Justice for Jazz Artists will be kicking off the spring campaign this coming Thursday, April 11th with a two-part march and rally in Manhattan.

The two-part Jazz Built This! march will call attention to the negligence of owners of expensive NYC jazz clubs, who have become wealthy thanks to the labor of the skilled musicians who play in their establishments but deny these artists basic protections like minimum pay standards or benefits that might keep the musicians from suffering in poverty later in their lives.

The march will feature Justice for Jazz Artists’ signature live band!

All are encouraged to show up and show their support for justice!

March #1

Time: 5:45 PM
Location: Meet at the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (5th Ave. at 82nd Street)

We will march to a property connected to one of the major clubs.

March #2

Time: 8:45 PM
Location: Meet at the arch at Washington Square Park

We will march to one of the major NYC jazz clubs.

“Sweet” Sue Terry has publicly endorsed J4JA! Sue began her professional career at the age of sixteen, playing for church performances and musical theater. She began working jazz gigs while attending the Hartt School, a well-known music conservatory in Hartford. Though she was accepted as a classical clarinetist, her secret agenda was to study with the late jazz legend Jackie McLean, which she did for five years. The Hartt School elected her Alumna of the Year in 2001.

Sue first heard jazz as a child growing up in Connecticut, where she studied with legendary pianist and educator John Mehegan. Since then, Sweet Sue has played and recorded with a variety of notable jazz artists including Dr. Billy Taylor, Clark Terry, Charli Persip, Peggy Stern, Clifford Jordan, Melba Liston, Hilton Ruiz, Howard Johnson, Tim Price, Walter Bishop, Jr., Jaki Byard and Derwyn Holder.

Sue has also performed with jazz VIPs such as Art Blakey, Carmen McRae, Jon Faddis, Lew Tabackin, Wynton Marsalis, Lew Soloff and Ray Barretto. She’s been a jazz soloist with the National Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the New York Pops, and has performed worldwide at venues such as The Montreux Jazz Festival, Nice Jazz Festival, Pori Jazz Festival, Northsea Jazz Festival, the Blue Note in Tokyo, Japan, Quasimodo in Berlin, Germany, Marian’s Jazzclub in Bern, Switzerland, and Spice of Life in London, UK. In the states she has been a frequent performer at venues such as The Kennedy Center in Wash. D.C. and Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York.

Her discography currently contains over forty commercially released CDs. She’s the author of several music instruction books, and has received a number of grants and awards for her songwriting. Catch her regular column in the quarterly Jazz Inside Magazine. Sue’s other passion is for the martial arts—she’s a longtime practitioner of Taiji Quan and Qi Gong.

Sue is also becoming increasingly known for her blogging, and her self-published “Greatest Hits of The Blog That Ate Brooklyn: Inside the Mind of a Musician,” appeared in paperback in November 2011.

Her website is www.sueterry.net where our readers will find streaming audio, Sue’s blog, video, a photo gallery, and more.

Welcome “Sweet” Sue!

Saxophonist “Sweet” Sue Terry

Justice for Jazz Artists will be kicking off the spring campaign this coming Thursday, April 11th with a two-part march and rally in Manhattan.

The two-part Jazz Built This! march will call attention to the negligence of owners of expensive NYC jazz clubs, who have become wealthy thanks to the labor of the skilled musicians who play in their establishments but deny these artists basic protections like minimum pay standards or benefits that might keep the musicians from suffering in poverty later in their lives.

The march will feature Justice for Jazz Artists’ signature live band!

All are encouraged to show up and show their support for justice!

March #1

Time: 5:45 PM
Location: Meet at the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (5th Ave. at 82nd Street)

We will march to a property connected to one of the major clubs.

March #2

Time: 8:45 PM
Location: Meet at the arch at Washington Square Park

We will march to one of the major NYC jazz clubs.

JIMMY OWENS
“THE BRONX SUITE”

Sat., Apr. 6, 2013
Fordham University Bronx Campus-
McGinley Student Center
8:00 PM

FREE ADMISSION

Jimmy Owens – trumpet, flugelhorn
Wycliffe Gordon – trombone
Patience Higgins – tenor saxophone
Michael Howell – guitar
Danny Mixon – piano
Kenny Davis – bass
Winard Harper – drums

Debut of a new composition by JIMMY OWENS entitled “THE BRONX SUITE”
Fordham University Bronx Campus—- 441 East Fordham Road Bronx, New York 10458
McGinley Student Center 209 8:00 PM (718) 817 -4339

This performance is in part a celebration of the Bronx African American History Project 10th Anniversary. It also celebrates the fact that Jimmy Owens is the only National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master born and raised in the Bronx.

The Blue Note Jazz Club persists in their refusal to return our phone calls. Please show your support for suffering jazz artists by letting them know you support us!

We ask you—and our nearly 50,000 FB fans—to post messages of support on the Blue Note’s Facebook page (Blue Note Jazz Club, NY), and to write a direct email to owners Danny and Steve Bensusan, telling them that musicians deserve fair treatment! Here’s how:

1. Send an email to the Bensusans directly from this link: Letter to Blue Note
2. Send a personal email to club@bluenote.net
3. Write a letter to: Danny and Steve Bensusan, The Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd Street, New York, NY 10012

Suggested email/letter:

Dear Danny and Steve Bensusan,

I urge you to honor the artistry of the jazz musicians who play at your club and meet with them and their union to discuss implementing a fair pay scale, making good on promised pension contributions, protecting recording rights for musicians and addressing other issues of fairness.

