LJC Community Conversation: Best Latin Jazz of 2008 Awards
LJC Community Conversations are designed to explore major ideas in the Latin Jazz world together as a community and inspire conversation through comments. My main motivator here is my belief that LJC readers hold a great deal of knowledge and passion around Latin Jazz, and I think that we can learn something from everyone. Whether you’re a seasoned Latin Jazz performer or a newcomer to the music, leave a comment and let your voice be heard!
The election process has passed in the United States, and we have a new president . . . but things are just getting started here at LJC!
As we move into December, we’ll open the voting for our 2nd Annual Best Latin Jazz of the Year Awards, something that has become a yearly event here at LJC. Voting will begin on Monday December 1st and continue through Sunday December 21st, giving us a full three-weeks to cast our votes. Readers will be able to cast one vote in each category; once your vote is cast, the polling software will prevent any more votes from your computer. After a few days rest to enjoy the holidays, LJC will display the voting results between December 27th and December 31st. Each day I’ll announce a few winners, and discuss the voting results. At the end of the process, a Best of 2008 list will remain on the site, acting as a memory of the great music from 2008 and a resource for new listeners.
Our first round of awards was a bit of a learning process for me, so I’ve been spending a little time thinking back upon lessons learned. Overall, I was thrilled with the 2007 process and results from the Best of the Year awards. I felt that the Latin Jazz community jumped at the opportunity to recognize outstanding musicians, giving the music a positive boost. Even good things have room for improvement though, so I’ve been looking for those areas where the awards can get a little better. Based on last year’s voting process, I’d like to make a few changes to the overall structure of this year’s awards. My first priority is to make this an authentic experience for the LJC audience, so I wanted to start by getting your feedback on the following ideas.
———
Should We Expand The Categories?
The 2007 awards included 12 categories, each of which will be returning this year. The original twelve categories were:
Album of the Year
Next Generation Artist
Percussionist of the Year
Drum Kit Player of the Year
Bass Player of the Year
Piano Player of the Year
Sax Player of the Year
Trumpet Player of the Year
Trombone Player of the Year
Flute Player of the Year
Vocalist of the Year
Record Label of the Year
I think that the above categories were a good start, but today’s modern Latin Jazz world certainly needs more areas of recognition. I’d like to add a few more categories this year, including:
Guitar/Tres Player of the Year
Brazilian Jazz Album of the Year
Afro-Peruvian Jazz Album of the Year
Latin Jazz Big Band Album of the Year
I’d like to see more categories that recognize Latin Jazz artists that sit outside the Afro-Cuban Jazz realm, but I don’t think that every region would hold enough nominees to make a valid contest. Any ideas on how to group this category? I’m a little hesitant to have a category like Latin Jazz Big Band Album of the Year, because I’m not sure that every year will hold enough nominees. If you have any additional ideas of categories, I’d love to hear them.
Should Visitors Be Able To Add Nominees to Categories?
The Best of the Year Awards were originally inspired by another set of awards, the infamous Grammy Awards. I felt that the Grammys didn’t necessary recognize musical excellence, especially in categories like Latin Jazz. I hoped that the voice of the Latin Jazz community would step outside the realm of popular music and give awards to the year’s most outstanding artistic statements. I provided the initial nominees, drawing upon all the listening that I had done during the year. I felt that this was a good place to start, but I realized that it certainly wasn’t the end of the line. The LJC community brings a wide range of listeners into the mix, and I wanted that knowledge to be reflected in the awards.
I left my trust in the hands of the world’s Latin Jazz community, and I thought that it was only fair to allow people to add nominees. In some cases, I was quite glad to see readers nominate musicians that I had overlooked. There were several musicians that I felt conflicted about nominating - I enjoyed their performances, but I wasn’t quite sure that they fit into the “Best of the Year” category. At the same time, I felt that the act of adding nominees was abused a bit. At one point, we ended up with a nominee that included two artists instead of one. We had artists nominated that hadn’t participated in any recordings during 2007. We ended up with a long list of Album of the Year nominees, as everyone added their favorite to the list. I’m not sure if this helped or harmed the overall awards, but it certainly confused the voting process.
I’d love some input here - do you think that readers should be allowed to add nominees?
Should Visitors Be Able To See The Amount of Votes After They’ve Voted?
My initial thoughts about the Best of the Year awards involved complete transparency for LJC’s readers, something that I still believe. We are all deciding who gets recognized for their outstanding work together, and we should all be watching the voting process. I don’t think that secrecy ever helps a voting process, it only adds questions. Just as I watched the votes accumulate for Obama over the course of several hours last Tuesday, LJC readers should watch votes rise over the course of the three-week period.
