Sunday, March 21 at 1 pm
Central Daylight Time
Biographies of Dave Brubeck, Nat King Cole and Ornette Coleman, the autobiography of the late Phil Woods, a deep dive into jazz stories on film and a fictional trilogy about “jazz, intolerance, and baseball” have been nominated for the JJA’s 2021 Jazz Book of the Year Award. Authors of the six books will present their works and discuss their writing/publishing issues as moderated by Bob Blumenthal, JJA board member and Book Award committee chair, at the JJA Book Nominees Authors Zoom, Sunday, March 21 at 1 pm Central Daylight Time.
The authors and their books are:
Philip Clark, Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time (Hatchette)
Will Friedwald, Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole (Oxford University Press)
Maria Golia, Ornette Coleman: The Territory and the Adventure (Reaktion Books)
Mark Ruffin, Bebop Fairy Tales: A Historical Fiction Trilogy on Jazz, Intolerance and Baseball (Rough In Creative Works)
Kevin Whitehead, Play the Way You Feel: The Essential Guide to Jazz Stories on Film (Oxford University Press)
Phil Woods with Ted Panken, Life in E Flat: The Autobiography of Phil Woods (Cymbal Press)
These books are being offered to JJA voting members for consideration toward the Jazz Award for Best Book of the Year About Jazz, presented annually since 1998. The 2021 Award winner will be announced on or about May 1. Recent winners are Jazz from Detroit by Mark Stryker (2020), Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon by Maxine Gordon (2019), Good Things Happen Slowly by Fred Hersch (2018), and Better Git It In Your Soul: An Interpretive Biography of Charles Mingus by Krin Gabbard (2017).
The JJA Book Nominees Authors Zoom on March 21 will be a 90 minute, interactive event open to JJA member registrants. It will be streamed live to the JJA Facebook page and archived on the JJA Youtube channel. It follows on the JJA's January 21 Zoom Book Party, wiith authors Karl Ackerman (A Map of Jazz: Crossroads of Music and Human Rights), Debbie Burke (Tasty Jazz Jams for Our Times), and Tish Oney (Peggy Lee: A Century of Song) as well as Panken (co-author of saxophonist Woods' book) and Sirius/XM jazz host/storyteller Ruffin.
The JJA is a non-profit professional organization of writers, photographers, broadcasters, videographers, new media professionals and their supporters, which produces the 2021 JJA Jazz Awards. For further information on the Zoom Book Party, JJA Jazz Awards or the Jazz Journalists Association, contact Howard Mandel, President@JazzJournalists.org or Jim Eigo, Jim@JazzPromoServices.com.
