2019 JJA Jazz Awards Winners Announced by the Jazz Journalist Association in 39 categories of jazz achievement and documentation in 2018. in 39 categories of jazz achievement and documentation in calendar year 2018. This is the organization’s 24th annual celebration of excellence in jazz and jazz journalism. All of the honorees are celebrated as “winners” based on voted on by professional members of the JJA, an international non-profit organization of media-makers covering jazz.
Pianist Ahmad Jamal, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Linda May Han Oh, and West Side Story Reimagined by Bobby Sanabria’s Multiverse Big Band are among among recipients of Awards for Performance and Recordings.
Honorees for Jazz Journalism include John Szwed for his Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism; Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon by his widow Maxine Gordon; British photo-journalist Val Wilmer and Massachusetts-based broadcaster Tom Reney for career excellence, and Nate Chinen, editorial content director of WBGO and author of the nominated book Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century Writing in 2018.
Other Awards have been voted for John Coltrane’s Both Directions at Once: The Last Album, Historical Record of the Year, ECM records Label of the Year, and DownBeat magazine Print Periodical-Website of the Year. Further categories include individual instrumentalists, Album Art of the Year and Photo of the Year — Adriana Mateo’s portrait of the late Roy Hargrove smoking a cigarette, seated at a piano in the Umbria Jazz Festival’s ornate Teatro Morlacchi.
This year’s physical Awards — formerly engraved statuettes — are being redesigned. Presentation of Awards for instrumentalists will be presented by JJA members to the winners at their performances throughout the summer. Plans for presentations of Awards to journalists will be forthcoming, and posted at JJANews.org as well as the JJA’s Facebook page
For further information about the 2019 JJA Jazz Awards or the Jazz Journalists Association, contact President@JazzJournalists.org.