One thing did make me question my beliefs at the end of the 2007 Best of the Year awards though. In the last couple of days of voting, a couple of categories experienced a major rise in voting. In each case, one artist in each category got a huge boost in votes over these last couple of days. It sent those artists over the edge, winning the award in that category. This may have been a coincidence, but it seemed a bit like a last minute push. On one hand, there’s nothing wrong with this; if an artist’s fans want to vote for them in droves, that’s a good thing. At the same time, I did notice a steady stream of traffic sent to those artists from the Best of 2007 awards, and I’m sure that everyone anticipated this. I have mixed feelings about these “last minute pushes” - I could really use your input on this matter.
Hall of Fame
I’d like to start a Latin Jazz Hall of Fame this year, which would several legendary figures their own pages on LJC. I’d work hard throughout the year to add extensive content around each of these figures, reflecting upon their legacy. I think that this could serve as a fantastic tribute to the masters that established the style. Each year we could add a few more figures to the Hall of Fame, which would hopefully become a major hall of the Latin Jazz greats.
I’d like to make sure that the Hall of Fame contains deserving figures, so we should probably come up with a few guidelines. Should each figure need to be involved in the Latin Jazz world for a certain number of years? Should each musician need to record a certain number of albums over the years? How many artists should we nominate to the Hall of Fame each year? This could be a really interesting piece of LJC, so I’d like to do it right from the start - what do you think would make a great Latin Jazz Hall of Fame?
LEAVE A COMMENT and add your thoughts about the upcoming Best Latin Jazz of 2008 Awards - this is a community process, we need to hear your voice! If you’ve got 2008 albums and artists that you want to make sure that I don’t miss - mention them here!
Once you’ve left your thoughts, don’t forget to visit our past community conversations.
———
Do you have an idea for a future Community Conversation? As much as I enjoy exploring my own interests with this regular post, I’d prefer to have this forum address the overall interests of the entire community. Do you have an issue that effects Latin Jazz? Do you have an idea for a fun topic? Let me know so that we can throw it out to the whole community - Leave a Comment or e-mail me.
———
Click here to have these posts delivered via email. Or, click here to subscribe to the full text RSS feed and never miss another post!
Stumble it!
Join The LJC Community in a Feed Reader
Wazzup Chip!
Wow, it’s that time of the year already! Some random thoughts, as far as your not wanting to see ONLY Afo-PR-Cuban nominees I must admit to not having much exposure to the OTHER types of Latin Jazz. Unfortunately, the economic times being what they are, I find it difficult to keep up with the stuff I know, let alone the stuff from the OTHER corners of the Latin Jazz universe. I know you’re going to say that I should spend more time at the listening center, I have, and haven’t heard much that floats my boat. This is just a reflection of my tastes and of course doesn’t mean that the music isn’t award-worthy. I’d definetly be interested in seeing the number of voters per category. As far as allowing random nominating by the participants, perhaps you might want to try Downbeat magazines format; they have ‘best of’ categories and ALSO have the ‘talent deserving more recognition’ category’, between the two, just about everything can be covered. Once again, this, and everything you do here, is VERY labor/time intensive and I just want to say muchisimas gracias!!!
Hey Chazro, thanks for chiming in here, as always, I value your input!
I hear what you’re saying about having to watch your spending on music; these are tough times. I think that these categories (Afro-Peruvian, Argentinean, etc . . .) would appeal to a smaller audience - not as many people are listening to them. But I think that there’s some really creative stuff going on there & I’d love to recognize it. I imagine that everyone wouldn’t vote in every category, just the ones where they feel comfortable. My thoughts are a little more focused upon whether I should have several different categories or one overarching South American Jazz category.
I’m glad that you’re checking out the Listening Center! I’ll find something you like soon! That was actually my hope - that it would help readers sort out stuff that they like and don’t like. It’s been growing slowly and hopefully in 2009 it will gain a bit more momentum.
I’m leaning towards showing the number of votes as well, it just seems more open.
The Downbeat format seems like a good idea, although I may want to tweek it a bit. I follow those awards too, but I’m always a little frustrated when I see players that I’ve been hearing for some 20 years in the talent deserving wider recognition category. But with some thought, this may be a good way to approach it and allow readers to add many, many nominees.
It’s always a pleasure to have time to sit down with LJC - I just wish that I had more of it. This never really seems like as much work as my day gig!