A Sonny day at JJA; overdue honor for Silver

Horace Silver and Sonny Rollins topped the winners list at the Jazz Journalists Association’s 2012 Jazz Awards gala on Thursday at the Blue Note in New York. Rollins has become the awards’ iron man, collecting three awards (musician of the year, record of the year, tenor sax player of the year), while Silver received lifetime achievement honors for his impressive career as a composer, pianist and bandleader.

Here are four key awards:

• Lifetime Achievement in Jazz: Horace Silver
• Musician of the Year: Sonny Rollins
• Composer-Arranger of the Year: Maria Schneider
• Best Historic Recording/Boxed Set: Miles Davis, Bootleg Sessions, Vol. 1, Quintet Live in Europe 1967 (Columbia Legacy)

Congrats to all 40 musician and media winners.

Two are of particular note from the latter category: St. Petersburg-based Herb Snitzer, who worked for many years in New York and Boston, received the JJA’s Lona Foote-Bob Parent Award for Photography. Marc Myers won the best blog award for his wonderful work on JazzWax.

Here’s the link to the full list of winners.