After years of watching diligently, I turned a deaf ear to Grammy Awards sometime in the 1990s. The artists winning the awards often seemed less worthy than musicians not even nominated. In fact, the awards regularly read like a summary of the year’s top ten artists and their chart placing hits. Occasionally deserving artists were nominated, but their presence was relegated to a side note. The show itself was usually awful; the presenters stiffly read cue cards and the performances appeared extremely contrived. The televised version didn’t even cover music outside the popular realm . . . with the exception of a 10 second list of the awards from “earlier this evening.” The awards reminded me more of a high school popularity contest than a recognition of serious musicianship, so eventually, I just stopped listening.

Still, the Grammy awards hold a degree of importance for any professional recording musician. The general public reads a Grammy nomination, or even better a Grammy Award, as a seal of quality. In other words, most people will buy an album with a Grammy sticker more readily than another recording. Many times, the buying public will even forego a listening preview for Grammy award winning albums – the recommendation implied by the award gives a strong enough message for them. Professional musicians realize that the Grammy Award really doesn’t hold a whole lot of weight as a recognition of excellence . . . but it is an unparalleled promotional tool.

Which leads to another series of frustrations – shouldn’t the artists that displayed the highest level of musicianship on their recordings from the corresponding year garner all that promotion? This seems like a fair way to handle the awards; move past the popularity contest and highlight the musicians dedicated to improving their art. At the same time, award givers need to realize that these insightful musicians may be household names, but in many cases, they might be artists existing just beyond the general public’s vision. A Grammy award would bring these deserving musicians larger sales, and an income geared towards building future musical visions. In turn, established artists may feel a push to instill more integrity into their work, producing higher quality music. Without a doubt, recognizing music outside the charts would benefit the music community as a whole.

This argument struck me long ago, but the recent release of the current Latin Jazz Grammy Nominees brought these thoughts back to the forefront. Originally, 56 Latin Jazz albums were submitted for consideration in the nomination process. This list included a variety of impressive releases including Bobby Sanabria’s Big Band Urban Folktales and Pablo Aslan’s Buenos Aires Tango Standards. When I initially saw this list, I felt encouraged at the possibility of recognizing some musically complete albums from artists deserving wider recognition. This past Wednesday, August 29th, the Grammy released the final list of 5 nominees and I felt that empty feeling in my stomach again.

The nominees for the Latin Jazz Grammy Award at the 8th Annual Latin Grammies are:

Spain Again
Michel Camilo & Tomatito

Spirit Of The Moment
Michel Camilo

Funk Tango
Paquito D’Rivera Quintet

Rumba Palace
Arturo Sandoval

Keys Of Latin Jazz
Chuchito Valdes

In many ways, this list brought all my cynicism about the Grammy Awards back to the surface of my thoughts. None of these five recordings are particularly bad; in fact, I probably would have included Paquito D’Rivera’s Funk Tango in a final five list as well. As a whole, I think that this list should have included several more challenging releases and excluded a couple of perennial favorites. Even here in the Latin Jazz realm, the Grammies are fueling the comfortable hold that established artists maintain on important promotional tools. This idea starts to sound like a broken record after a while, but one can always wish for change.

Instead of wallowing in my cynical slump, I’m considering a series of yearly awards here on the Latin Jazz Corner recognizing the work of various artists. At this point, it’s still a thought – so, if you have ideas or suggestions, please comment or e-mail me. I’ll update my ideas on this soon . . .

Stumble it!