Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
Hyde Park Jazz Fest on Chicago’s South Side to Present 20th Edition
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
Vocalist Sheila Jordan was honored for Lifetime Achievement in the Jazz Journalists Association’s 27th annual JJA Jazz Awards.
(Photo: Lauren Deutsch)Singer Sheila Jordan, who at age 93 calls herself a “jazz child,” was hailed for her Lifetime Achievement in Jazz in the Jazz Journalists Association’s 27th annual JJA Jazz Awards, the results of which were announced May 3.
The 2022 Jazz Awards also honored Grammy-winner and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste as Musician of the Year. Tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana was named Up ’n’ Coming Musician of the Year, and Kenny Garrett’s Sounds From The Ancestors won Record of the Year. John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle was voted Best Historical Record.
The JJA Jazz Awards also celebrated the late Greg Tate — author, columnist, critic, lecturer, founder of the Black Rock Coalition and leader of Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber — for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism, posthumously; Tate died at age 63 last December. Writer-blogger Ted Gioia, Washington, D.C. radio program host Rusty Hassan and photographer Carol Friedman have also won JJA Jazz Awards.
Two awards were given to books: Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, by Deanna Witkowski, won the Biography and Autobiography category, and She Raised Her Voice! 50 Black Women who Sang Their Way into Musical History, by Jordannah Elizabeth with illustrations by Briana Dengoue, won as Book of the Year about Jazz: History, Criticism and Culture.
Almost 300 jazz musicians, journalists and media makers, recordings, books, documentaries, podcasts, photographs, were nominated for the 2022 Jazz Awards. This year’s winners are being asked to participate in an innovative online event, tentatively scheduled for mid-July. Awards will also be presented to winners before their audiences at outdoor performances throughout the summer.
For the complete list of winners in 47 categories, visit jjajazzawards.org. DB
A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.
Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
“It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”
Sep 22, 2026 1:39 PM
Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, Sept. 23, is the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. In honor of the tenor and…
Camille Thurman took to the stage alongside bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Tommy Campbell for a rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “I’m An Old Cowhand” that recalled Rollins’ epochal 1957 trio outing Way Out West.
Oct 6, 2026 1:33 PM
As emcee Mark Ruffin noted at the commencement of an epic tribute to saxophonist Sonny Rollins at the Cathedral of Saint…
Kurt Elling, Katherine Russell and Emmet Cohen (host on the 2027 Jazz Cruise) share a laugh at sea.
Sep 8, 2026 11:52 AM
It began in 2001. A travel agent named Anita E. Berry had been booking clients on “partial” jazz cruises that took…
Sep 17, 2026 11:00 AM
The 2027 DownBeat College Guide is an invaluable resource for music students, especially jazz students, to find a school…
