May 12, 2021

After Battling the Pandemic, the Village Vanguard Wins Livestream Producer of 2021

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The Jazz Journalists Association has named the Village Vanguard the livestream producer of the year, a major rebound for a club that’s been hammered by the pandemic but adapted with unparalleled resourcefulness in weekly livestreams by legends of jazz, from David Murray to Andrew Cyrille, George Cables, Immanuel Wilkins, and Ron Carter.

Carter, the most-recorded bassist in history, won the lifetime achievement award, beating out nominees Pharoah Sanders, Roscoe Mitchell, and Charles Lloyd. No question Carter deserves recognition, but someone tell me how on earth Sanders didn’t win. Sanders all day: “I think he’s probably the best tenor player in the world,” Ornette Coleman told me in 2006. (I’m also a JJA member, for disclosure, but this isn’t even a controversial take. Sanders released Promises this year; can’t multiple lifetime achievement awards be given during the pandemic?)

Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington rightly won musician of the year; Maria Schneider pulled in four awards; Ambrose Akinmusire took the trumpet title; Branford Marsalis scored for soprano saxophone; Anat Cohen for clarinet; and Linda May Han Oh for bass. The full list of winners is an exceptional roll call.

Bonus Recharge: Tyshawn Sorey is headlining the Vanguard this weekend, and this Saturday is the second-ever livestream from the Van Gelder Studio, with organist Joey DeFrancesco on the same Hammond that Jimmy Smith recorded on. DeFrancesco joins drummer Billy Hart, saxophonist Houston Person, and guitarist Peter Bernstein. Tickets here. To gear up, sample the Van Gelder archives: the rejuvenating “Willow Weep for Me” by Stanley Turrentine and Gene Harris. Recharge tips at recharge@motherjones.com.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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