Don Heckman - gone but not forgotten

I spent a good chunk of time over the past two weeks digging into the previously unreported passing of respected West Coast jazz critic Don Heckman, who left us in November 2020 after several years of declining health.

Don Heckman

That piece, including a few updates provided by Don’s family, is at the Jazz Journalists Association website. 

 

You can find it right here…

 

Don was a JJA member and won the organization's Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism Award as part of 2010's JJA Awards. He was a nominee in 2008.

 

Deepest condolences to Don's widow, Faith; their two children, Alexander and Allegra; and three grandchildren.

A most-unexpected tip of many jazz hats....

Each June, the Jazz Journalists Association holds a matinee program in Manhattan to honor journalists, broadcasters and photographers who have done distinguished work in the past year.

Wednesday afternoon's festivities at the Blue Note jazz club included an unexpected surprise. JJA's voting members selected yours truly as the 2016 winner of the Lona Foote-Bob Parent Award for Jazz Photography.

When my name surfaced with five other very talented nominees (John Abbott, Jimmy Katz, Richard Conde, Lauren Deutsch and Michael Jackson) several months ago on the JJA Awards ballot, I figured it was a mistake, since I won the award back in 2003.

More than a few JJA member photographers had been under the impression this was sort of a lifetime achievement award, one and done. Apparently not - or maybe the JJA Awards committee forgot that caveat.

New Jersey-based photographer and writer Mitchell Seidel, with whom I've shared concert photo pits dating back to 1985, shared an interesting perspective: something along the lines that winning a lifetime achievement award twice in one lifetime is quite a feat.


I am humbled by the honor, knowing full well that each of the five other nominees was just as deserving.

As best I can surmise, my book, "Jazz in the Key of Light," must have developed some degree of awareness within the JJA community over the past year and a half. Maybe the voters took note of a 30+ year commitment to writing about and photographing the jazz world. We'll never know with any certainty.

Here is the full list this year's winners in the various categories:

• Lifetime achievement in jazz journalism: Ted Panken
• Jazz periodical: DownBeat
• Jazz blog: Ethan Iverson‘s “Do the Math”
• Jazz book: “Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth,” by John Szwed
• Robert Palmer-Helen Oakley Dance Award for Excellence in Writing in 2015: Nate Chinen
• Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Broadcasting in 2015: Linda Yohn, WEMU, Ypsilanti, MI
• Lona Foote-Bob Parent Award for Photography in 2015: Ken Franckling
• Jazz Photo of the Year: Patrick Marek
• Jazz Album Art of the Year: Mike Park, for Kamasi Washington, The Epic

For more details, including all of the musician winners announced earlier this spring, visit the JJA online. Composer/orchestra leader Maria Schneider took home a whopping five trophies this time around: for Musician, Composer, Arranger, Large Ensemble and Record of the Year, the latter for her exquisite CD The Thompson Fields (artistShare).

JJA's 2015 winners

Congratulations to the many winners announced and awarded yesterday at the Jazz Journalists Association's 2015 JJA Jazz Awards event at the Blue Note jazz club in New York City. Here's a rundown of the winners, including the Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism Award to Chicago-based Neil Tesser. 

Full disclosure: two of the jazz journalism outlets to which I am a long-time contributor won repeat honors. JazzTimes was named Jazz Publication of the Year. Allaboutjazz.com was named Jazz Website of the year. Kudos to both and all of the other category winners and nominees.

And the winners are….

The Jazz Journalists’ Association presented the media portion of its 18th annual Jazz Awards this week at the Blue Note in New York. The full list of winners is detailed at JJAJazzAwards.org (scroll down).

• Three musicians won crossover honors. Pianist Ethan Iverson was honored for the year’s best blog for Do The Math. Vibes player Gary Burton won Best Book of the Year category for his autobiography, Learning To Listen: The Jazz Journey of Gary Burton (Berklee Press). Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, the host of the NPR series Jazz Set, received the JJA's Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Broadcasting. (Burton also won musical honors, announced in April, as Mallet Player of the Year).
• Veteran author, editor, educator and radio show host W. Royal Stokes received JJA’s Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism Award.
• Freelance writer Nate Chinen won the Helen Oakley Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Writing in 2013.

