Mirian Arbalejo was invited by the National Jazz Museum in Harlem to share the annual panel “The Year in Jazz” with Marcus J. Moore and Peter Margasak, hosted by Nate Chinen. She voted on the NPR Jazz Critics Poll directed by Francis Davis and published her 50 favorite albums of 2020.
Jane Ira Bloom celebrated the January 7 digital release of Some Kind of Tomorrow (RL020), a recording of improvised duets with bassist Mark Helias, exclusively on Bandcamp at markhelias.bandcamp.com. The sessions were recorded in real time on the internet over the past year.
Chris Daniel recently completed a documentary film titled The WBGO Story…Bright Moments from Newark to the World. It tells the story of how a group of dedicated community activists turned a small radio station owned by the Newark Board of Education into a powerful cultural force heard throughout the northern New Jersey/New York City region that now reaches Jazz listeners around the world.
Ken Franckling took his comprehensive annual look back at the past year in jazz for All About Jazz. The COVID-19 pandemic put the jazz world in a tailspin but there was much more happening, as found in this 2020 edition. Ken also compiled the annual Final Bars of jazz-related deaths during 2020 for JJA News. By year-end, COVID-19 had claimed the lives of at least 62 jazz musicians and industry figures.
James Hale wrote liner notes for veteran guitarist Lorne Lofsky’s first new recording in more than a decade. He also continued work on the Ottawa Jazz Festival’s 40th anniversary history and wrote about the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty for his new monthly column, Art+Tech, on SoundStageXperience.com. For SoundStage, he also reviewed Rollins In Holland, and new releases by Chris Potter and Mark Feldman.
Sanford Josephson, editor of the NJ Jazz Society’s Jersey Jazz Magazine, announces that, effective with the January 2020 issue, the magazine will go all digital and will expand from bimonthly to monthly. Cover story in the January issue is an interview by Josephson with Regina Carter about her NJ Performing Arts Center virtual tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.
Ralph Lampkin is delighted to announce that he’ll be the publicity representative for Chicago’s JJA Jazz Hero, Joanie Pallatto. His duties include providing social media and overall promotion for her latest single “This Winter,” featuring Fareed Haque. Written by Joanie with lyrics by her co-JJAJazzHero (and husband) the pianist Sparrow, and produced by Fareed, the single is from the forthcoming recording My Original Plan (Southport Records) to drop mid-April.
Howard Mandel reviewed pianist Matt Piet’s solo/triple-overdubbed album pentimento for DownBeat, produced the JJA’s first Zoom Book Party and edited the video for posting in the JJA’s YouTube channel, wrote a brief about Chicago’s historic and active record labels for the Jazz Institute of Chicago, conferred with the JJA board about the organization’s 2021 spring programming and with webmaster Melanie Nanez about a new design for JJAJazzAwards.org, where a slate of Jazz Heroes will be hailed on April 1.
Steve Monroe’s Jazz Avenues editions for Twitter and Facebook for December into January included live streaming news on performers including the U.S Army Band, Tia Fuller, Lafayette Gilchrist, Robert Glasper, Warren Wolf, Karen Lovejoy, Herb Scott, John Lamkin, Nicole Glover, Reginald Cyntje and others. Jazz Avenues also reviewed the new CD “Exposure Quintet” by Luke Stewart.
Rob Shepherd celebrated PostGenre‘s first calendar year. During that time, the site’s staff has grown to eight writers including fellow JJA member John Chacona. Rob recently interviewed multi-instrumentalist and professor Michael Wimberly for the site. The site is also continuing its year-end lists with its “Hall of Fame” series covering selected important albums through history.
