2022 Jazz Heroes

A musical force of nature who relocated to Alaska from New York City in 2002, Jazz Hero Yngvil Vatn Guttu has single handedly built a musical empire in the far north for independent Alaskan musicians. As a jazz trumpet player, creator and festival director for Anchorage’s most beloved jazz festival, and the founding director for numerous nonprofit initiatives dedicated to amplifying Alaskan music, her mark on Alaska’s music scene is indelible and vibrant. — By Emily (Kurn) Tallman 

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For nearly three decades. Harold McMillan has presented jazz and blues music in a city that too often relegates historically Black music to the sidelines. He’s hosted several jazz festivals, including the Clarksville Jazz and Arts Festival/Austin Jazz and Arts Festival, has produced several touring shows by artists including Jimmy Smith, McCoy Tyner and Roy Hargrove, and also I’ll Be Home for Kwanzaa (Bagel, 1997), Austin’s only holiday recording featuring jazz, blues and gospel. Additionally, McMillan is a gifted musician, playing bass. But labeling him as a producer or artist overlooks his most significant contribution to the Austin jazz community: Cultural preservation.—By Rob Shepherd

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The Jazz Journalists Association is proud to name Ed Hrybyk, the upright and electric bassist, composer, arranger and educator, as the 2022 Baltimore Jazz Hero. Estimable as he is fulfilling those roles, it’s something else that has elevated him to Jazz Hero status.— By Don Palmer, photo © Ephrain Ribiero

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In the summer of 1972 Jim Nadel had no inkling he was setting out on a grand endeavor that would play a crucial role in shaping the evolution of jazz in the 21^st century. An alto saxophonist who’d recently graduated from Stanford University with a degree in music, he’d been participating in the Stanford Coffee Shop’s Monday night jam sessions and wanted to create a forum for musicians to share information. What started as a Tuesday night study group slowly blossomed into the Stanford Jazz Workshop, which in turn gave birth to the Stanford Jazz Festival, one of the West Coast’s premiere concert series. — By Andy Gilbert

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In 1960s Gainesville, Fla., a teenager often lugged his horn to an after-hours club to hear a Hammond B3 trio. “I never had the courage to open my trombone case,” admits Mike Samball,  now named Jazz Hero of Boise, Idaho, “but the culture, the way the musicians played that music, really resonated with me. It’s like a drug. Ever since, there’s been no rehab for it.” — By Diane Ronayne

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Jazz is often characterized as democracy in action, an art form whose constitution guarantees everyone a say in how music is shaped on the bandstand. But far too often bandstands and other spaces of influence within jazz continue to be dominated by men. Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington is working to create an entirely new paradigm to change that. As the Artistic Director and Founder of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Terri Lyne’s ongoing vision imagines “Jazz Without Patriarchy.” She leads a groundbreaking program exploring the heart of the music’s systemic issues with race and gender. — By Michael Ambrosino

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Saxist, organizer, educator and activist Ernest Khabeer Dawkins’ middle name, bestowed on him by a Muslim preacher, means “Big Man.” The moniker owes not so much to his height, though he’s six feet tall, more to his spirituality. Still, few will get the impression the formidable Dawkins spends too much time in the lotus position navel-gazing. The JJA’s Jazz Hero of 2022 in Chicago is a man of action.— By Michael Jackson

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David Froman, current board president of The Gift of Jazz, is a rock solid straight-shooting leader who has tirelessly led that non-profit, community-focused organization to becoming an extraordinary provider of jazz education for kids in the Denver public schools and for adults, too. Thoroughly competent, responsible, dependable, ethical, generous, smart, a true landsman and mensch, Froman is essentially the face of GoJ, which is Denver-based, but also serves the greater Rocky Mountain region. As such, he’s helped ensure performance opportunities for many Colorado-based cats, and has energized fundraising for worthy causes (most recently to support the recovery and rehabilitation of brassman Al Hood, paralyzed following a freak spill on ice).— By Peter Poses

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Linda Yohn was bit by the radio and jazz bugs growing up in Columbus, Ohio. Since then she has been committed to presenting music on the radio as a form of community service, enriching everyone’s enjoyment. — By Lars Bjorn

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It is said if you want to know who a person really is, follow them around for a day. Their habits and daily activities are the breadcrumbs from which a picture emerges.Such is true of tenor saxophonist Dave Finucane, who in partnership with his wife Valerie Courreges has established the community-oriented Durham Jazz Workshop/Sharp 9 Gallery. They are recognized together as Jazz Heroes. — By Lenora Zenzalai Helm

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Amanda Ekery is a quiet warrior in the world of jazz. She works tirelessly on her craft as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, but beyond her own music brings people together by amplifying their personal voices. She has provided opportunities to those committed to the growth, evolution and advancement of gender equality within jazz’s national and international communities. — By Jordannah Elizabeth