  

  Benny Golson, by Antonio Porcar Cano

• Spanish photographer Antonio Porcar Cano was honored for the competition’s Photo of the Year for his wonderful image of saxophonist Benny Golson, taken last July  26 at the  Festival Internacional de Jazz de Peñíscola.
• Videographer John Moultrie won the Best Short Form Jazz News Video category for "Gary Bartz Talks About Drug Use Among Jazz Greats."

Two perennial winners, JazzTimes magazine and AllAboutJazz.com, won again in their respective categories, Best Print Periodical and Best Jazz Website.

JJA Jazz Awards announced in 28 categories.

The results are in – or at least those pertaining to musicianship. The Jazz Journalists Association today announced the winners in the 28 music categories of its 17^th annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards.

The big winners for 2013 included saxophonist Wayne Shorter, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and Ryan Truesdell. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins was named "Emeritus Jazz Artist – Beyond Voting," which means he’s won so many times in various categories (artist of the year, saxophonist  of the year, album of the year, etc.) that he is now exempt from the balloting.

Full details and all category winners are posted here.

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:

Renee Rosnes on jazz, family

Renee Rosnes

Pianist Renee Rosnes has developed quite a musical family since arriving on the New York jazz scene from Canada 25 years ago. My profile of Renee is published in the June issue of Hot House. As usually happens with these conversations, not everything fits in the magazine article.


Rosnes also told me how thrilled she was that drummer Lewis Nash was honored in April by having a building named in his honor in his native Phoenix AZ. She and Nash have been working together for almost 20 years and are sidemen in each other’s bands. 

Exploring mass appeal

Trombonist, bandleader and culture columnist Eric Felten had a terrific essay in today's Wall Street Journal exploring the popular and cynical sides of popular music... and what makes certain musicians really catch on with the fan base. Even when some of us could, would and do consider the product to be junk. Give a read to the article, appropriately titled: "Is There a Scientific Explanation for Justin Bieber? There is much food for thought. And I'm rather certain you'll get a chuckle out of the Eminem quote.

2011 JJA Awards were Sonny side up

Saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins either won or figured prominently in four categories at this year's JJA Awards event in New York. Kudos for that , and to all of the musician, journalist and photography winners at yesterday's Jazz Journalists Association event at City Winery in Manhattan.

Sadly, this was another year when my schedule did not permit a trip to the Big Apple for this tremendous jazz industry event.

Rollins won Musician of the Year and Tenor Saxophonist of the Year. Producer/director Bret Primack won Best Short Form Video of the Year for "Sonny Rollins: Getting It Back Together" and photographer John Abbott won Photo of the Year honors for yet another of his masterful images of Rollins.

An extra shout out to Jimmy Heath. The saxophonist was voted this year's winner of JJA's Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Award. And "I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath" by Jimmy Heath and Joseph McLaren (Temple University Press) was voted Best Book About Jazz.

Here's a link to all of this year's winners.

2010 JJA Awards kudos

Congratulations to all of this year's winners at the 14th annual Jazz Journalists Association's Jazz Awards, which many consider the jazz industry's version of the Grammys, Oscars and Tonys.

It is a wonderful jazz hang as well as a tribute. Sadly, this is one of those years when the day job kept me from attending this splendid event (Monday, June 14) in the Big Apple.

I want to spotlight the many associates - fellow scribes, photographers and publications (with whom I have had the privilege of working or contributing over the past 25+ years).

You'll find the full list of winners, starting with musicians and event producers, here.

Below are those from the journalism categories:

Periodical of the Year
JazzTimes

Web site of the Year
AllAboutJazz.com

Blog of the Year
Rifftides, Doug Ramsey

Best Book about Jazz
"Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original," Robin D.G. Kelley, Free Press

Best Liner Notes
The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions (1935-1946), by Dan Morgenstern

Photo of the Year
Tom Harrell at the Moscow International Performance Arts Center by Lena Adasheva

The Helen Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Review and Feature Writing
Nate Chinen: The New York Times; JazzTimes

The Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Broadcasting
Josh Jackson, Host of “The Checkout," “Live at the Village Vanguard," WBGO.org, Newark

The Lona Foote-Bob Parent Award for Photography
Mitchell Seidel: Hot House, JazzTimes, Down Beat, Jazz Journal International, Swing Journal, Musica Jazz; album covers.

Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism
Don Heckman: The International Review of Music, Notes from the Left Coast; the Los Angeles Times, JazzTimes; The New York Times, Village Voice, Down Beat, Metronome, the Jazz Review, liner notes.

Jazz is vibrant? - help prove it, Twitter style

You say you don't buy the tired old saw "jazz is dead"? It's time to show it's not so, and today's social networking craze is the way to help. Yes folks, it's Twitter time. #jazzlives

Thre's a movement afoot to dispel the impression, which received substantial mileage through Terry Teachout's recent Wall Street Journal piece, that the jazz audience is fading. It was published in early August - the same weekend, in fact as George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 in Newport where there were lots of enthusiastic, young people packing all three stages.

Howard Mandel, president of the Jazz Journalists Association, and others are encouraging the use of Twitter to show that lots of people are listening to live jazz - in person at events or live on the radio.

The instructions are simple, says Mandel. Here's what he is suggesting - and why.

Is the audience for jazz aging and diminishing, as Terry Teachout wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently? I don't believe it and don't think you buy it completely either, despite the NEA's 2008 survey data. I think that survey overlooked a significant segment of the vital audience for live jazz today, and propose a small social networking experiment, asking tech savvy listeners to tweet #jazzlives, who & where, in 140 characters.

Over the next couple weeks there are myriad big jazz events, starting in NYC the Charlie Parker Jazz Fest this Saturday and Sunday), continuing to the Labor Day weekend fests at Tanglewood, Chicago, Detroit, Aspen, Los Angeles, Vail, Philly, Chapel Hill, etc., then on through Monterey and the Beantown (Boston) fests (we'll keep the campaign going, as long as it works).

The music needn't be heard at a fest, of course -- it can be at a stand-along concert, a gig, live-jazz-broadcast on radio or online, in the subway or street, at a party, whatever.

If you Tweet, use hashtag #jazzlives. If you have a Twitter account, please help kick things off TODAY with a tweet that includes #jazzlives, who you heard most recently and where (venue and/or locale). That way, you (or anyone) will be able to track these tweets with a Twitter search and on TweetDeck and similar services.

We have created a special "widget" for blogs and websites that will show all #jazzlives tweets in real tim e- which is sort of the fun of it for those who like these things, and will collate all the tweets so we can count them, hopefully to prove how many of us there are.

MOST BRIEFLY, here's all anyone has to do to participate:
1) Write in a Tweet WHO you heard and WHERE (venue, locale, whatever fits)
2) MOST IMPORTANT: include hashmark #jazzlives.
EXAMPLE: I heard Vanguard Orch at Tanglewood, super! #jazzlives
EXAMPLE: I heard Hank Jones, solo at Detroit Int JF, mighty fine #jazzlives

Include links to your blog or website in your Tweet if you like, like this -
EXAMPLE: I heard Eubanks 5 be great at Blue Note NYC, full revu at www.HowardMandel.com #jazzlives

That's it. These initial tweets will seed the project by getting the #jazzlives out there and giving us some initial content for our widget. We hope this will build to a noticeable surge. Could we get as many tweets and postings as there were people at Woodstock?

Please note: Tweets with #jazzlives are NOT intended to publicize upcoming events or for comments on recordings you're listening to, but rather for reports on LIVE jazz you've actually heard recently. If you heard it live over the radio, that counts!

Our initiative's main aim is just to see how we can use new features of social networking to give all styles of jazz -- defined however you want -- a higher profile by showing how many of us listeners to live jazz there are.

Great news about JazzTimes

There was something to cheer about for readers and contributors alike, as Ben Ratliff reported in today's New York Times that JazzTimes will resume publication in August under new ownership.

The magazine announced in early June that it had suspended publication due to financial difficulties. Boston-based Madavor Media LLC, which publishes specialty magazines primarily on collectibles and sports, bought the brand and assets from former publisher Glenn Sabin. As many of you will recall, Glenn's dad, Ira Sabin, started the magazine as a newsletter-turned-tabloid Radio Free Jazz in 1970. By 1990, it matured into a glossy.

