2020 Nominees for Journalism

Ben Ratliff is the author of four books, including Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016); The Jazz Ear: Conversations Over Music (Times Books, 2008); and Coltrane: The Story of a Sound (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, semifinalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award). He was a jazz and pop critic at the New York Times from 1996 to 2016 and has published essays on music in publications including 4Columns, Affidavit, npr.org, Pitchfork and the New York Review of Books. He teaches cultural criticism at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

Larry Blumenfeld has written about jazz and Afro Latin music for The Wall Street Journal since 2004; over the past 30 years his work has appeared in The Village Voice, New York Times, Daily Beast, Salon, DownBeat and Chamber Music magazine, among others. He was editor-in-chief of Jazziz from 1995-2000, and maintains a column in it; he’s collaborated with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem on a “Jazz and Social Justice” series. He curates the Wells Fargo Jazz Series for Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC, and co-founded the Deer Isle Jazz Festival in Stonington, Maine.

Howard Reich has covered music for the Chicago Tribune since 1978, joining the staff in 1983. His six books include Jelly’s Blues, Let Freedom Swing, and Portraits in Jazz. He served on the Pulitzer music jury four times, including for honorees Wynton Marsalis (1997 winner) and Wadada Leo Smith (2013 finalist). He has won an Emmy and holds two honorary doctorates.

Stanley Crouch is a cultural critic, author, curator and recreational drummer. Based in New York City since 1975, he booked avant-garde jazz for the Tin Palace, wrote for the Village Voice from 1980-88, and became artistic consultant to Wynton Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center. He’s been a columnist for the New York Daily News, syndicated and commissioned by many periodicals, including a column for JazzTimes. His books include Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979-1989; The All-American Skin Game, or, The Decoy of Race: The Long and the Short of It, 1990-1994; Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker; The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity; and Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz. He speaks in Ken Burns’ Jazz and other documentaries, and has been President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.

Dan Ouellette has been a freelance writer for more than 30 years, published in DownBeat, Billboard, Qwest.tv, Huffington Post, Stereophile and Medium. After being a senior editor of ZEALnyc where he wrote the column “Jazz Notes Intel”, he’s taken the column from the now-shuttered startup to his website, danouellette.net. The monthly column is called “Jazz & Beyond Intel”. He’s the author of Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes, and Bruce Lundvall: Playing By Ear, and has regularly presented public Q&A sessions with major jazz artists at the Monterey Jazz Festival and two of Umbria Jazz Festival’s sites in Perugia and Orvieto.