Congratulations to all the 2025 winners of the 30th 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 2025 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
PAUL DE BARROS
Author, critic, educator
Photo by Erika Schultz
Nominees: Nate Chinen, Sascha Feinstein, Dan Ouellette
PAUL DE BARROS (b. 1946) has been writing about jazz since roughly 1982, starting in The Seattle Times (longtime columnist and music editor there) and DownBeat, leading to broad freelancing. He’s the author of Jackson Street After Hours: The Roots of Jazz in Seattle (1993) and Shall We Play That One Together?: The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian McPartland (2012, reissued with a new preface in 2024). Paul was instrumental in the founding of Seattle’s EarShot Jazz organization, and was an early member of the JJA. He’s taught jazz history at Seattle Pacific University, Cornish College of the Arts and at the University of Washington and has been working on Outpost by the Sound: Seattle Jazz 1960-2020, due from The History Press in 2026. He leads a group that designed a self-guided tour of Seattle’s historic Jackson Street jazz district.
Robert Palmer-Helen Oakley Dance Award for Excellence in Writing in 2024
TED GIOIA
The Honest Broker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, The Atlantic Lapham’s Quarterly, Bookforum, Salon, The Quietus, Smithsonian, The American Scholar, Music Quarterly and The Hudson Review
Nominees: Michael Jackson, Bill Milkowski, Giovanni Russonello, Hank Shteamer, Josef Woodard
Marian McPartland-Willis Conover Award for Career Achievement in Broadcasting
ARTURO GOMEZ
Broadcaster
Music director of KUVO, Denver, for 24 years, and was named its “Cultural Ambassador” in September 2024. He hosts the shows Tune in to Lunchtime! weekdays at noon, and Salsa con Jazz, on Sunday afternoons.
Nominees: Matt Fleeger (KHMD), Dick Golden (SiriusXM), Leslie Keros (WDCB), David Kunian (WWOZ)
Lona Foote-Bob Parent Award for Career Achievement in Photography
LUCIANO ROSSETTI
Nominees: Jeff Dunn, Mark Sheldon, Robert Sutherland-Cohen
Publication/Website of the Year
DOWNBEAT Magazine
Nominees: AllAboutJazz.com, The New York City Jazz Record
Blog of the Year
THE GIG
By Nate Chinen
Nominees: Jazz Wax by Marc Myers; Playback by Lewis Porter, Transitional Technology/Do The Math by Ethan Iverson
Biography/Autobiography of the Year
JAZZ REVOLUTIONARY: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF ERIC DOLPHY
Jonathan Grasse (Jawbone Press)
Nominees: Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year, Paul Alexander (Penguin Random House); Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Leadbelly’s Truths from Jim Crow’s Lies, by Sheila Curran Bernard (Cambridge University Press); In the Brewing Luminous: The Life and Music of Cecil Taylor, by Philip Freeman (Wolke Verlag)
Book of the Year About Jazz: History, Criticism and Culture
JELLY ROLL BLUES: CENSORED SONGS AND HIDDEN HISTORIES
By Elijah Wald (Hatchette Books)
Nominees: Focus on Women in Jazz, by Guy Fonke (Editions Schortgen); In with the In Crowd: Popular Jazz in 1960s Black America, by Mike Smith (University Press of Mississippi); Playing the Changes: Jazz at an African University and On the Road, by Darius and Catherine Brubeck (University of Illinois Press)
Podcast of the Year
THE BUZZ: THE JJA PODCAST
Nominees: All That’s Jazz, by Allen Scott; The Third Story, with Leo Sidran
Livestream Producer of the Year
EMMET COHEN, LIVE FROM EMMET'S PLACE
Nominees: Chris’ Jazz Café, Mark Deninno; SmallsLIVE, Spike WIllner
Photo of the Year
Sophye Soliveau by DIDIER JALLAIS
Nominees: Delfeayo Marsalis by Kenneth K. Martinez Burgmaier; Cyprian Pakula and Mikolaj Trzaska by Piotr Pieczykolan; Ignaz Schick by Gérard Boisnel; Jowee Omicil by Jean-Paul Marti; Jeremiah Edwards by A. Divita
Album Art of the Year
BEYOND THIS PLACE
KENNY BARRON, artwork by R. Gregory Christie (Artwork Records)
Nominees: Colla Voce, Nick Dunston, artwork by T.J. Huffv (Out Of Your Head); the epicenter of your dreams, Jon Escreet, artwork by Christopher Drukker (Blue Room Music); Guilty!!!, Jeff Lederer, artwork by Jamie Breiwick, (Little (i) Music); The Salerno Concert, Bob Mover/Walter Davis, Jr., artwork by Takao Fujioka (Reel to Real)
2025 AWARDSFOR PERFORMANCE & RECORDING
2025 Winners for Jazz Performance and Recordings
Congratulations to all 2024 Winners for Jazz Performance and Recordings of the 29th annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards.
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