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2020 JJA Jazz Awards Winners Announced

2020 JJA Jazz Awards Winners Announced

The Jazz Journalists Association has announced the winners of the 2020 JJA Jazz Awards, which celebrate excellence in music and music journalism in thirty-nine awards categories. Topping the list of Awards recipients are Carla Bley for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz, Stanley Crouch for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism, Terri Lyne Carrington for Musician of the Year (2019), Lakecia Benjamin for Up and Coming Artist of the Year, The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul by the Branford Marsalis Quartet as Record of the Year, Kurt Elling for Male Vocalist of the Year and Cécile McLorin Salvant for Female Vocalist of the Year.

See the complete nominee list, as well as the honor roll of all 2020 Winners.

This year, Jazz Awards winners will receive hand-signed scrolls certifying their honors.  

2020 JJA Jazz Awards Nominees Announced

The Jazz Journalists Association has announced the nominees for the 2020 JJA Jazz Awards, which celebrate excellence in music and music journalism in thirty-nine awards categories. Topping the list of nominees are Roscoe Mitchell, Charles Lloyd, Carla Bley, Eddit Palmieri, Chick Corea and Jimmy Cobb for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz and Ben Ratliff, Larry Blumenfeld, Howard Reich, Stanley Crouch, and Dan Ouellette for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism. Complete nominee list.

 JJA Professional Journalist members are voting now for 2020 Jazz Awards winners, who will be announced online at JJAJazzAwards after May 1; most will receive their engraved statuettes publicly at their summer performances across the U.S.

2020 Jazz Heroes Announced

In this troubling time, as the world fights a pandemic, the Jazz Journalists Association is proud to celebrate the hearts, souls and efforts of 27 "activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz" in 23 U.S. cities as the organization's 2020 Jazz Heroes. Heroes this year hail from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Birmingham, Alabama, Boston to Atlanta, Portland, Oregon, the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles to Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Seattle, Charlotte to South Florida, and points in between. Public presentations to the Heroes of their engraved statuettes will be delayed until such gatherings are safe.

These Jazz Heroes are united by their devotions to put jazz into the public sphere, for all to enjoy. They are presenters, educators, journalists, broadcasters, non-profit administrators, public faces of grassroots organizations and in several cases active players who have developed, sustained and helped document America's native-born music in their local communities and beyond. View the complete list of honorees, with photo portraits and biographies, here.

The Jazz Journalists Association, a nonprofit professional organization of writers, photographers, videographers and broadcasters covering jazz, established its Jazz Heroes campaign in 2010, having since 2001 called the honorees members of the JJA "A Team." The JJA presents annual Jazz Awards for excellence in music and music journalism; nominees for 2020 Jazz Awards will be announced mid-April, with winners of those Awards revealed on or about May 1.

Entities collaborating on the 2020 Heroes campaign include Ars Nova (Philadelphia), the Birmingham Jazz Hall of Fame, B Sharps Jazz Club, Braithwaite and Katz Communications, the California Jazz Foundation, and Jazziz magazine. The JJA thanks them for their participation and support.

2020 JJA Jazz Awards Nominations Underway

The 2020 JJA Jazz Awards season has begun: Professional Journalist members of the Jazz Journalists Association are now making nominations for 2020 awards in music/recording and jazz journalism. Nominations close March 29 and as soon as the finalist nominees are tabulated,  members will vote for the 2020 winners, who will be announced in May.

Preparations are also being made to announce the 2020 Jazz Hero honorees.