[jja-announce] Jazz Awards, NCC, West Coast Jazz Party, National JJA meeting

[Jazzmandel at aol.com]

Hi all -- 

just a quick note 'cause things are happening so quickly on several JJA 
fronts. 

Firstly, re the ninth annual Jazz Awards:

The votes are in, the musicians performing have been confirmed (JJA member Sy 
Johnson, music director of the Mingus Big Band and so much more, also a 
photographer and writer and former jazz editor of Changes magazine is being honored 
on the occasion of his 75th birthday with a commissioned ten minute set of 
original music for septet; Jack DeJohnette will play an expansive drum solo, 
ASCAP Young Jazz Composers competition winners Maurice Brown, Quamon Fowler and 
Bob Reynolds will play their originals in quintet/quartet settings), sponsors 
BETJazz (the 24 hour jazz channel), ASCAP, and HIP Health Plan of New York, 
which has agreed to sponsor the HIP-JJA Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Award, are 
all on board an more sponsors are committing every day. We have a guest host -- 
actor Robert Wisdom (of HBO's The Wire), and some interesting "A Team Awards" 
honorees lined up, too. Watch yr e-mail for the official announcements. You 
may also find new info at www.JazzJournalistsAwards (set up by Ben Allison 
thanks to JazzCorner.com) and at Jazzhouse. You can, of course, buy your tickets 
to the New York event ($50 for JJA members -- yes, it's a benefit for our own 
programs and the Jazz Foundation of America's Musicians Emergency Fund) or the 
2nd West Coast Jazz Party (May 29 at the Jazz Bakery, LA -- honoring Kenny 
Burrell, Charlie Haden, Wadada Leo Smith, Dr. Craig Springer, and Gerald Wilson, 
with performances by Joe McPhee, Freddie Redd, Vinny Golia and others, $25 to 
JJA members)

And we hope to have a JJA national meeting on Wednesday, June 15, the day 
after the New York Awards event. 

Secondly: The JJA has just initiated its Clarence Atkins Scholarship Fund, by 
inviting several emerging African American jazz journalists to come at our 
expense to the National Critics Conference in L.A. from May 25 through May 29. 
We are RIGHT NOW! seeking more financial support for this effort, which was 
kicked off by the JJA matching contributions from George Wein and Bruce Lundvall 
in the name of veteran jazz journalist Atkins, who died last year after a long 
career, much of it with the Amsterdam News. Even another $2500 would allow 
three more young African American writers/broadcasters/photographers to attend 
the NCC, which is shaping up to be an important convention of arts journalists. 

At the NCC, the JJA is hosting four panels: "African American Perspectives on 
Jazz Journalism," "LA Jazz: View from the West Coast," "Reviewing 
Cross-Discipline from the Jazz Perspective," and "The Art of the Interview," with 
panelists including bassist-ensemble leader John Clayton, LA Times jazz journalist 
Don Heckman, author Sharony Andrews Green, jazz economist and USC/Annenberg 
consultant Titus Levi, biographer David Ritz, writer-broadcaster Ted Panken, 
author-poet-musician Bill Minor, AllAboutJazz-LA editor Fred Jung, Jazzhouse Last 
Post editor Todd Jenkins, NPR "News and Notes" jazz producer Roy Hurst, 
writer-educator Devra Hall, and many others. 

The NCC registrations are currently $95 for four days; rooms at the Omni 
Hotel in downtown LA cost $105 per night for registrants, and they're sharable. If 
you are interested in attending this first time cross-disciplinary 
conference, with nightlife of LA open before us (the Vic in Santa Monica on Thursday 
night, the Pasadena Jazz Festival, Catalina's and many other shows are tempting) 
make your plans to do this now, before all the cheap flights are gone. 

It's only a month away. Further info clickable from Jazzhouse.

best, 

Howard