Voting for St. Louis Music Awards now open

Voting is now open for the new St. Louis Music Awards sponsored by KDHX and Playback STL. There are more than 30 categories in which to cast your vote for nominees submitted by the sponsors' listeners and readers. However, the categories appear to have been devised by someone with an imperfect understanding of jazz, since the only two options are "traditional" and "experimental."

Instead of applying the former term as it is usually understood - pertaining to musicians playing in the pre-war New Orleans style (the commercialized version of which is referred to as "Dixieland") - it would appear from the list of nominees that the organizers have confused it with "mainstream" or "modern," the terms that most jazz fans would apply to the likes of nominees Willie Akins, Reggie Thomas, Trio Tres Bien, and the Bosman Twins. I don't know much about the Brian Sullivan Quartet, other than that they only seem to gig about once every six weeks or so at Mangia Italiano, but they're in this category, too.

The categories seem even more peculiar when we look at the "Experimental Jazz" nominees, which include Dave Black and Ptah Williams, who both work most often in straight-ahead contexts. Other nominees include the Dave Stone Trio, who play lots of standards on their weekly gig at Mangia; Jeff Lash, who seems to have dropped off the scene almost entirely since giving up his regular weekly gig last year, and Hamiet Bluiett, the only bonafide, full-time experimental musician on the list, who, unfortunately, has his name spelled wrong on the official ballot.

Even if their jazz categories are pretty much nonsensical, I suppose the organizers deserve some credit just for trying, and it is a chance for some deserving local musicians to get some public recognition. You can cast your vote by going here and following the instructions. The awards ceremony, which includes no jazz players on its list of scheduled performers, will be held May 2 ar Mississippi Nights.