Winners of the 2016 Jazz Awards for journalism will be announced and presented, along with the Jazz Hero Award for New York City’s Rio Sakairi and performances by drummer Herlin Riley’s Quintet, singer René Marie and her trio, and pianist John Beasley — fresh from music directing the International Jazz Day concert at the White House — at the JJA’s annual Media Awards party, to be held from 3 pm to 5:30 on Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at the Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 3rd Avenue, New York City. Angelika Beener, New York Association of Black Journalists Award recipient, will serve as onstage MC.
Tickets are now on sale to the general public and, at a discount, all Awards nominees and JJA members. Winners of the JJA Jazz Awards for music, who will be announced online May 15, are invited as guests of the JJA. Party attendees will enjoy beverages including Brother Thelonious Belgian Style Abbey Ale, wine, waters and sodas, and hors d’ouevres from the Blue Note kitchen.
Riley, a New Orleans native formerly of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, will lead his band with Godwin Louis on alto saxophone; Bruce Harris, trumpet; Emmet Cohen, piano and Russell Hall, bass, from his recently released album New Direction, from Mack Avenue Records.
Rene Marie, whose Sound of Red is scheduled for release May 13, is performing thanks to Motéma Music,
a staunch supporter of the Jazz Awards. Her trio comprises Quentin Baxter on drums; Elias Bailey, bass, and John Chin, piano.
Pianist Beasley, a third-generation Louisianan musician who is readying his 17-piece Monk’estra for work throughout the 2017 centenary celebration of Thelonious Monk’s birth, will play a rare solo introductory set for the Awards party.
The JJA Media Awards party will be video’d by Michal Shapiro, who has produced excerpted versions of the 2013, 2014 and 2015 parties, all viewable on YouTube. However — to editorialize — there is nothing like being at the event itself.
