Hm, is this legit or desperate?

[scielle]

Hm, I'm personally not too keen on the "smooth jazz" label, but whatever works, I guess.
BTW, does anyone know what the deal is with this year's National Jazz Awards? Last year's event was in February, but I've heard no news about the 2005 version. Anyone in the know?

Nominations for the 1st Annual Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards: Diana Krall, Marc Jordan, Jesse Cook...

Canadian Smooth Jazz musicians finally have an awards body to recognize their work - The Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards. The event was created by Doug and Mary Kirk, owners of The Wave in Hamilton and Smooth Jazz Now creator John Beaudin.

The awards will be voted on by the fans via www.canadiansmoothjazzawards.com .Voting will begin shortly. The nominees are featured here.

Top nominees for the inaugural ceremony include Diana Krall, Eddie Bullen, Brian Hughes, Marc Jordan and Alexander Zonjic all with three.

Diana Krall is mentioned in the female vocalist category as well as Album Of The Year for "The Girl In The Other Room" and Best Original Composition for "Narrow Daylight" co written by her husband Elvis Costello.

Alexander Zonjic was nominated in the most diverse categories, the flutist who also happens to host the morning show at V98.7 in Detroit has his name in for Broadcaster Of The Year, wind instrumentalist and his "Seldom Blues" CD is up for Album Of The Year.

The actual awards ceremony will be held on Sunday April 10th, 2005 at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts. More details will be available shortly.

Confirmed to perform are guitarist Brian Hughes, vocalist Carol Welsman who was a double nominee and Warren Hill who is up for Saxophonist Of The Year.

The 1st Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards will also pay tribute to on of the biggest trailblazers in the genre - George Benson. The guitar legend will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement prize appropriately titled The Benson Award.

Each year a different trendsetter in the world of Smooth Jazz will receive The Benson. International Smooth Jazz artists have also been recognized, Marc Antoine, Anita Baker, Euge Groove, Dave Koz and Peter White are the nominees. Alexander Zonjic will host the show.

[Coda]

Hi, Scielle:

I don't know much about this award show, but I will say that Alexander Zonjic is a jazz icon in the metro Detroit area.

About the "smooth jazz" label, I think I recall Diana saying in an article that she didn't care what they called her music -- she was just happy if her music was getting played.

By the way, that "smooth jazz" moniker makes me wonder what "rough jazz" might mean!

[scielle]

Well, looks like more congratulations are in order:

TORONTO - Diana Krall and George Benson were among those celebrated this weekend at an inaugural smooth jazz awards gala.

The Nanaimo, B.C.-born Krall was a three-time winner at the inaugural Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards Sunday night. The singer won trophies for best album (The Girl in the Other Room), best female vocalist and songwriter of the year (Narrow Daylight), which she shared with her husband Elvis Costello for writing the tune. She also won a Juno Award earlier this month for best jazz vocal album.

Other winners included singer Marc Jordan, guitarist Rik Emmett and the Clayton-Scott Group.

Organizers presented the George Benson Lifetime Achievement Award to its namesake, the Grammy-winning American singer and guitarist. In the future, the honour will be presented "to musical pioneers in the smooth jazz format."

Hosted by jazz flutist Alexander Zonjic – who was also nominated for three awards – the ceremony took place in Oakville, located 35 km southwest of Toronto. The awards, spearheaded by Hamilton radio station Wave FM and the website smoothjazznow.com, will be an annual event, with winners chosen by the public via online voting.

Smooth jazz is considered a sub-genre of jazz that denotes a fusion with pop or R&B music.

[Bud]

Sorry, but I don't care for Diana being pulled into the "smooth jazz" genre, a marketing concoction. This sort of designation only makes it harder for her to shake the misguided "jazz-lite" perception...

[scielle]

Couldn't agree more.
Seems to me this entire show was engineered to promote one of those elevator-music stations. (Hence the subject line).

[Coda]

Anyone who attends a Diana Krall concert can tell that her talent extends beyond any "smooth jazz" labels. I like a variety of music...I'm happy that a station plays Diana's music, even if it's a "smooth jazz" station. But sometimes it's difficult for me to listen to so much "smooth jazz saxophone stuff" to get to the stuff I like. I tend to listen more to CDs in the car, or classic rock, which my oldest son likes.

[TheViolinSkirt]

scielle, if you want to know about the National Jazz Awards maybe you could shoot Michelle an email. Maybe she knows more.

[scielle]

National Jazz Awards are being held June 21st in Toronto. Nominations will be released shortly.
You can check out the list of scheduled performers here:
http://nationaljazzawards.com/

[scielle]

You can vote at this link: http://nationaljazzawards.com/vote/vote1.php
Diana is in the International Musician category, plus lots of other wonderful peeps make a welcome appearance. (I'm personally very happy for Laila Biali in the Composer of the Year category )