Editor-in-chief Lee Mergner said he and managing editor Evan Haga will be retained as the magazine retools a bit and moves forward from what certainly has been a trying year for facets of the jazz industry on many economy-related fronts. He also said arrangements are being made to pay contributors money owed for recent work.

I'm pleased about JazzTimes' future both as a reader - and a contributor since the mid-1980s. I have nothing but best wishes and positive thoughts for everyone involved in keeping this vital spotlight for jazz (100,000+ circulation and a recently revamped Web site) on track.

Marvin Stamm profiled in HotHouse

Here's a promised link to my Marvin Stamm profile that was published this month in Hot House magazine.Marvin had a milestone birthday in late May, though he certainly doesn't look it. That's why I forgot to wish him a happy 70th during our interesting phone conversation. So belated wishes are sent here.

More thoughts on the current state of jazz media

All companies and nonprofits great and small are reassessing their viability and putting creativity to the test as they weather the effects of the current recession.Some make it, some don't and some seize the opportunity to reinvent themselves.

The jazz world clearly is not immune, though not all of the forces are purely economic. But the economy always seems to inject its ugly side at the worst possible time: just look at the Festival Network LLC's apparent demise and its impact on festivals that have gone away, vendors who haven't been paid from work last year, and the spin-off effect on JazzTimes, which likely budgeted a significant chunk of its 2009 income from the continued publication of JVC Jazz Festival program supplements in three issues. No festivals, no lucrative advertising supplements. And now JazzTimes has suspended publication while awaiting a possible sale and refocus.

But it is not alone in its woes.

The Toronto-based, 51-year-old Canadian jazz magazine Coda suspended its bimonthly publication in January to "adjust its operations." This month it produced its "Quintessential Canadian Jazz Festival Guide" and on the magazine's Web site, Publisher Mark Barnes said June 1 that publication of the next issue of Coda will resume shortly and all financial obligations will be honored "in due course."

Any day now, JAZZIZ magazine expects to issue its "summer" edition in a move from 10 print issues a year to quarterly publication. It plans to supplement those four print issues with a new subscribers-only Web site that will have daily news, reviews and digital online-only "filler" mini-JAZZIZ issues to be posted every month.

Yes, the soured economy is at work in all of these circumstances, but so is the opportunity to reinvent how one does business. As print publication becomes more challenging, there is greater emphasis on electronic options.

Web sites and blogs, for that matter, are growing in importance for communicators and consumers, as are the social networking sites. There aren't many musicians who don't have a presence on My Space Music or FaceBook in addition to maintaining their own individual Web sites.

The communications sphere has change rapidly - and continues to do so. Pain and innovation are certain elements as we move forward. Buckle your seat belts, as it certainly will be quite a ride to a destination yet uncertain.

In the interest of full disclosure: I have done freelance work at various times, and in some cases still do, for JAZZIZ, JazzTimes and in the more distant past, Downbeat. I wish each of them well as they take on the market-force challenges they face with creativity, enthusiasm and, hopefully, success.

JazzTimes confirms troubles

I just spotted this fresh posting today on JazzTimes' Web site, jazztimes.com.

An Important Message From JazzTimes Management To our readers and members of the jazz community: JazzTimes has temporarily suspended publication of the magazine and has furloughed the bulk of its staff while it finalizes a sale of its assets. The brand and operation will undergo reorganization and restructuring in order to remain competitive in the current media climate. Print publishing is expected to resume as soon as a sale is closed. New information and statements will be posted at http://www.jazztimes.com/ as they become available. Thank you for your patience during this challenging period. JazzTimes Management

All I can say to follow up on my weekend posting is that the newspaper and magazine industries have been socked hard this year, particularly through ad revenue declines. Let's hope JazzTimes does inded live on as a print publication, and in the interim, electronically through its newly launched "community" - as well as staff postings as much as possible on the Web site. It may have to re-invent itself. Stay tuned. - KF

Economic domino effect on jazz is troubling

These are indeed troubling times for the general economy – and the spillover to the jazz world was inevitable. Just as some companies and some parts of the economy seem to be doing OK, or at least surviving, others are folding or in danger of disappearing.

I took no pleasure in reporting (see my December 31, 2008 post) the earliest word about the apparent demise of Festival Network LLC. And now fellow blogger and jazz journalism colleague Howard Mandel has reported troubling news about the ill state of health of JazzTimes.

