[jja-announce] another couple of things

[Jazzmandel at aol.com]

Hey all full-fledged JJA members -- 

please vote in the Jazz Awards -- by going to Jazzhouse.org and clicking into 
the ballot. One ballot to a member, of course. There are some interesting 
ties shaping up in the votes cast so far that need to be broken. . . and that's 
all I can say about what's happening with the finalists so far. 

However: re sponsors, BETJazz, the 24 hour jazz cable network, is our 
underwriting sponsor, and will create a television special from the Jazz Awards event 
in New York (June 14, Tuesday, from 5 to 8 p.m. at B.B. King's) for eventual 
broadcast. HIP Health Plan of New York has agreed to sponsor the HIP-JJA 
Lifetime Achievement Award in Jazz this year, with an option to continue in years 
to come. ASCAP is supporting music at the NY event -- Jack DeJohnette has 
agreed to play a drum solo, and we will honor Sy Johnson, master composer-arranger 
(long associated with Charles Mingus and the Mingus Big Band) who is also a 
fine jazz photographer and was the jazz editor of Changes magazine in the '70s, 
on the occasion of his 75th birthday, by presenting him with a 7 piece 
ensemble, playign three original works. (more music tba). BMI and the JJA continue to 
discuss sponsorship options, and we have some other proposals at work, too. 
(If you have specific sponsorship ideas, please address them to Shannon 
Gibbons, gibbonssha at aol.com -- she's working with the JJA in a 
fundraising-development capacity).

Please VOTE!!  By April15, when the polls close at 6 p.m. EDT

BIG THING #2 -- the National Critics Conference JJA panels are shaping up.
 May 26 we start with African American Perspectives on Jazz Journalism; panel 
includes Willard Jenkins (BETJazz, WPFW-FM, JazzTimes, Tri-C Jazz Fest, 
etc.), Sharony Andrews Green (author of the biography of Grant Green), Roy Hurst 
(jazz broadcaster-storyteller, NPR's News and Notes), and bassist-ensemble 
leader John Clayton. After lunch, we have LA as Jazzland, with Don Heckman (LA 
Times), Fred Jung (Allaboutjazz.la), and other local JJA members and friends 
giving us the lay of the land. There's a fancy reception that afternoon at the 
Getty Center, to which we're all invited, then the possibility of visiting a small 
Santa Monica jazz club which Heckman recommends highly
. 
Friday is the NCC day when the panels are cross-genre, all featuring critics 
and journalists representing classical music, visual arts, dance and theater 
as well as jazz. 

Friday night we will go (those of us who want to) to the Pasadena Jazz 
Festival.

Saturday panels look like: Cross-disciplinary reviewing from a jazz 
perspective, with Bill Minor (musician and poet, besides JJA "contract doctor" and 
author of books on jazz in the former USSR and Asia); Bill Moody (novelist, 
drummer, deejay, writing professor); Sharony Andrews Green (again, yes -- but she's 
getting an advanced degree with a dissertation on jazz and dance), and others; 
also, The Art of the Interview, with Devra Hall (samples of her work to be 
posted at Jazzhouse shortly), Ted Panken (Down Beat, Jazziz, WKCR-FM, 
BarnesandNoble.com, etc.), others TBA. 

Sunday we may do another panel, on historical research on West Coast jazz; 
Sunday night will be the second annual JJA West Coast Jazz Party, honoring Kenny 
Burrell, Gerald Wilson, Wadada Leo Smith and Dr. Craig Springer, with an 
extraordinary lineup of LA area jazz players performing (thanks to Fred Jung for 
producing this event). 

so it's shaping up -- sorry for the missing details, but please look at the 
NCC website (click from Jazzhouse.org) for details about registration, air-fare 
discounts, discount lodging at the Omni Hotel in downtown LA where the NCC 
takes place, etc. 

more soon -- Howard