JAZZYJZ ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Awardee Nominations Are Being Accepted​​​​​​​​​​​

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The JazzyJZ Achievement Awards are named after jazzy women in the jazz genre.  Like women, Jazz is improvisation, syncopation, and forceful rhythms.  Jazz is all that women are.  Join us as we honor women that are improvisational, syncopated, and forceful rhymes.  This dinner gala will honor global women that are just "Jazzy".

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                               The  Billie Rogers First Achievement Award is awarded to women who were the first in their community to enter a new profession or business.  This award is named in honor of Billie Rogers (1917-1914), who was the first woman to hold a horn position in a major jazz orchestra and a featured soloist with the Woody Herman Band from 1941 to 1943.

 

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                              The Mary Lou Williams Growth Achievement Award is awarded to young businesses/professionals who are the first to excel in their field.  This award is named in honor of the pianist, composer, and arranger, Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981), who wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements.  At the age of 15, she played with Duke Ellington and accepted an offer to perform in England and Europe as she was mentored by jazz greats, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Dave, Tadd Dameron, and Dizzy Gillespie.

 

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                             Sara Vaughan Community Achievement Award is awarded to a community and global advocacy program/organization.  This award is named in honor of jazz vocalist, Sarah “Sassy” Vaughan (1924-1990) who ventured into performing where women were not permitted.  Her daring entered new vocal territories that landed her to win the Apollo Theater Amateur Night, and in 1943, she became lead vocalist with bandleader Earl “Fatha” Hines.

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                            ​​Clora Bryant Improvisation Achievement Award is awarded to the individual or organization that has created global collaborations.  This award is named in honor of singer and trumpeter Clora Bryant (1927-2019), who studied improvisation using a wire recorder to record her soloing along with jazz records.  She performed with the all-female orchestra International Sweethearts of Rhythm in 1948, appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, and became the first American female jazz musician to play in the Soviet Union.

 

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                         Peggy Gilbert Legendary Achievement Award is awarded to the individual or organization that has a generational impact.  This award is named in honor of saxophonist Peggy Gilbert (1905-2007), who pioneered performances on radio and television that led her to Hollywood in 1928.  She wrote a response in Down Beat Magazine that criticized women in jazz in 1938; worked for Local 47, where she helped the union operate the Hollywood Canteen; and formed an all-female jazz band, called Peggy Gilbert and Her Metro Goldwyn Orchestra.  She continued to perform in her late sixties and formed the Dixie Belles, an all-female senior citizen Dixieland jazz band.

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 JazzyJZ Contemporary Achievement Award is awarded to young professionals in leadership.  This award honors three contemporary jazz artists, Audrey Ochoa, Camille Thurman, and Melissa Aldana (Photo: AFP / FILE) as they are creating new platforms in jazz.  The award nominee consideration is based on their contemporary direction that exemplifies the definition of jazz, improvisational, syncopated, and forceful rhymes.