2023 Nominees for Journalism & Media

Nate Chinen  b. 1976 and writing about jazz since 1996, is currently editorial director of WRTI (Philadelphia) and formerly director of editorial content at WBGO (Newark), also reporting on NPR. Active on social media and with a Substack titled The Gig (based on his longtime column at the former JazzTimes), Nate is the author of Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century, and co-authored George Wein’s autobiography Myself Among Others: A Life in Music. He’s been a critic at the New York Times, the Village Voice and Philadelphia City Paper, published in national magazines. and has won the JJA’s Helen Oakley Dance – Robert Palmer Award for Excellence in Writing 13 times.

Will Friedwald, b. 1961, is the author and has written music criticism for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Village Voice, Newsday, New York Observer, New York Sun, and magazines ranging from Entertainment Weekly to the Oxford America. He’s the author of Straighten Up and Fly RIght: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole; Sinatra: The Song is You – A Singer’s Art; Jazz Singing: America’s Great Voices from Bessie Smith to Bebop and Beyond; Stardust Melodies – The Biography of Twelve of America’s Most Popular Songs; Tony Bennett: The Good Life; Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies; A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers; and The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums; his writing appear in collaborative volumes and anthologies, too. He is an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award recipient, among other honors. Will curates a video and sometimes live production entitled “Clip Joint,” and is an active researcher. He has written over 600 liner notes for compact discs, received 11 Grammy nominations, and appears frequently on television and film documentaries. He is also a consultant and curator for Apple Music.

Ashley Kahn, b. 1960, is currently visiting professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and an author, historian music journalist, public speaker and concert producer.  He’s written A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album; Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece; The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records, and co-authored the autobiography of Carlos Santana, The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story To Light. Ashley has won three ASCAP/Deems Taylor Awards, two Book of the Year Awards from the Jazz Journalists Association and a Grammy for notes on John Coltrane’s Offering: Live at Temple University. He has lectured, presented, and conducted interviews at festivals and conferences widely, has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and The Wall Street Journal, and been heard on NPR’s “Morning Edition”. For 30 years, Kahn helped produce concerts, tours and festivals, and was tour manager for acts including Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Debbie Harry & the Jazz Passengers and Britney Spears. He works closely with the Miles Davis family on a variety of projects.

Gene Seymour, b. 1952, is a cultural critic who writes about music, film, music, politics, Black expression, popular arts and baseball, among other topics. He’s the author of Jazz: The Great American Art (The African-American Experience) Experience and worked for 18 years at Newsday as critic and columnist. but since 2008 has been a freelancer, writing for Bookforum, CNN Opinion, The New York Times, The New Republic, The Nation, The Washington Post, MSN and MSN Canada, The Baffler, USA Today, SFGate, Muck Rack and so on. He is a two-time winner of the New York Association of Black Journalists Award for distinguished criticism. Raised in Hartford, CT, long a New Yorker, he now lives in Philadelphia.