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When Craig Harris exploded onto the jazz scene of New York City in 1976 in the company of a creative coterie including saxophonist David Murray and cornetist Lawrence Douglas “Butch” Morris, he brought the entire history of the jazz trombone with him, from the growling gutbucket intensity of early New Orleans music to the confrontational expressionism of the ‘60s avant-garde. Over four decades he’s expanded his sphere of activities into multimedia and performance art as composer, performer, conceptualist, music curator and artistic director. Harris embodies the tradition of using art as a cultural facilitation to help promote change. — By Ron Scott and South Arts

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Every school day, Noblesville High School music educator, bassist and Yamaha performing artist Bethany Robinson, 2022 JJA Jazz Hero, sings and dances with her students: “Alright … Okay … You win … Baby, what can I do?” — Leslie L. Fuller

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In a recent Instagram post about a tribute concert in his honor, which took place at Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Wayne Shorter wrote, “Special thanks to Darlene Chan for continuing to be the essence of what a true Empresario (sic) should be.” Darlene Chan is indeed a true impresario, producer, artistic director, coordinator, advisor, guide, counselor, champion of the artists and so much more. — By Danny Melnick

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Allen Lowe — saxophonist, bandleader, composer, critic, educator and provocateur — is proficient at mining possibilities from the musically exotic, eccentric and arcane. Whether it’s vaudeville or gospel, bebop or bluegrass, rockabilly or rhythm ‘n’ blues, torch songs or Texas swing or any other genre or subgenre of music, Lowe hears connections and echoes within each that most other listeners either can’t or won’t acknowledge. He carries a formidable reputation for seeking out such convergences in unlikely, unexpected places. — By Gene Seymour read more

Herreast Harrison, a distinguished matriarch, artist, educator, actress and voice of New Orleans culture, shares this year’s New Orleans JJA Jazz Hero honors with her daughter Cherice Harrison-Nelson, whose career as a memory artist embodies the values passed down by her mother and her father, Big Chief Donald Harrison, Sr. (1933-1998), as well. — By Jason Berry

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In 1987 Alina Bloomgarden invited Wynton Marsalis to help begin a small series of summer concerts for Lincoln Center of the Arts, New York City’s complex of venues. The series they initiated seeded Jazz at Lincoln Center, which under Marsalis’s continued direction has comprised a world-touring orchestra, ongoing multi-stage programming, overall promotion and educational programs on jazz. — By Howard Mandel, thanks to Gena Raps

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Mention Carolyn McClair, publicist extraordinaire, to anyone in the jazz community and you’ll get a big smile and a story about how she did something amazing that made a difference in their life. The introduction that led to the job of their dreams or the tickets to a concert or event that they will remember forever. — By Susan Brink

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Muriel McCoy is a true Jazz Hero. For more than 35 years, the president and co-founder of the North East Florida Jazz Association (NEFJA) has worked tirelessly to keep jazz alive in Northeast Florida. Her story is intriguing. — By Barbara Salter

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Rita Rega can’t remember a time when she wasn’t passionate about jazz. Starting from age seven when she saw Louis Armstrong in the film High Society through her first experience of live jazz with the Charles Mingus Big Band in New York City to her current position as artistic director of the Jazz Society of Oregon-sponsored Cathedral Park Jazz Festival, she has loved, broadcast, written about and advocated for the music she calls “life affirming.” — By Lynn Darroch and Rick Mitchell

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A mainstay of San Diego’s thriving jazz scene for more than a decade, Louis Valenzuela has distinguished himself as a guitarist who can deftly perform an array of jazz styles, as well as gospel and rhythm’n’blues. Whether leading or co-leading bands, heading weekly jam sessions or playing as a sideman, he can be counted on to perform with a winning combination of skill, sensitivity and verve. He does so an average of six days a week, often with double gigs on weekends. — By George Varga

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Sitka High School music director Mike Kernin has been a driving force behind the Sitka Jazz Festival for more than a quarter century. Each year since 1995, with the exception of the pandemic year 2021, the festival has been drawing top professional jazz talent from around the U.S. to play concerts in the evening and conduct clinics for student musicians. – By James Poulson

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Anthony Wiggins describes himself, with no false modesty, as a “bridge between the old guard and the new guard of musicians.”  The son of Andrew and Bessie Wiggin, a native of East St. Louis, Illinois born on March 25, 1970, he began playing cornet in the fourth grade at East St. Louis School District 189, a district with a strong music department. — By Eddie Becton

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After the esteemed Mississippi Rag folded in 2006, The American Rag was the only remaining monthly periodical devoted exclusively to hot jazz, ragtime and swing. But in 2015 it was preparing to cease operation, too. In stepped Andy Senior, an American Rag contributor, who single-handedly saved the publication from termination, changing its name to The Syncopated Times and proceeding to publish a much-improved monthly celebration of classic jazz. — By Russ Tarby

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Sara Donnelly has devoted her decades-long career to elevating and empowering artists on jazz’s cutting edge, working as a visionary granting officer, show presenter, artist advocate, festival administrator, and mentor to those working throughout the field. — By Giovanni Russonello

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