Everywhere you look right now, it’s jury this, jury that. A dozen jurors in New York are hearing tabloid testimony in a post-presidential criminal trial, which would be a joke if we hadn’t long ago learned otherwise. A separate jury in Arizona just indicted a buncha dopes for related election interference. (Still not a joke, however laughable.) It’s gotten to the point where the WAMU / NPR show 1A is running a piece titled The Psychology Of Jury Selection, because so much hinges on the verdict of these carefully vetted citizens sworn to decide upon the law and the evidence, so help them.
Last Thursday, as it happens, I had a summons to report to a Court of Common Pleas for jury selection in my Pennsylvania county. With apologies, I’d sent a note to the selection board explaining an ill-timed conflict: on the very same day, I was due onstage in Cologne, Germany, to present several awards as chairperson of the jury at the fourth annual Deutscher Jazzpreis — aka the German Jazz Prize. I was missing one form of jury service for another; what are the odds? In any event, I’m here to tell you a bit about what went down at the awards, and how it struck me.
This was my second year on the German Jazz Prize jury, but my first time as chair. (According to the award statutes, no one can serve on more than two editions, so my official affiliation with the event ends here.) As was the case last year, I found the jury deliberations — among an international coalition of leading artists and industry types, over two five-hour videoconference sessions — to be bracingly focused, an exercise in deep aesthetic engagement. Arguing about music and its merits, especially with those who listen with different evaluative criteria, is always instructive. I can’t divulge any details, but it’s absolutely true that a persuasive argument from a single impassioned juror can make all the difference. A targeted objection can, too.
After my 2023 jury service, I posted here at The Gig about the experience, and how I came to see it as a form of criticism — with the key distinction of a quorum. That’s still the way I feel, and I’ll go a step further: serving on an arts jury at this professional level is an oblique but exquisite workout for any critic. This year, factoring in my responsibilities as chair, it was also a stress test in the pragmatic art of diplomacy.
What do I mean by that? Let’s drop in on the German Jazz Prize ceremony last Thursday evening, which you can watch in its entirety, via a well-produced webcast.
Cue it up to 1:47:30, and you’ll see me announce the winner of Artist of the Year: Bendik Giske, an inventive, viscerally intense Norwegian saxophonist based in Berlin. Taking the stage, Giske speaks first in German, and then in English, addressing the capacity audience at E-Werk Cologne. “We all know that music — especially jazz, improvisation — doesn’t come out of a vacuum at all,” he says. “And we must ensure that dissenting voice are heard — that we don’t create an environment where expressing one’s ideas comes at the risk of professional and social exclusion. Because to foster creative power and diversity, we must be able to speak up in the face of violence. So free the hostages, free Gaza. Thank you very much to the jury.”
This was a passing moment in the ceremony, but it felt electric. The war on Gaza is a bitterly divisive topic, as was readily apparent long before our current cycle of protest and crackdown on American college campuses. Serving on the prize jury, I got a taste of the particular tensions around this discourse in Germany — tensions that art critic Jason Farago examined in a recent notebook for the NY Times. “Prizes have been rescinded,” he wrote from Berlin. “Conferences called off. Plays taken off the boards. Government cultural officials have suggested tying funding to what artists and institutions say about the conflict, and media — both traditional and social — bubble with public denunciations of this writer, that artist, this D.J., that dancer.”
Again, discretion prevents me from revealing specifics, but I can attest that a serious discussion of free speech and political expression found its way into our jury meetings. There was earnest and principled debate, as we ran up against the divergent priorities of a state-funded arts award and a tradition of liberation music. In the end, I’ll say with confidence that there was no censorship — after all, Ensemble of the Year International went to Irreversible Entanglements, a band that wears its anti-colonial views on its sleeve, just as 2023 Artist of the Year International went to its resident poet and frontperson, Moor Mother — but the note of cautious balance in Giske’s remarks should give a sense of how sensitive the climate has become. He appears to share my own view, which shouldn’t be controversial, though I’m sure you could call it naïve: that freedom is desirable, and violence enacted on innocents is intolerable.
Berlin-based vocalist Mirna Bogdanović, who won Album of the Year for her supremely assured sophomore effort Awake, could speak to that point personally: the Siege of Sarajevo forced her family to flee Bosnia when she was two years old. Presenting the award to Bogdanović was especially meaningful because this album, more than any other I reviewed during my German Jazz Prize jury service, proved a real discovery. Somehow I had never heard her music before. Listen to a beguiling track like “Clocks,” with a band led by Swedish pianist Povel Widerstrand, and you’ll understand why I’m glad she’s now on my radar — and on the larger cultural map.
As you’ve probably gathered, the Deutscher Jazzpreis maintains separate categories for artists residing in Germany and those abroad. The latter included some familiar American names, including Meshell Ndegeocello, whose Omnichord Real Book won Album of the Year International, and Immanuel Wilkins, whose quartet justly took Live Act of the Year International (against stiff competition, I should add: the Tyshawn Sorey Trio, Samara Joy, and Cécile McLorin Salvant). Drummer-composer Lesley Mok won Debut Album of the Year International for The Living Collection, a thoughtful, bristly album that didn’t receive enough shine here in the States.
