Washington DC Jazz Hero
A native of Washington, D.C. who matriculated at Georgetown University, our 2024 JJA Jazz Hero Katea Stitt is the proud daughter of master jazz saxophonist and legend Sonny Stitt. For 33 years she has been the host of “Beyond Borders,” a weekly jazz and world music program on WPFW, the District’s community radio “Jazz & Justice” station, which she’s also long served as Program Director. Katea has produced radio documentaries on Morocco for the Pacifica network, Inside the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music and The Gnawa Festival of Essaouira, spotlighting legendary festivals.
She commenced her career as a performing arts producer and road manager in 1987, and launched her company Anyanwu Management in 1994. Katea’s clients have included playwright and poet Ntozake Shange, trumpeter-composer-bandleader Lester Bowie, dancer-choreographer Dianne McIntyre, poet-spoken word artist Sekou Sundiata, the avant-funk band Defunkt, and such organizations as District Curators and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. She was line producer for “Blink Your Eyes: Revisiting Sekou Sundiata,” a celebration of the late poet held at venues throughout New York City. Her tour management work has taken her across the globe, traversing the United States, countries throughout Europe, the Caribbean and Africa, as well as Turkey and Pakistan. She’s currently tour manager for the legendary vocal ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock. She also directed the Smithsonian Institution’s Jazz Oral History Program, from 1999 to 2004.
As both a radio and performance producer, Katea Stitt is much beloved in the DMV jazz community, In celebration of the 100 year-anniversary of the birth of her father Sonny Stitt (born Feb. 2, 1924), she mounted day-long WPFW programming honoring some of the many jazz greats whose birth centennial is observed this year — Sarah Vaughan, J.J. Johnson, Max Roach, Dinah Washington, Louie Bellson, Paul Desmond, Kenny Dorham and Bud Powell among them. Jazz Hero Katea Stitt keeps the legacy alive, and helps to extend it.
— Willard Jenkins
NEA Jazz Master
DC Jazz Festival
Ain’t But a Few of Us: Black Music Writers Tell Their Story
