Latin Jazz Corner Best of 2009 Awards Start Next Week!
As 2009 slowly draws to a close, it’s time to reflect on the year in Latin Jazz and leap into the LJC Best of 2009 Awards. Voting will open this Wednesday, December 2nd and run through Wednesday December 23rd. That gives you three solid weeks to support your favorite Latin Jazz artist and encourage your friends to do the same. After a short break here at LJC to enjoy the holidays, I’ll be back with the results. Every day from Sunday December 26th to Thursday December 31st, I’ll announce the winners in three to four categories. Once the LJC community has spoken and we have a list of winners, they’ll find a permanent home on LJC, recognizing their achievement. This event has become a yearly tradition at LJC, and one that always builds a lot of excitement around fantastic Latin Jazz.
I spend a good deal of time throughout the year thinking about how to make the Best of the Year awards a better event. I was initially inspired to create the awards as a result of reaction to the Grammy Awards - I wanted to create an event that authentically recognized excellence in the Latin Jazz world. After two years of awards, I think that the event has both succeeded in stumbled in different ways. As we move into year three, I’m finding the need to play with the formula a bit, in an attempt to get better results. My top priority is serving the needs of the Latin Jazz community, so your feedback is essential. I’m always open to suggestion and discussion around this event, so put your thoughts out there. My ideas are below - check them out and let me know what you think; together we’ll find the best way to recognize the top Latin Jazz from 2009!
New Categories
With each passing year, I’m finding a need to recognize more areas of Latin Jazz with the awards. As I dig deeper into all the great music emerging around the world, I’m finding a widening diversity in the style. When I think about the awards, I’m trying to come to terms with ways to address and compare recordings from a realistic perspective. I find it difficult to place an Afro-Cuban Jazz Album and an Afro-Peruvian Jazz Album in the same category - it’s like apples and oranges. I’ve come to believe that the best way to recognize the significance of these stylistic differences is through the creation of new categories. Last Year I added Brazilian Jazz Album, Large Ensemble Album, Guitarist, and Hall Of Fame. While I do have concerns about spreading the awards too thin, I felt like last year the new categories actually made the awards more potent. With this in mind, I’ve added a few more categories to the awards.
This year I’m adding four new categories to the awards: Afro-Peruvian Jazz Album, Composition, Arrangement, and Album Cover Art. The addition of an Afro-Peruvian Jazz album is a bit of a no-brainer; this segment of the Latin Jazz world has grow tremendously over the past few years. Last year I had some concerns about the sustainability of the category, but at this point, I have no doubt. In the past, I thought that categories for composition and arrangement might be too specific, but now I see them as absolute necessities. The creative manipulation of the genre through original compositions and arrangements have pushed Latin Jazz into new realms recently and that needs to be recognized. The award for album cover art seems a bit removed from the original intent of the awards - I originally wanted these awards to be all about the music. I feel like this is a topic that could use some stimulation though - artwork is an essential chance to spread the word about an album and Latin Jazz artists generally don’t utilize it effectively (more about this in an upcoming article). With these thoughts in mind, we’ll be expanding again this year.
Thoughts or ideas about these additional categories? Let me know in a comment please!
New Process For Adding Nominees To Categories
I’ve always felt that the opportunity for LJC reader to add nominees to categories was an absolute necessity that kept the awards honest. I spend a lot of time listening to Latin Jazz during the course of the year, and I cover most of the major releases. Still, I’m only one person, and I’m bound to miss something. I also might hold a different perspective on excellence, which would inspire me to choose a different group of nominees. I believe that the awards should reflect the majority voice of the community and that forces me to admit that I might not hold that opinion. So this year I’ll continue to allow readers to add nominees throughout the course of the awards.
While I’m keeping this option open, I am adding a process that will hopefully keep the process honest. Last year, I dealt with a number of spammers, nominees that didn’t fit the qualifications, and questionable selections; this year’s changes will hopefully eliminate or at least slow down those issues. Instead of an automatic entry into the awards, readers will be allowed to fill in a short form for additional nominees. Once a new nominee has been requested five times, I’ll add them onto the list of possible selections. Until they have reached five nominations, I’ll put their name at the end of the ballet so that people realize they are in the running. I’ll be making these updates once daily - most likely at the end of the day. While this may involve an extra step for readers, I’m hoping that it will keep the awards more streamlined.
Have an opinion on the new process? Let me know by leaving a comment!
Tighter Qualifications For Each Category
The creation and maintenance of the awards has been a learning process for me, and one place I see room for improvement is the qualifications for each category. In 2007 and 2008, the qualifications were kept fairly open, with a simple requirement that the nominees had to be associated with a Latin Jazz album released during that calendar year. The nominees need to be available to audience around the world, and since everyone doesn’t have the option to see these musicians perform live, recordings seemed to be the perfect vehicle. As the awards progressed over the past couple of years, I’ve seen nominees move into each category that didn’t necessarily feel right. So I’ve come up with a series of qualifications below that should help clarify things.
