2025 Jazz Heroes

Though she remembers as a schoolgirl hearing Nancy Wilson’s “I Had A Ball” as a daily radio show send-off, it was not until Pamela Hart moved from her native Los Angeles to Austin in 1982 that jazz vocals became her passion. The audio collection of the Austin Public Library exposed her to the great female jazz singers from Billie Holiday to Ella Fitzgerald. 

Rob Shepherd, PostGenre

The Jazz Journalist Association is proud to pronounce tap-dancer, vocalist and songwriter Alexandria “Brinae Ali” Bradley as the 2025 Baltimore Jazz Hero. Born and raised in Flint, Michigan, Ali is an interdisciplinary artist who believes in using the power of the arts to transform the human spirit.

By Don Palmer, JJA Board Member

For the past 16 years Debbie McClain has run BrownStone Jazz in Sankofa Aban Bed & Breakfast, at 107 Macon Street, Brooklyn. You could walk, of an evening, right past this 19th-century town house on a quiet, tree-lined historic block of Bedford-Stuyvesant, not expecting anything special, until you see through its windows people inside swaying to a groove, and hear music wafting through the air.

— By Ronald E. Scott, Amsterdam News

Jerry Gordon is a true activist, advocate, altruist, aider, and abettor of jazz in the Capital District of New York State. For the past two decades, he’s worked tirelessly to support the jazz scene in Albany, Schenectady, Troy, and surroundings, primarily through his leadership efforts for two prominent organizations – A Place for Jazz and the Swingtime Jazz Society.

—Bill McCann, President, A Place for Jazz

John Foster’s story is really the story of Chicago’s jazz community and how its members collectively carve out a pathway for the music to continue to thrive. Although he grew up in difficult circumstances, he was introduced to jazz at Dixon Elementary school by powerhouse educator and saxophonist Diane Ellis, who generated a long list of far-flying students; John took to the music as a guiding light.

—Lauren Deutsch, 2025 JJA Jazz Awards Recipient

Starting a music festival from scratch is a gargantuan undertaking. Making that festival free of charge adds an element of complexity and financial risk. Doing all this without big donors or corporate sponsorship sounds like an impossible lift. Yet that is just what Amber Rogers and Daniel Bruce did in 2023 when they bootstrapped the Hingetown Jazz Festival, an event that seems destined to become a circle-the-date event on the expanding Cleveland jazz calendar. read more

— By John Chacona

Trumpeter Mark Rapp is an accomplished recording artist with eight albums to his credit, including collaborations with Roy Hargrove, Esperanza Spalding and Branford Marsalis, and a career that’s taken him far from South Carolina, where he grew up, but has brought him back here, too, happily for us.

— By Gloria Krolak

Stephanie Matthews’ enthusiasm for and commitment to presenting and extending her passion for jazz is unending. Her work exceeds presenting concerts, which she has done and done well — in 2024 alone 16 of them in an international jazz series featuring foreign, nationally -emerging and local talents. What makes Matthews a Jazz Hero is her work to connect jazz with the social-emotional aspects of living, both in the classroom and broader community.

By Stephen Braunginn, Strictly Jazz Sounds

Jazz Rooms come and – all too frequently – go. There’s always room for one more good one. Extraordinary musical artists, educators and Denver Metro jazz community activists Clare Church and Pete Lewis decided to address the need, founding The Muse Performance Space, as a way to engage people of all ages in uplifting experiences of authentic music and visual arts in a welcoming and beautiful environment.

By Peter L. Poses

Bassist Ralphe Armstrong has a reputation that circles the globe, but the one-time prodigy remains all -in on Detroit. Oh, he still goes on the road when James Carter or other A-listers call. But at age 68, the fleet-fingered acoustic and electric bassist feels no higher calling than championing his hometown’s remarkable jazz legacy and investing in its future.

By Mark Stryker, 2020 JJA Jazz Award Recipient

Who would build a hub of improvised music in a small community best known for agricultural studies and craft beer brewing? That’s merely one accomplishment in the 40-plus year career of Ajay Heble, founding director of the Guelph Jazz Festival and Colloquium, an annual highlight of life in a city best known as a Toronto bedroom community.

— By James Hale

Sheila Anderson’s moniker “Queen of Hang” reflects her reputation as a devout supporter of the live jazz scene. She may be found anywhere from Newark, New Jersey to Staten Island to the Village to Harlem (where she lives), quietly digging the music in her unassuming style — or she may be the evening’s buoyant emcee.

— By Ronald E. Scott, Amsterdam News

“The connection between the church music and the blues music is very clear, at least it was to me,” Bobby Bradford told me in 2003. “Just a difference in the words. Same music.” That may hold true, but through his horns, mostly cornet, Bradford doesn’t so much preach the gospel of jazz and blues. What you hear is more like common humanity informed by spiritual humility and emotional imagination: He makes you a member of his congregation.

