Winners All

Jazz journalists live to celebrate jazz. Those of us who devote a significant portion of our professional energies listening to the music and its stars, feel compelled to share our enthusiasm witih those who aren't abnormally obsessed with jazz.

Celebration is the reason the Jazz Journalists Association presents its 10th annual Jazz Awards at B.B. King's Blues Club and Grill on June 19 (an event which, full disclosure, I produce as president of the JJA). There will be performances by saxophonist Dewey Redman's ensemble, pianist-arranger Sy Johnson's quartet, trumpeter Christian Scott, pianist Ezra Weiss's sextet and vocalist TC III. About 500 jazz industry and community movers 'n' shakers attend the Awards to toast, sup and schmooze and the event also serves as a fundraiser for the JJA's educational and enhancement programs at jazz fests, information sessions and networking events. But the Jazz Awards really exist to hail the best jazz and jazz journalism of the year, and make noise about this indubitably great, but dubiously commercial, music.

How can jazz (as a genre) be great, and yet its commerciality be slight? Is it that the jazz audience has aged, and oldsters don't spend moolah on music? Is the music passé by the very nature of its essential DNA-swing, blues, vocal and instrumental virtuosity, substantive improvisation? Is jazz elitist in an age of mediocrity? Maybe giving Awards is like bidding a fond farewell to an art form shambling offstage.

No, that can't be. Here's why:

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Jazz worldwide is thriving, whether CDs are sold or not. The vocabulary and imagery of jazz have been embraced perhaps even more widely than the music itself. Check out jazz referents in advertising and marketing campaigns.

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Music schools-not just in New York, not just in the States-are flooded with students of jazz.

? Jazz fests are everywhere-NYC and Newport of course, but also Tanglewood, Detroit, Leeds, Java. Hopeful little clubs have sprouted up in formerly residential neighborhoods, at least in Brooklyn.

Compared to mass-market entertainments, jazz may be a narrow niche, but like the really significant niches, it has more power, underlies and enhances more experience and endures longer than much of what's huge today, camp tomorrow. Ipso facto, alakazam: Those of us who believe these truths to be self-evident have a responsibility to tell the rest of society and suggest just who and what to listen to for more fun from life.

About the inevitable consideration of Awards winners producing Awards losers: The Jazz Awards-like the Oscars, Emmies and Grammies-aren't a zero-sum game. There is honor in being a finalist, and the excellence of winners (who will be announced on WBGO-FM and on the JJA's web site, Jazzhouse.org) represents the excellence of all nominees in each of 44 categories.

For jazz journalists, jazz is a joy on its own terms. Being involved simply by listening to it is reward enough. It's nice to give or get Awards, and very cool just to be at the party.