the stories:-) — Donal Fox, pianist/composer
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Congratulations on the JJA Jazz Awards!! I watched a lot of it on the web. It was a great ceremony, very moving. — Steven Schwartz, Abraham Inc., Tweet Tweet
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Thanks Howard. We appreciate the work and the chance to spread and share the music…. Ache’ (positive energy) — Bobby Sanabria, drummer/big band leader
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Our little Seattle group of ten or so had a lovely time watching your party and toasting the screen. I know it was a hell of a lot of work. You and your crew did a terrific job. Several people have mentioned in messages that the City Winery was a perfect place for it. — Doug Ramsey, winner for Blog of the Year, with Rifftides
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Congratulations to Doug Ramsey, whose Rifftides was voted Blog Of The Year. It was one of the first jazz blogs to actually “get” this whole Internet thing, and it is one run by a man of great accrued wisdom. A Blog Supreme was nominated for this award; it’s truly an honor that our colleagues would even consider this publication in the same category as Ramsey’s, not to mention those of Ethan Iverson, Nate Chinen and Marc Myers. I’m excited that the JJA sees the great potential of the blog medium, and am returning to work with an affirmation that what we’re doing here is important. [Read more.] — Patrick Jarenwattananon, A Blog Supreme
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All I can say is it is incredible to be a part of such an amazing community of characters, to live in this library of sounds and spirits as we do from the beginning of recorded jazz. — Joe Lovano, via Charlie Gans of AP
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Congratulations on a wonderful list of winners! Kudos to JJA and your events! My best to you on behalf of the Jazz Education Network! — Mary Jo Papich, President, Jazz Education Network
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Yesterday went really well and glad to have been apart of this year’s event — many more to come. — Jordy Freed, publicist, DLMedia
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The [congratulatory] emails have been coming in since yesterday. I am very proud, indeed. Even though, to paraphrase Robert Frost, there are miles and miles of blues (and more) still to go… I’m blessed to have had the opportunity to write as much as I have over the past five decades about this music and these people I love, honor and value so much. And I’ll find a way to make it to next year’s awards, so long as it’s not the next afternoon after the Playboy Jazz Festival…. — Don Heckman, winner of Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism
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I am honored to have my photograph selected as the 2010 Photo of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. I wanted to thank you and all of the JJA members who voted for my photo of Tom Harrell at the Moscow International Performance Art Center and I look forward to being part of the JJA community in the years to come. This is an overwhelming experience to be recognized for my work. — Lena Adesheva, winner, Photo of the Year
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Good job yesterday. Great hang!!!! — Ross Porter, CEO JAZZ.FM91
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Congrats on a great show. Well planned [and] well attended, too, which is nice to hear. — Jan Matthies
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As the Jazz Journalists Association’s 14th Annual Jazz Awards ceremony kicked off in Manhattan, the West Coast eagerly joined the celebration via satellite at the Jazzschool in Berkeley, California. An excited audience of musicians, instructors, critics and aficionados gathered around the live broadcast in the Jazzschool’s Hardymon Hall, cheering for nominees and winners and enjoying panini compliments of Kristine Seinsch’s Jazzcaffe. Present was special guest Khalil Shaheed, who was honored during the ceremony as a Bay Area Jazz Hero for his inspiring achievements as trumpeter, bandleader and educator. The audience included vocalist Frankye Kelly and her husband John, JazzTimes writer and critic Andrew Gilbert, photographer Stuart Brinin, Jazzschool vocal director Laurie Antonioli, Jazzschool marketing director and webmaster Sheryl Lynn Thomas, and Jazzschool executive director, Susan Muscarella (who joined in remotely due to a suddent health issue, since resolved). Bay Area luminary Lee Brenkman oversaw the technical aspects of the broadcast. —Jesse Rimler, program coordinator, Jazzschool
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Thanks again, Howard. Let’s definitely do it again next year! — Susan Muscarella, Jazzschool
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Thank you for all your hard efforts to pull the awards together. I thought it came together very well. Thanks for the Seattle mention, too. Hope you are doing well, the day after! — Lloyd N. Peterson
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Congrats again on another successful award ceremony. Richard [McDonnell, label owner] and I enjoyed streaming it while we “worked” yesterday. I hope you were pleased with the overall event. — Clayton McDonnell, MaxJazz Records
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Thanks a lot for yesterday … next year I want to be a presenter. — Steve Dalachinsky, poet and listener
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Great event yesterday! Always happy to help. The ustream and Twitter feeds really brought a lot to the table. The trick now is to figure out what to do with all your new twitter followers! — Alex W. Rodriguez, jazz history MA candidate @ Rutger’s Institute of Jazz Studies, and JJA Jazz Awards tweeter
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I stayed up until the wee hours thinking about that event. Such a powerful and important event to celebrate the music. I’m watching the video now. Thanks for inviting me, I enjoyed myself tremendously. I don’t get to talk about jazz much but it is very dear to my heart so thank you for allowing me to express that onstage and I’m delighted that you liked what I brought. Congratulations on a job well done! — Terrance McKnight, Jazz Awards master of ceremonies
