Notes and tones: Jazz Grammy nominees you likely won't see — but should hear
Snub a dub, dub, no televised jazz awards in the tub.
Well, sports fans, tonight’s the night CBS broadcasts the greatly anticipated 66th Grammy Awards. During the three-hour program, we will no doubt learn whether, just a week before “The Big Game,” Travis Kelce is on-hand and/or in-hand with Taylor Swift. Speaking of which, I wonder what the over-under odds are in Vegas for the number of times we’ll get to see the lovebirds on the TV?
Ah, the Grammys. The tension. The hype. The career booster, where once again, jazz will likely go barely noticed, essentially sight unseen, save a quick still going into or coming out of commercials. That’s when they show the image of a winning jazz artist holding their Grammy, accompanied by an announcer matter-of-factly stating, “In a ceremony earlier today,” fill in the name, “received the Grammy for” fill in the jazz category.
True, last year Samara Joy scored big, winning best new artist, which cuts across all genres. That is a big deal, but ultimately that’s still a sliver of jazz airtime during the lengthy telecast.
Think of all the music award shows. Once again, in 2024, there is not one dedicated to jazz.
The longest list of 2023 music awards I found surfaced courtesy of Wikipedia. Numerous countries were among the 64 entries listed by their respective anniversary year, i.e. 34th Golden Melody Awards; their age, such as the 2023 Basadi in Music Awards; or alphabetically.
The usual suspects such as MTV, various Billboard categories, and specific genre shows, such as CMT Music Awards, are omnipresent.
Beyond that, there are the obscure entries — I suppose it’s all relative as most of these are televised or live-streamed award shows. Among my favorite monikers: Circle Chart Music Awards, Electronic Dance Music Awards and the Seoul Music Awards, which surely should not be confused with the 20th Korean Music Awards.
It’s a comprehensive listing, however a simple word search for jazz resulted in the proverbial zilch.
Wikipedia does have Grammy subcategory pages, including one for jazz. Currently, jazz is lumped in as part of the “Jazz, Traditional Pop, Contemporary Instrumental & Musical Theater" field. Not sure who comes up with such “fields,” but I would hardly call the categories entirely appropriate.
Here, then, are the nominees in the various categories, with my pick included.
Best jazz performance
Jon Batiste, “Movement 18' (Heroes)”; Lakecia Benjamin, “Basquiat”; Adam Blackstone Featuring The Baylor Project & Russell Ferranté, “Vulnerable (Live)”; Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding, “But Not For Me”; Samara Joy, “Tight.”
And the winner should be: Benjamin.
Best jazz vocal album
Patti Austin Featuring Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, “For Ella 2”; Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding, “Alive At The Village Vanguard”; Gretchen Parlato and Lionel Loueke, “Lean In”; Cécile McLorin Salvant, “Mélusine”; Nicole Zuraitis, “How Love Begins”
And the winner should be: Hersch and Spalding (alternative choice: McLorin Salvant)
Best jazz instrumental album
Kenny Barron, “The Source”; Lakecia Benjamin, “Phoenix”; Adam Blackstone, “Legacy: The Instrumental Jawn”; Billy Childs, “The Winds Of Change”; Pat Metheny, “Dream Box.”
And the winner should be: Kenny Barron or Billy Childs — a pair of great pianists and composers.
Best large jazz ensemble album
ADDA Simfònica, Josep Vicent, Emilio Solla, “The Chick Corea Symphony Tribute Ritmo”; Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, “Dynamic Maximum Tension”; Count Basie Orchestra, directed By Scotty Barnhart, “Basie Swings The Blues”; Vince Mendoza & Metropole Orkest, “Olympians”; Mingus Big Band, “Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions.”
And the winner should be: Mingus Big Band — why not?
Best Latin jazz album
The intent of this category is to recognize recordings that represent the blending of jazz with Latin, Iberian-American, Brazilian, and Argentinian tango music. Large enough brush for you? Let’s just call this the “Southern Hemisphere” category.
Eliane Elias, “Quietude”; Ivan Lins With The Tblisi Symphony Orchestra, “My Heart Speaks”; Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band, “Vox Humana”; Luciana Souza and Trio Corrente, “Cometa”; Miguel Zenón and Luis Perdomo, “El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2.”
And the winner should be: Saxophonist Miguel Zenón and pianist Luis Perdomo. A pair of deeply talented craftsmen.
Best alternative jazz album
Somebody is going to have to explain to me what exactly “alternative jazz” means — and why the Grammy folks decided this should now be a stand-alone category — other than to create something that expands the definition of jazz.
Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily, “Love In Exile”; Louis Cole, “Quality Over Opinion”; Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter, SuperBlue, “SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree”; Cory Henry, “Live At The Piano”; Meshell Ndegeocello, “The Omnichord Real Book.”
And the winner should be: I’m in the dark on this one.
Best contemporary instrumental album
If someone actually knows the meaning of the word “contemporary,” please advise.
Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, featuring Rakesh Chaurasia, “As We Speak”; House Of Waters, “On Becoming”; Bob James, “Jazz Hands”; Julian Lage, “The Layers”; Ben Wendel, “All One.”
And the winner should be: A four-way toss-up, only because Bob James doesn’t belong in the same category as the other entries. In fact, he’s the only one who belongs in this category; all the others obviously flirt with international/world music.
Jon W. Poses is executive director of the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series. Reach him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Notes and tones: Jazz Grammy nominees you likely won't see — but should hear