And piano sage Kenny Barron won Artist of the Year International, partly on the basis of his exquisite solo album The Source, whose wonders he redrew in miniature during the prize ceremony. He bookended his three-song performance with original songs: first “Lullaby” and later “Nightfall,” both master classes in heart and lyricism. In between came “Shuffle Boil,” one of many Thelonious Monk tunes that Barron plays as if to the manner born. During one of his shrewdly imaginative choruses, I could hear the members of the Omer Klein Trio, which had previously played its own fine mini-set, muttering and murmuring notes of appreciative awe at a table nearby.
Also seated near me was alto saxophonist Angelika Niescier, who won the award for Woodwinds, and delivered a searching duo performance with pianist Alexander Hawkins, as on their 2021 album Soul in Plain Sight. Niescier was honored on the basis of more recent activity, including the excellent Beyond Dragons, an adventurous trio affair with two Americans, drummer Savannah Harris and cellist Tomeka Reid.
At this point I feel the need to state the obvious: there is no American equivalent to the German Jazz Prize, which honors the music as a field in flux. Here in the States, we tend to bestow honors either to living legends (“masters,” as it were) or brilliant conceptualists (“geniuses”), with not much room left for an artist still making their way. I was touched when the Mongolian pianist-composer Shuteen Erdenebaatar, whose Quartet won Ensemble of the Year, alluded in her acceptance speech to “this most exciting time in my life.” For her, the award — and its attendant €1,200 — will make a material difference in the course of a burgeoning career.
Having said that, it was no less stirring to see Alexander von Schlippenbach, a lion in winter, accept awards for both Lifetime Achievement and Piano / Keyboard Instruments, with his life partner and fellow pianist Aki Takase by his side. And I was honored to present a Special Jury Prize to the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY — not only as a posthumous nod to Karl Berger, but also as an acknowledgment of the vital work that the CMS, now directed by Billy Martin, still carries forward.
I’ll stop there with the recap, because there are so many deserving winners. You can peruse the entire list at the Deutsche Jazzpreis website, and I recommend you do.
My time in Cologne was agonizingly brief — I landed on Thursday, the day of the awards, and flew back early Saturday morning. Still, I managed to do some exploring, and hang a bit with new acquaintances like Götz Bühler, a jazz media veteran who recently became artistic advisor at the jazzahead! conference in Bremen. I also had the pleasure of meeting Janning Trumann, a trombonist who won the award for Brass Instruments — and also serves as artistic director of Cologne Jazzweek. (This year’s edition runs Aug. 31 to Sept. 7, and looks pretty amazing.)
I had a couple of illuminating conversations with Reiner Michalke, an eminence in German improvised music — formerly the artistic director of the Moers Festival, and now the force behind the Monheim Triennale, which I hope to attend soon. Michalke is also a founder and the former director of the Stadtgarten, arguably Cologne’s leading jazz club, and almost certainly its most historically significant. My timing was off as far as catching music there — Joel Ross was booked the night before the awards, and Linda May Han Oh played the night after I left — but I did get a tour of the venue (two venues, really) from Kornelia Vossebein, its artistic manager.
I also had a lively interview with Karsten Mützelfeldt, a celebrated music journalist and broadcaster. We sat in a Stadtgarten green room to talk about jazz criticism and other shared preoccupations. (This was for an hourlong profile that I’m told will air later this year on Deutschlandfunk Radio and the WDR.)
Also while in Cologne, I managed to hit a couple of record shops — on the eve of Record Store Day, no less. At Drake Records on the Ritterstraße, I couldn’t resist the urge to pick up a copy of an album I’ve only ever had on compact disc.
There’s something weirdly satisfying about the likelihood that this LP was only ever played somewhere in Germany over the last 46 years, and now it lives with me. (Yes, Köln Concert would have been the more appropriate grab. The store didn’t have it, and I already own two copies.) I’ll always think of Cologne when I play this.
Loose Threads
This was perhaps implied in my commentary, but I’d like to state it clearly: the team behind the Deutscher Jazzpreis did a fantastic job organizing and running the event, as well as administering the awards. Special shout to Greta Kallsen and Hannes Möller, who did so much to keep everything humming.
I mentioned Kenny Barron earlier. After we were both back Stateside, I gave him a call to talk about the award, his new album, and his formative years. This was for WRTI, which explains the Philly focus. A great conversation, in any case.
One of the first things that greeted me on my return was news of the death of Michael Cuscuna. I quickly assigned an obituary to Michael J. West, who did a lovely job for WRTI. There’s now also a good NYT obit by Gio Russonello.
While we’re on the subject of prizes, the Doris Duke Artist Awards were announced earlier this week, and among the recipients are bassist and vocalist esperanza spalding and alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón. Congrats to both!
And while we’re still talking juries, I finally had a chance last weekend to watch Justine Triet’s Oscar-winning courtroom drama / legal procedural / marital portrait Anatomy of a Fall. What a coolly intoxicating film. Recommended.
If you’re read this far, I have to thank you for your commitment. You should know that next Tuesday is International Jazz Day, and while I will not be in Tangier, Morocco for the All-Star Global Concert, I will be watching the livestream. Why not make it a party? Join me in the Chat, starting shortly before 6 p.m. EST.
Thanks again for reading The Gig, especially if you’re among those who support this newsletter as a paid subscriber. Have a great weekend!
Congrats to Nate for his own present honor — being nominated for a Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism Award by the Jazz Journalists Assoc. — see all the nominees for the 29th annual JJA awards ( which have previously lauded Nate for his writing alone) at www.JJAJazzAwards.org.
thanks for another great read