There is a spinoff economic effect at work here – since JT seems to have been quite dependent on the revenue it received by producing and publishing JVC festival supplements in three of its issues each summer. With JVC’s festival sponsorships down the tubes, it had to hurt deeply. Read Howard’s perceptive take on it in several posts he filed this week at his blog, Jazz Beyond Jazz. This is extremely painful. I have had a relationship with JT since the early 1980s (back when founder Ira Sabin produced it tabloid newsprint style) as a writer and photographer, and still do the occasional review for its Web site. I hope someone indeed steps in to ensure its survival because of its prominent stature in the jazz community.

These turns are troubling, as were some of the perspectives in West Coast saxophonist Mel Martin’s latest Jazz and Saxophone Newsletter. Mel reported that he “played the last night at Jazz at Pearl's (in San Francisco) while they were hauling out the coffee machine and the paintings on the walls. The Jazz and Blues Store in Carmel has folded, the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles is closed at the end of May and may relocate in Santa Monica.”

Struggles go on everywhere, yet there have been some glimmers of hope. George Wein, who sold his Festival Productions Inc. organization to Festival Network two and one-half years ago only to see the new owners run its operations into the ground by overspending and expanding at the worst possible time, found a way to continue jazz and folk festivals under his own name in Newport this summer despite uncertain sponsorship.

A few other former Wein-affiliated festivals continue to operate. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, produced by Wein associate Quint Davis, never was a part of the Festival Network deal. Two other festivals that were part of the FN operation in 2007 and ’08 – Freihofer’s Jazz Festival in Saratoga NY and the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles, saw those contracts expire. Two other longtime Wein affiliates – Dan Melnick and Darlene Chan – now produce them (Melnick has Saratoga, Chan has Playboy).

The Montreal International Jazz Festival is preparing to celebrate its 30th annual event – expanding and vibrant despite this being the last year of title sponsorship by General Motors.

On the positive side of the California jazz club scene, Andrew Gilbert reported in the San Jose Mercury News that Yoshi’s jazz club recently ended an experiment with other forms of booking and returned with a solid lineup of stellar jazz bookings, particularly at the new San Francisco venue, in addition to its Oakland location.

A-Team / Essentially Ellington overlap

Seattle’s Garfield High School and Roosevelt High School jazz bands have been perennial top finalists and/or winners at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition, finishing first and second again this year. Now their directors are getting well-deserved moments in the spotlight.

Garfield’s Clarence Acox and Roosevelt’s Scott Brown are among the 11 winners of the A-Team class of "activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz" who will be honored June 16 as part of the Jazz Journalists Association’s 2009 JJA Jazz Awards event at The Jazz Standard in Manhattan.

The other A-Team honorees are: trumpeter and producer Herb Alpert for his longstanding commitment to jazz and philanthropy supporting music education; Dr. Agnes Varis of the Jazz Foundation of America; Bruce Lundvall of Blue Note Records; Dr. David Baker for revolutionizing jazz education; cultural historian Timuel Black; Jazz Institute of Chicago former president Steve Saltzman, Jazz Bakery proprietor Ruth Price, and two posthumous honorees: journalist-author-musician Richard Sudhalter and author-publicist Peter Levinson.

See the JJA Web site for details on other nominees, as well as event information.

A sad sign of the times

It’s no secret that with the economy in the toilet, and circulation and ad revenue at troubling lows, the newspaper industry has been reeling for more than a year. One of the most troubling effects, learned this week, was the year-end layoff of three Village Voice employees – one of them being the exteemed Nat Hentoff, a Voice fixture for 50 years. That’s right, Nat Hentoff, whom many would argue was the village voice in 20th century America.

His columns about jazz and civil liberties always have been on point, enlightening and solidly developed. And he has been a passionate advocate of support for musicians in financial need with his writings about the Jazz Musicians’ Emergency Fund.

The end of Hentoff’s tenure with the Village Voice was reported this week in the New York Times (see Village Voice Lays Off Nat Hentoff and 2 Others).

Fortunately for the world at-large, Hentoff’s syndicated columns and jazz writings will continue in other venues. The owners of the Village Voice have no idea what a large void they have created in their weekly publication.