The Jazz Journalists Association’s board of directors has expanded with three newmembers, representing further diversity of voices guiding the organization in its 31st year. Veteran journalist and jazz industry figure Bob Blumenthal, based outside Boston; Alabama-based author and blogger Debbie Burke, and broadcaster-photographer-non-profit consultant and administrator Janis Lane-Ewart, who lives in Minneapolis, have joined the JJA’s top council, as issues regarding sustainable income and leadership transition become ever more pressing for the organization incorporated as a 501 (c) 3 non-profit in 2004 after being convened in meetings held in Chicago in 1986.
Bob Blumenthal, honored with the JJA’s Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism Award, has written for the Boston Globe and Phoenix, among many other publications, as well as record liner notes (for which he’s won Grammy awards), television and radio commentary. He is the author of Saxophone Colossus about Sonny Rollins, with photos by John Abbott. He has worked with the National Jazz Service Organization, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Jazz Composers Alliance, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Discovery Jazz Festival and Marsalis Music. Bob also has had a long career as an attorney, principally with the Massachusetts Department of Education.
Debbie Burke, born in Brooklyn, studied violin and alto saxophone during her youth, and resumed playing after raising her family. She has contributed to the blog at Jamey Aebersold Jazz (jazzbooks.com) and to AllAboutJazz.com, and wrote her first book, The Poconos in Bflat about jazz artists in Pennsylvanian’s eastern mountains, published in paperback in 2011. She describes her career in communications as involving “print production, advertising, marketing, the news media and magazine publishing. I’ve written hundreds of columns and articles, and was the editor of an award-winning business journal as well as of a regional lifestyle publication.” She has been director of editorial at Waldorf Publishing, and her novel Glissando: A story of love, lust and jazz was published in 2018. Debbie has recently relocated to Alabama, where she’s exploring possible markets as well as the local potential for jazz.
Janis Lane-Ewart was the first treasurer of the JJA, having been present at the organization’s founding meetings as a senior program director of Arts Midwest. A former executive director of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), she has been executive director of KFAI-FM, development officer of KBEM-FM, and on the boards of the National Association of Community Broadcasters (she was also Interim CEO/President and Treasurer), American Composers Forum, Ananya Dance Theater and Intermedia Arts. Janis guest curated an exhibit on the history of the AACM in Chicago at the DuSable Museum, and is a principal of Collective Eye Productions, acting as a research specialist, media producer and non-profit management advisor.
The JJA board currently comprises Andy Gilbert, Bay Area writer; Robin Lloyd of KNKX, Seattle; Carolyn McClair of Carolyn McClair Public Relations (New York City/Newport); retired New York State Council on the Arts program officer Don Palmer, residing in Baltimore, and writer-broadcaster Neil Tesser, of Chicago. JJA president Howard Mandel also sits on the board, which is the self-perpetuating (nominates is own successors) governing entity of the JJA.
