2018 Nominees for Journalism

Will Friedwald, based in New York City, is the author of Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer’s Art, 1995 (Deems Taylor Award winner), Jazz Singing: America’s Great Voices from Bessie Smith to Bebop and Beyond, 1996; Stardust Melodies: the Biography of Twelve of America’s Most Popular Songs (2002); A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, 2010;The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums, 2017. He was co- and contributing-author of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: An Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons 1989 (with Jerry Beck); Warner Bros. Animation Art – The Characters, the Creators, the Limited Editions, 1997 (with Jerry Beck); The Good Life: The Autobiography of Tony Bennett, 1998; The Future of Jazz, 2002; Playboy Swings: How Hugh Hefner and Playboy Changed the Face of Music, 2015 (by Patty Farmer). He has also been a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Village Voice, Newsday, and Vanity Fair, among many other publications.

Ben Ratliff, based in New York City, is a journalist and professor, jazz and pop critic for the New York Times (1996 – 2016), with writings in Esquire and a broad range of other publications including the New York Review of Books, NPR, Slate, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, 4Columns, Spin, Lingua Franca, Guardian, Metropolis, Village Voice, Coda, Option, Granta, Bookforum, Jazz Times and Wire. He is author of Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty(2016); The Jazz Ear: Conversations Over Music (2008); Coltrane: The Story of a Sound (2007, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award); and Jazz: A Critic’s Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings (2002) . He was host of the New York Times Popcast from 2012 to 2016. He teaches cultural criticism at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

Patricia Willard, based in Washington, D.C., started her career in 1949 as Duke Ellington’s research, editorial collaborator and public relations counsel, and also worked for several other major jazz artists. She was historical consultant to the Duke Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, consultant in Jazz and Popular Music at the Library of Congress and consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts Music Program, Martin Williams’s and Billy Taylor’s Kennedy Center Jazz Series, and the National Jazz Service Organization. She was contributing editor to DownBeat and Jazz & Pop magazines and columnist and staff writer at JazzTimes. She has conducted oral histories for the NEA Jazz Program, the Smithsonian and the Institute of Jazz Studies and has annotated more than 100 recordings. Her articles and photos have appeared in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Billboard, the Los Angeles Times, Herald-Examiner, Daily News, Antioch Review, the Library of Congress Performing Arts Annual, and many other publications internationally.