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I think it was the best JJA Awards I’ve attended. Right size venue, right layout. Great to have an actual host up there all night. Nice to intro presenters, I think it made them feel important. And if it took 2.5 hrs to present 50 awards, so be it, that’s an award every three minutes. People soaked it in while accepting because they were flattered to be up there in that hip setting with that hip crowd. And there was plenty of schmooze later. — Joseph Petrucelli, Jazz Foundation of America, JJA member
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I just wanted to congratulate you on staging such a successful event full of great spirit and wonderful music. It’s just the kind of thing that jazz needs to further its outreach and confirm its history and look to the future. I am also writing to thank you so much for including me in the proceedings. I got to see old friends and make new ones. I look forward to more in the future! You are doing essential work…KEEP IT UP!!!! — Russ Davis, MOJA Radio/VOA
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Watched the streaming yesterday … it was a splendid idea to provide that. Only fault I will cite is that it would have been nice to see the audience once in a while. I have no idea who — except for Howard, Terrance, the awardees, and their presenters — was there. Or what the size of the audience was. — W. Royal Stokes
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The people who came seemed to love the idea of getting together for the event. And most of them would be on-board if we decided to do it again next year at a jazz club in town. Several said they think we should have live music at the satellite event. And several very successful musicians locally, like former Count Basie vocalist Dennis Rowland, might even volunteer to perform free.
I think a lot of the musicians who attended made contacts with other musicians which may turn into more work for them later. So that was good. Also, Mikayla got numerous people insisting that she come sit in with them. The live stream from New York seemed very good, but you may want to think about having more light next time.
We ended up with about 40 people total. I don’t think the video from the satellite sites is necessarily a good idea. I don’t think anybody really wants to look at a bunch of people who are just watching the event in New York. It’s the main event in New York that everyone is interested in. All in all though, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and I think we could probably put on a better event next year, using a local jazz club for the venue, and inviting the public to attend. — Micheal Gilbreath, organizer of the Scottsdale Jazz Awards satellite party
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Superb job with new location, format and streaming. That took enormous attention to detail, and many, many who saw it live ’round the world had a great time. Hats off to enormous work that paid off. — Marc Myers, nominee in the feature writing and blogging categories
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Vijay [Iyer] passed on the news that Monk won best book. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am and grateful because, seriously, the jazz writers are the highest authority when it comes to this book. And you all know how hard it is to do this work. Finally (and this is the thing I should have said but I’d hastily threw together my “thank you” after realizing Monk might win) the finalists were all outstanding. I wish I could have been there to shake both of [everyone’s] hands. — Robin D. G. Kelley
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I thought it was a really nice event, enjoyed it very much and was really honored to be part of it! So a big thank you! — Jamie Baum, flutist, composer and bandleader
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Fun evening. Thanks again for letting me do a presentation. Here’s my write-up. — Fred Kaplan
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Nice event … congratulations! We had fun watching it here at Outpost. It was cool … both the event and the technology of watching it made me think more about this streaming thing. I could stream from Outpost and my mother could watch me and be proud every night!… just kidding (sort of)… anyway, thanks. — Tom Guralnick, executive director, Outpost Productions, Inc.
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JJA Marches On: June 16th, 2010 — Monday, June 14 marked the annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz (JJA) Awards event. The venue City Winery proved to be quite the ambient locale for what has become a jazz community tradition. As the tribes gathered to schmooze, catch up on news, hugs and air kisses, and just generally revel in the greatness of jazz music (and the auspicious list of jazz greats on hand), I was reminded not so much of the actual birth of the JJA as it’s conception. [Read more.] — Willard Jenkins
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The JJA event was great! I had a wonderful time, and enjoyed it immensely. Thanks for coordinating such an effort on behalf of jazz music and its adherents. Please let me know what is required to do a satellite party event here in Miami. I’m certain we could organize one and many groups would certainly be interested in taking part. Yours for successful promotion. — Sam Gunning, P.S. Promotions
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To yourself and the other JAA activists, thanks again for the trombonist of the year award. Playing, i.e., getting the sound out, is one thing … getting the word/image out is the indispensable coexistent thing. Thank you all for doing this so well and passionately. Working in tandem we can’t but help keep a precious part of American musical culture, the jazz community alive, well-informed and encouraged. Keep it up, please. — Roswell Rudd
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