Congratulations to all the 2023 winners of the 28th annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards for Jazz Journalism. Professional journalist members of the JJA made open nominations in a first-selection round; those who received the most nominations advanced to the finalists’ ballot, and JJA’s professional members voted on them to arrive at these honorees.
Our congratulations, of course, to all the 2023 Nominees for Jazz Journalism in all categories. And please click the photos to expand them — the wonderful images here reward much larger presentation.
Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism
ASHLEY KAHN
Music historian, journalist, educator, producer Nominees: Nate Chinen, Will Friedwald, Gene Seymour
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.
Robert Palmer-Helen Oakley Dance Award for Excellence in Writing in 2022
AIDAN LEVY
Nominees: Nate Chinen, The Gig, WRTI editorial director; Ted Gioia, The Honest Broker
Marian McPartland-Willis Conover Award for Career Achievement in Broadcasting
BOB PERKINS
WRTI
Photo by Gary Horn
Nominee: Jesse “Chuy” Varela (KSCM), Lynn Darroch (KMHD), Leslie Keros (WDCB)
Lona Foote-Bob Parent Award for Career Achievement in Photography
LAUREN DEUTSCH
Nominees: Adriana Mateo, Alan Nahigian, Luciano Rossetti, Robert Sutherland-Cohen
Publication/Website of the Year
DOWNBEAT Magazine
Nominees: JazzTimes, Jazziz, The New York City Jazz Record, The Syncopated Times
Blog of the Year
JAZZ BEYOND JAZZ
By Howard Mandel
Photo by Lourdes Delgado
Nominees: Jazz Wax by Marc Myers, Transitional Technology/Do The Math by Ethan Iverson, The Honest Broker by Ted Gioia, FreeJazzBlog by The Free Jazz Collective
Biography/Autobiography of the Year
SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF SONNY ROLLINS
by Aidan Levy (Hachette)
Nominees: Holy Ghost: The Life and Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler, by Richard Koloda (Jawbone Press); Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed the Sound of American Music, by Philip Watson (Faber Books); Of Note: A Memoir of Jazz, Tics and Survival, by Michael Wolff (Redwood Publishing)
Book of the Year About Jazz: History, Criticism and Culture
AIN'T BUT A FEW OF US: BLACK MUSIC WRITERS TELL THEIR STORY
Willard Jenkins, editor (Duke University Press)
Nominees: The Routledge Companion to Jazz and Gender, by James Reddan, Monika Herzig, Michael Kahr (Routledge); Sight Readings: Photographers and American Jazz, 1900 – 1960, by Alan John Ainsworth, (Intellect Books); Becoming the Instrument: Lessons on Self-Mastery From Music To Life by Kenny Werner (Sweet Lo Press)
Podcast of the Year
THE BUZZ: THE JJA PODCAST
Nominees: All That’s Jazz with Allen Scott, The Third Story by Leo Sidran
Live-Stream Producer of the Year
EMMET COHEN
LIVE FROM EMMET’S PLACE
Nominees: Live from the SFJazz Center, Constellation Chicago, Fulton Street Collective (Chicago)
Documentary of the Year About Jazz
RON CARTER: FINDING THE RIGHT NOTES
Peter Schnall, Partisan Pictures
Nominees: Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blues, Sacha Jenkins, Apple Original Films; Hargrove, Eliane Henri, Poplife Productions; Take Me to the River New Orleans, Martin Shore, Social Capital Films
Photo of the Year
William Parker by LAUREN DEUTSCH
Chicago Jazz Festival, USA
Nominees: Billy Cobham at Blue Note Milano Jazz Club, by Santa Istvan Csaba (Hungary); Bojan Z et al at Rendez vous de l’Erdre festival in Nantes, by Didier Jallais (France); Chien Chien Lu at Duc des Lombards, Jazz Club, by Philippe Lévy-Stab (France); Mark Whitfield, Emmet Cohen & Kyle Poole at Northwest Jazz Festival in Lewiston, New York, by John Zuffoletto (USA); Muhammad Dawjee and the students of the Morris Isaacson Centre for Music of Soweto at the PNYH Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa, by Adrien H. Tillmann (USA); Richard Bona at Love Polish Jazz Festival, by Dariusz Kwapisiewicz (Poland)
Album Art of the Year
AMARYLLIS & BELLADONNA
Mary Halvorson (Nonesuch), Artwork by DM Stith
Nominees: Jackpot, Brian Charette (Cellar Music), by Takao Fujioka; The Artist, John Lee (Cellar Live), by Takao Fujioka; Seven Whites, Peter Ehwald/Stefan Schultze/Tom Rainey (Jazzwerkstatt), by Helge Lieberg/cover design by Herbert Weisrock; Barionda, Helga Plankensteiner (Jazzwerkstatt), by Helge Leiberg; Six Feet Apart, Scott Feiner/Alex Taub, by Marcelo Gluz
2023 AWARDSFOR PERFORMANCE & RECORDING
2023 Winners for Jazz Performance and Recordings
Congratulations to all 2023 Winners for Jazz Performance and Recordings of the 28th annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards.
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