Thursday, July 24, 2008

Jazz Journalists Association

About the JJA

The Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) is an international group writers, editors, photographers, broadcasters, filmmakers, educators and media professionals who institute collegial and educational programs for the appreciation, documentation and promulgation of jazz. The JJA has more than 450 members, mostly in the U.S. and Canada, but also in Australia, Europe, Great Britain, Japan, Mexico, Moscow, South Africa and South America.
The goals of the Jazz Journalists Association are to promote high standards and respect for our works, to create a professional network, and to increase general interest in jazz.
First gathering in Chicago in 1986, the JJA has held annual meetings, often timed to major festivals and jazz conventions in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, Montreal, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans. Since 1997, the JJA has presented Jazz Awards to notable musicians and journalists each June in New York City. In January 2001, the JJA hosted workshops and panel discussions at the International Association of Jazz Educators convention (NYC), following similar programs and symposiums in San Francisco, Monterey, Chicago, and Newport, Rhode Island.
Local and national JJA bodies alike instigate activities -- so cronies can get together to just to talk records and gripe unite provoked colleagues may unite to negotiate precedent-setting payments for electronic copyrights, as we did with help from the National Writers Union. The NWU also invites JJA members who need health insurance to buy it through our "associate members" program.
The JJA's web site Jazzhouse (www.jazzhouse.org) features members activities and association activities. Jazz Notes, the JJA's quarterly newsletter, serve as clearing houses of ideas, news and views. The JJA has published compilations of members' self-selected best work and maintains an up-to-date members' database, available to member's only.
JJA members debate hot jazz issues in public forums, team with musicians to teach jazz in schools, consult arts agencies and funders, mentor budding journalistic talents, hail new artists and labor to document jazz as it happens. Members include authors of jazz books, widely-published and exhibited photographers, internationally recognized broadcasters and pioneers of jazz in cyberspace.
In the course of its initiatives, the JJA has enjoyed the support of ASCAP and BMI, Arkadia Jazz, Berklee College of Music, Blue Note Records, Columbia Legacy, DL Media, George Wein's Festival Productions, Hot House magazine, Jazz@Lincoln Center, the Jazz Gallery, the Jazz Institute of Chicago, the Knitting Factory, Monterey Jazz Festival, New England Conservatory, the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music program, Third Floor Media, Tower Records, Universal Music Group, Oxford University Press, SFJazz, Virgin Megastore and many other organizations. The JJA seeks new members pursuing the profession and support members who do not vote but receive all other benefits. The JJA also welcomes contact with other associations of independent artists, critics, educators and/or journalists.

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