By agreeing to meet on these issues, the Blue Note will demonstrate its respect for the musicians who for years have contributed to the prosperity enjoyed by you and all those with a vested interest in the continued success of the Blue Note.

Yours truly,

[Your Signature]

Cover art from Gaudencio Thiago de Mello’s “The Right Move”

Gaudencio Thiago de Mello, the highly respected Brazilian composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist, has publicly endorsed J4JA.

Thiago de Mello, who was born in 1933 in the Brazilian city of Barreirinhas, and has lived in the New York area since 1966. The composer migrated here as a refugee from the military dictatorship that took hold of the Brazilian government in March 1964 . He has been a tireless advocate for human rights ever since.

He is the brother of the celebrated Amazonian poet, Amadeu Thiago de Mello.

Before becoming a musician, Gaudencio was assistant coach of the Botafogo Football Club of Rio de Janeiro. In 1970 Thiago de Mello founded the Guitar Society of the United Nations (UN Guitar Society), directing it until 1980. He founded and directed, also, the jazz band at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York, where he taught for 29 years.

In 1991, he recorded ten songs for the label Concord Jazz Picante, on his album “Chants for the Chief” (“Cantos por Morubixaba”). The American guitarist Sharon Isbin would later cite “Chants For The Chief” as one of the greatest works ever written for guitar, and she eventually came to record some of Thiago de Mello’s compositions on her own work “Journey To The New World,” which was winner of a 2009 Grammy Award.

Thiago, as he is known, is also the creator and player of Organic Percussion Instruments, which are built of natural woods and even Amazon turtle shells, materials with which the composer has had contact since his early childhood in the Amazon.

Gaudencio Thiago de Mello continues to lead his own band, Amazon, with which he recorded the albums “Sweet Brazil,” “The Right Moves,” “The Night the Moon Cried,” “Love Without End,” “The Essential Thiago de Mello” and “Amazon.”

We are delighted to have Gaudencio Thiago de Mello on our list of J4JA Public Endorsers!

View Thiago de Mello’s October 16, 2009 Merkin Hall performance with Quintet of the Americas Here

The 2013 nominees for the Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards are out, and J4JA supporters are heavily represented! The Jazz Journalists Association is dedicated to “promoting the best use of media of all kinds-new and old, online and off–to tell the story of jazz.” The awards honor jazz excellence in all its forms.

We would like to congratulate all of our campaign’s supporters who were nominated this year! Bravo! Winners in musical categories will be announced on May 1 at www.jjajazzawards.org.

Lifetime Achievement in Jazz – Randy Weston

Small Ensemble – Jason Moran and Bandwagon; Joe Lovano Us Five

Trombonist of the Year – Wycliffe Gordon

Multi-Reeds Player of the Year – James Carter

Tenor Saxophonist of the Year – Joe Lovano

Soprano Saxophonist of the Year – Dave Liebman

Pianist of the Year – Jason Moran

Bassist of the Year – Ron Carter

Violinist of the Year – Regina Carter

Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism – Stanley Crouch

Best Book About Jazz of the Year – What It Is: The Life of a Jazz Artist, by Dave Liebman and Dr. Lewis Porter

You can see the full list of nominees at the JJA Awards web site.
 

Michael Abene, a composer, arranger, keyboardist, and producer who has earned numerous awards and accolades including several Grammy nominations and wins, has publicly endorsed Justice for Jazz Artists. His Grammy wins have been for The Duke Ellington Orchestra’s Digital Duke, The GRP All-Star Big Band’s All Blues and, most recently, Patti Austin’s Avant Gershwin.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Mike was the product of a large, musical family. Abene has worked with a wide ranging group of artists with roots in many musical genres who all share close ties with jazz. In the big band world, he worked as a young man with the legendary Maynard Ferguson, also with the UMO Jazz Orchestra (Helsinki), the BBC Band and the RTV Slovenian Big Band. He has worked with vocalists ranging from Joe Williams, Chris Connor, Grady Tate and Esther Phillips to Take 6, New York Voices, Nnenna Freelon, Ann Hampton Callaway and Jon Lucien.

We are thrilled to add him to our growing list of prominent musician endorsers!

This article has been culled from on a piece that appeared in the January 2009 edition of Jazzmonthly.com.

Justice for Jazz Artists supporter and legendary jazz writer Nat Hentoff will be the subject of an upcoming documentary, entitled The Pleasures of Being Out of Step.

The film will serve not only as a profile of Mr. Hentoff as a writer and originator of a unique alternative journalism, but also as an important and stalwart advocate for freedom of expression, one of our most important and defining liberties.

Mr. Hentoff is a syndicated columnist for United Media and has held columnist positions at all manner of publications, including: Down Beat, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, Legal Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Progressive, Editor & Publisher and Free Inquiry. He was also a staff writer for The New Yorker. His contributions to jazz writing also extend to his co-founding of The Jazz Review

Visit the film’s site to learn more about the film and find out where and when you can see it, and “Like” the film on Facebook!

J4JA is proud to announce two new public campaign endorsers, avant garde trumpeter Roy Campbell and the bop pianist Harold Mabern. Both musicians feel strongly about the need for advocacy in the jazz field and support our efforts in the clubs. Thanks Harold and Roy!