Album Of The Year & Next Generation Awards:
Album Of The Year is meant for established artists that have been internationally visibly on the Latin Jazz scene for a while; the Next Generation award is meant for artists new to the scene
As nominees get added to either of these categories, they will be placed (moved if necessary) into the correct category
An album cannot be be nominated in both categories
The first release of the album must be in 2009
Brazilian Jazz Album & Afro-Peruvian Jazz Album:
The first release of the album must be in 2009
At least 75% of the album must fall into either genre in this category
Large Ensemble Album:
The first release of the album must be in 2009
75% of the album must involve a group with seven or more members
Instrumentalist Awards:
The nominee needs to be part of a Latin Jazz album first released in 2009
The nominee needs to play on at least 50% of the album
Record Label:
The label needs to have released & supported Latin Jazz in a significant way during 2009
Composition & Arrangement Awards:
The chosen piece must be part of a Latin Jazz album first released in 2009
Ideas for more qualifications? Have an idea about the above qualifications? Let me know by leaving a comment!
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Remember, voting for the awards starts next week. If you’ve got suggestions or ideas that you want to discuss, throw your comment out now! If you’ve got an opinion about the revisions above, let’s discuss it in the comment thread below. I’d love to hear you thoughts!
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Check Out These Related Posts:
Does The Blurry Line Between Salsa And Latin Jazz Matter?
The Latin Jazz E-Group: Celebrating 10 Years Of Latin Jazz Community
An Open Letter To Michelle Obama Regarding Latin Music
Jazz Now: 5 Latin Jazz Albums From The Present Moment
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Wazzup Chip! This may surprise you but I thought last yrs vote was tainted. I may be mistaken but all of a sudden an artist nobody’s heard of before or since gets a slew of votes. This bears no reflection on you whatsoever, I mean, if a particular artist sets it up so his family and friends all vote for him in the interests of self-promotion, I think it’s out of your hands. If you know I’m wrong Chip than plz forgive my ignorance. I’m curious to see how it goes this year, you may feel it neccesary to add categories due to your exposure to the music, I’m curious whether the number of submissions could be used as an overall barometer of the musics’ popularity. In other words, is anybody else hearing this music besides you? I know I’d love to be able to listen to every record you write about but the truth is, money’s tight, I can’t keep up with the records from all the genres that I normally listen to, let alone all the music from other countries’ that you normally review. I’ve moved from Atlanta, GA to W. Palm Bch, FL this past month. Yesterday, I went to El Museo Del Disco in Miami and picked up Tiempo Libre - ‘Bach In Havana’, Latin Giants Of Jazz - ‘Ven Baila Conmigo!’, Robby Ameen - ‘Days In The Life’, Palo - ‘This Afro-Cuban Funk’, and the DVD of Hilario Duran’s ‘From The Heart’. I dropped $75 bucks and felt guilty doing it! Worst part is that I could easily have spent 10X that much! Anyhow, looking forward to this yrs awards! BTW, we need to figure out what category a record like ‘Palo’ could be put in. This very hip and smokin’ record features (didn’t realize it when I bought it) saxman Ed Calle but It’s not Jazz. And the Tiempo Libre record had me thinking this band can officially be considered THIS generations’ Irakere!! What a record!
Chazro -
Thanks for your input here, it’s a really important part of tying to make the awards work. You know, the funny thing is, I completely understand your point of view on last year’s awards. I have mixed feelings about the results - I agree with you in some ways and in other ways I don’t.
On one hand, I’m glad to see a young, somewhat underexposed artist carry away an award. If the process can shed light on someone doing outstanding work, then they’ve served their purpose. For example, in the Album Of The Year category, I don’t think that most people expected Eric Kurimski to win, but that was an incredible album, deserving of the honor. There were thousands of entries from around the world last year in every category and I don’t think that it was as simple as someone getting their friends and family to get online and vote. I would expect artists to rally their fan base (including friends and family) to get out and vote - the fact that they would do this is a show of support. On the same token, everyone can do this; some artists with much larger fan bases chose nit to rally their fans - so things didn’t go their way.
On the other hand, the awards got a lot bigger than I expected really quickly last year, and I felt that some people grabbed awards that weren’t necessarily valid. Nominees were added to the categories that didn’t quite fit the qualifications that I had in my head and before I knew it, they ran away with the category. This was really my fault - I hadn’t clarified the category qualifications and I felt it was unfair to just pull people randomly. I’m hoping that better structure will solve that problem this year, and the awards will go towards deserving musicians in every category.
You make a great point about not everyone being able to vote intelligently in every category. I understand where you’re coming from - not everyone hears every release, it’s just too expensive. I have the luxury of hearing all these recordings as a result of the site, so I figure the best that I can do is support them. While the largest portion of the Latin Jazz world most likely listens to Afro-Cuban inspired jazz, there are huge pockets of people that support jazz with other Latin influences. I simply hope that people will vote in the categories that they enjoy and support the music that they love.
Thanks for the heads-up on the Palo release, I’ve heard lots of good things about the album, haven’t heard it yet though. Since you’re giving it the thumbs-up, I’m on my way to hear it now - thanks!