By Greg Burk, MetalJazz

For over 40 years, trumpeter Gregory Davis has been a driving force in jazz and brass band music, and for 25 years programmer of contemporary jazz at the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Known to many simply as “Blodie,” he was born in New Orleans in 1957, and grew up in the St. Bernard Housing Project surrounded by the sounds of marching bands and second line parades.

By Baylee Badawy, New Orleans Jazz Museum
Photo by Jason White

Joe Petrucelli is the quintessential jazz mensch. As Executive Director of the Jazz Foundation of America (JFA), he heads a national nonprofit in providing such services as housing, healthcare, disaster relief, dignified employment and emergency financial assistance to musicians (and sometimes jazz journalists) in need.

By Howard Mandel,, JJA President

Philadelphia Jazz Hero Kim Tucker has been a fixture in this city since childhood. She learned all about the Philly jazz community at the knee of her mother Sue Ford, a well-loved advocate and prominent jazz promoter. By the time Kim was a teen, she was referring to well-known jazz musicians as “Pop,” “Mom” or “Cousin.

By Suzanne Cloud, 2019 JJA Jazz Hero, Singer and director of the Philadelphia Jazz Legacy Project

Drummer and bandleader Alan Jones, who has been a force on the Portland jazz scene since the early 1980s, has had an even more important impact as an educator. It’s that work that makes him a Portland Jazz Hero.

By Lynn Darroch, 2024 JJA Jazz Hero

Julián Plascencia’s life story exemplifies the level of integration that exists between communities along the United States-Mexico border. He was born in Tijuana but spent part of his childhood in San Diego. He later attended California Polytechnic University, Pomona, in Hospitality, and also studied bass and electric guitar at the Los Angeles College of Music (as well as at CNSEA in Havana, Cuba).

By Daniel Atkinson, 2018 Jazz Hero

Trumpeter, bandleader, recording artist, educator and fervent activist for equality of women in the jazz world Ellen Seeling was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1950. She studied with David Baker at Indiana University and was the first woman to earn a jazz degree at that institution. Moving to New York in 1975 with saxophonist Jean Fineberg, her partner, Seeling toured and/or recorded with multiple bands, including Laura Nyro, Chic and Sister Sledge.

By Andrew Gilbert and Terri Hinte, JJA Board Members

Percussionist and educator David Rivera is one of the musicians with the most experience and music knowledge in Puerto Rico. He studied at the Music Conservatory of Puerto Rico and Universidad Interamericana and has worked with the best musicians and ensembles here.

— By Wilbert Sostre, author of Boricua Jazz: Puerto Rican Jazz History

Jazz heroes find myriad ways to foster community, but nothing beats straight-up dollars and cents. Last year, Seattle jazz fan and now 2025 Seattle JJA Jazz Hero Robert Radford raised $106,000 for Seattle jazz. The funds went to the Garfield High School Jazz Foundation, the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, the independent school Seattle JazzED, and an ongoing project to erect a statue of retired Garfield High School band director Clarence Acox.

By Paul de Barros

As performer, promoter, booking agent, club owner, curator, and mentor, Kenny Horst has been at the forefront of the Twin Cities jazz scene for more than five decades. Best known as the heart of the storied Artists Quarter (AQ) jazz club, he was first recognized for his drum chops, playing with Bobby Lyle (three years at New York’s Blue Note) and touring with Jimmy McGriff and Al Hirt. Later he backed a long list of visiting greats on the AQ stage, including Harry “Sweets” Edison, Eric Alexander, Lew Tabackin, Joanne Brackeen and Jack McDuff.

By Patty Peterson, 2020 Jazz Hero, Steve Kenny, 2019 Jazz Hero,, and Andrea Canter, 2017 Jazz Hero 

From its first festival in 2015, organized by then vice-president of the Jazz Journalists Association Yvonne Ervin, the Tucson Jazz Festival made an effort to provide public access to music by sponsoring free daylong outdoor concerts on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. When 30-year public school music teacher Khris Dodge became the TJF’s Executive Director in 2020 following Yvonne’s untimely demise, access to local arts and music education was increased tenfold and became a cornerstone of the festival.

By Elliot Glicksman

John Edward Hasse has quietly, studiously and continuously made a worldwide impact in the awareness of and the appreciation for jazz and jazz people: artists, composers, producers, record companies, photographers and journalists. For 33 years, he served as Curator of American Music at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, where he founded the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra and Jazz Appreciation Month.

— By Robbin Ahrold

Wes Lowe is an inspiring music educator and the Director of Instrumental Arts at The King’s Academy, where he has been a catalyst for the growth of jazz both on campus and in the community. Since joining in 2016, Wes has revitalized the entire instrumental program, with a particular focus on the Jazz Ensemble, which has grown into a nationally recognized flagship program.

— By Willard Jenkins