2018 NZ Jazz Award Finalists Announced

The finalists for the Recorded Music NZ Best Jazz Artist and APRA Best Jazz Composition have been announced. 

Does anyone know why change Jazz Album of the Year is now Best Jazz Artist? To me they are different things and the award is still based on the album. Anyway....

It's great to see a number of friends in the running. Of the albums, Fearless Music, is the only one I haven't heard, but Unwind has had plenty of airtime since I picked it up last year (and I woke up at 3am this morning with "View of the Moon" floating through my minds ear) and I'm listening to West of the Sun as I write this post. I've been listening to it sporadically since picking it up at the start of the year - Really enjoyable and recommended (I'll get around to blogging about it eventually). I'm a little surprised that Jim Langabeer's Secret Islands didn't make the final three. The composition award is a different matter – I'm not familiar with any of them! However, the works by Callum and Jake were recorded by Radio New Zealand and you can listen to the The Jac & Black String there (part of my plan today). Anita's tune is on her soon to be released album, Eat You Greens – her first as a leader (I think) and I'm looking forward to hearing it. 

Best Jazz Artist 

Lucien Johnson: West of the Sun
Hayden Chisholm/Norman Meehan/Paul Dyne: Unwind
Umar Zakaria: Fearless Music

APRA Best Jazz Composition 
Callum Allardice: "A Gathering"
Anita Schwabe: "Springtide"
Jake Baxendale: "Beyond the Palace"

More details can be found on the APRA/AMCOS website.

New Zealand Jazz Album of the Year

I recently updated the blog to include a couple of pages regarding New Zealand Jazz (see navigation bar towards the top left of the page). The first an index of my New Zealand jazz posts - the NZ Music Month posts, the NZ Jazz series I started a couple of months ago, and a few others from the blog.

The second page lists the New Zealand Jazz Album of the Year winners and finalists, and the more recent APRA Best Jazz Composition winners and finalists. I wasn't able to find all of the winners in a single list, and I thought it could be useful to have them in one place.

It's a work in progress, but things are pretty well covered going back to 1981. I only have the winners for 1981 and 1982 (and I'm not totally confident '81 is correct). I have not been able to find anything for 1989-1991 and I'm thinking that there was no jazz award during those years. Also, I find results listing the same winners for 2010 and 2011. So I could be missing a years' results or there were no awards for one of those years (or it was a combined 2010/11 award?).

I'll try and keep the pages updated and I'm always open to suggestions, corrections and additions, so please drop me line if you have any information to share.