NPR affiliate radio station Jazz 91.9 WCLK and the Jazz Music Awards: Celebrating the Spirit of Jazz today announce its partnership with International Jazz Day to celebrate its 2022 Global Concert, a Call for Global Peace and Unity at the United Nations Headquarters, staged in the UN General Assembly Hall in New York City. Presented by UNESCO and the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, the concert will be webcast worldwide at 5:00 p.m. EDT/2:00 p.m. PDT/11:00 p.m. CET on Saturday, April 30 at jazzmusicawards.com.
Hosted by Herbie Hancock, co-chair of International Jazz Day, the free global concert event will feature an all-star lineup including Marcus Miller, Gregory Porter, David Sanborn, Hiromi, Ravi Coltrane, José James, Terri Lyne Carrington, Linda Oh, Shemekia Copeland, Lizz Wright, Pedrito Martinez (Cuba), Youn Sun Nah (Republic of Korea), Alune Wade (Senegal), Joey Alexander (Indonesia), Helio Alves (Brazil), Laurent de Wilde (France), Ray Lema (Democratic Republic of Congo), and Tarek Yamani (Lebanon), Erena Terakubo (Japan), harmonicist Grégoire Maret (Switzerland), harpist Edmar Castaneda (Colombia), clarinetist Kinan Azmeh (Syria), drummer Brian Blade, bassist James Genus, guitarist Mark Whitfield, trumpeters Randy Brecker and Jeremy Pelt, among others.
“Since the inception of International Jazz Day, WCLK has supported Jazz Day and Jazz Appreciation Month annually,” says Wendy F. Williams, General Manager of WCLK, who has been at the helm of the jazz station for 27 years of its 48-year history. “We have always supported Jazz Day with special programming and interviews throughout the month. In addition to the station’s support this year, we decided for the first time to not only stream the concert event but also the educational programs and events made available to us. Much like our mission for the Jazz Music Awards, Jazz Day celebrates many international jazz forms. But more importantly, during this challenging time in our history, we stand with Herbie Hancock, UNESCO, and the global jazz community and its call for peace and unity.”
In October 2021, Williams announced the inaugural Jazz Music Awards ceremony, scheduled for Saturday, October 22, 2022, at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in metro Atlanta, GA. The Jazz Music Awards will recognize a broad spectrum of creators within the national and international jazz world, from mainstream and contemporary musicians, vocalists, and big bands, to composers, individual songs, and full-length albums.
Leading up to the 2022 All-Star Global Concert, jazzmusicawards.com will join jazzday.com, unesco.org, and the official International Jazz Day YouTube and Facebook outlets in showcasing a series of free, online education programs. World-renowned jazz artists including multiple Grammy Award winners Arturo O’Farrill and Terri Lyne Carrington, as well as Oran Etkin, Danny Grissett, Dan Tepfer, and others will lead master classes and presentations. A complete listing and schedule of education programs will be available at jazzday.com/education. The 2022 education programs are presented in collaboration with Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, and the JAM Music Lab University (Vienna), among other organizations.
Before the global event on #JazzDay at 3:00 p.m. EDT, UNESCO will celebrate the musical talent of women across the continent of Africa with the second edition of its JazzWomenAfrica concert series. Organized in collaboration with the cultural agency ANYA Music (Morocco), JazzWomenAfrica helps counter the under-representation and insufficient recognition of women in the music industry. There will be a panel discussion with women artists and music producers on April 29th at 11:00 a.m. EDT.
The worldwide program for International Jazz Day 2022 also includes an extraordinary array of programming in more than 180 countries, with concerts and performance-based initiatives complemented by diverse social outreach and educational activities. In Central Africa, the organizers, and partners behind the Biennale of Luanda/Pan-African Forum for the Culture of Peace will present an extensive series of virtual roundtables, concerts, exhibits, and other events highlighting the contribution of jazz in promoting peace, uniting people, and fostering cooperation around the world. In the Republic of Korea, the Korean Jazz Association, and other partners planned six days of concerts themed around freedom.
To learn about the thousands of other events planned in all 50 states of the U.S. and countries across the world, visit jazzday.com/events.
