It’s that time of year again when we look back at the past 365 days of Latin Jazz and decide what albums and artists touched us the most. For the fifth year in a row, we’ll be holding voting for the Latin Jazz Corner Best Of The Year Awards, letting the LJC community tell the world about their favorite music. It’s become our traditional way to end off the year with a bang and provide some much deserved recognition to artists that shared their creative energy with us in 2011.

Voting Begins This Week
Voting for the awards will begin on Thursday December 8th and last through Friday December 23rd at 11:45 p.m. During that time, people from around the world will be able to visit our voting page and show their support for Latin Jazz musicians across 24 categories. This is a Reader’s Choice Award, dictated by a popular vote; I’ll provide the initial nominees, but the outcome is determined by a popular vote. Sometimes the results are predictable and other times they are a compete surprise, but it’s always a fun ride that let’s us look back at the great music we heard during the year.

This is the fifth year that we’ve held the awards here at LJC, and our readers have come to anticipate many things about the process. There are an official set of guidelines that provide structure to the awards – you can find those guidelines HERE. Several things have stayed the same, but there have been some changes since 2010. Throughout its fire year history, the awards have evolved a little bit each year in order to create an experience that best serves the LJC community. With the awards right around the corner, I’m going to go through the various changes that we’ll be implementing this year.

New Categories
We’ve got four new categories this year that reflect the ever changing world of Latin Jazz.

Two of these awards fall into the album category – the Boundary Breaking Album and Outer Edges Award. The Boundary Breaking award is meant to address recordings that have strong ties to Latin Jazz but consciously blend the style with other genres. This might include a Latin Jazz excursion into classical music, modern jazz that is deeply informed by Latin Jazz, or simply a Latin Jazz recording that exhibits such a different performance approach that it breaks new ground. The Outer Edges award shines light upon albums include unmistakable Latin or jazz elements but distinctly sit in other genres. Examples of albums in this category would include salsa recordings with heavy jazz influence or Latin Jazz artists making a more straight-ahead jazz album. Both of these categories acknowledge the grey areas that sit on the outskirts of the modern Latin Jazz world.

One of these albums falls into the performer category – Best Latin Jazz Vibes Player Of 2011. In reality, this is a category that should have made its way into the awards many years ago. The vibraphone is an instrument that has played a profound effect upon the Latin Jazz world for many years. Musicians like Cal Tjader, Tito Puente, and more have long put their percussive melodies in front of their ensembles and a number of great musicians continue to do the same thing today. This is a long overdue category and one that should remain for many year to come.

The last additional category is not necessarily “new,” but it is one that appears for the first time this year – the South American Jazz Album. This category serves as a remarry replacement for the Afro-Peruvian Jazz Album, a category which simply did not have a number of entries. As a result, I’ve merged this category with albums that emphasize Argentinean Jazz and more. When any of these individual categories have at least five quality entries in future years, they will be reinstated as individual categories. Case in point – the Brazilian Jazz Album award, which has far more than five possibilities, sits outside this realm with its own award. For the time being, Afro-Peruvian, Argentinean, and other Latin Jazz albums with significant South American influences will all fall under the category of South American Jazz Album.

Voting Procedure
In the past, we’ve encountered problems with the awards for people using the same IP address. Potential voters that shared the same IP address through a college, school, workplace, or even home, were locked out of the vote when someone else on that IP address placed a vote. Unfortunately with an open vote like this, logging IP addresses is the best way to ensure that one person doesn’t “stuff the ballot box” by repeatedly voting for one nominee. Locking people out of the vote just didn’t seem like the best solution either.

In order to address this issue, each IP address will be able to vote every 24 hours. So if one person places a vote at their school on Monday, someone else will be able to place another vote on Tuesday. Granted, this isn’t a perfect solution and most likely, people will encounter some of the same issues with IP addresses. Unfortunately, this also means that people can place the same vote once a day, putting a whole different spin on the numbers. Short of requiring people to login with each vote, this is the next best step in keeping the vote fair.

Availability Of Voting Numbers
In the past, the up-to-the minute results of the awards were available to anyone, by simply pressing “View Results,” something that will change this year. I’ve felt like the results sometimes skew people’s voting and often allow for nominees to track the voting to their advantage. This year, results won’t be available at all through the voting page. I’ll be sending out a weekly update with the current results in the LJC E-mail Newsletter. If you’re not currently receiving the newsletter, simply sign-up with the form below and you’ll get a regular and detailed listing of the results.

I’ll also be periodically giving voting updates through the Latin Jazz Corner Facebook Page. If you haven’t already, make sure that you “LIKE” LJC HERE.

Those are some big changes, but ones that should make the awards a better overall experience for everyone. It’s still the same idea behind the awards though – get involved and have some fun with the whole thing. I provide the initial nominees, but once the voting starts, the awards belong to the LJC community. Spread the word through your Facebook page, your Twitter account, your e-mail lists, and more – let the world know that you love Latin Jazz and encourage them to join in the fun.

Voting begins tomorrow, so come back then, check out the nominees, and place your vote!

———-

Stumble it!