April is Jazz Appreciation Month

It's time once again for Jazz Appreciation Month, the annual celebration of jazz music sponsored every April by the Smithsonian Institution.

Now in its 19th year, Jazz Appreciation Month (or JAM) was created "to draw greater public attention to the extraordinary heritage and history of jazz and its importance as an American cultural heritage. In addition, JAM is intended to stimulate the current jazz scene and encourage people of all ages to participate in jazz—to study the music, attend concerts, listen to jazz on radio and recordings, read books about jazz, and support institutional jazz programs."

This year, JAM "celebrates the dynamic impact of the often-overlooked contributions that women have made to jazz, both on and off the stage...highlighting a multitude of women artists on student-made posters from the Duke Ellington High School for the Arts" including Mary Lou Williams, the Sweethearts of Rhythm, Leigh Pilzer, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others.

The winning poster features pianist, band leader, and composer Toshiko Akiyoshi. Born in Manchuria, Akiyoshi moved to the United States in 1956 to study at Berklee School of Music in Boston. In 1973, she and her husband, saxophonist/flutist Lew Tabackin, formed the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra. Named an NEA Jazz Master in 2007, Akiyoshi has received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in DownBeat magazine's annual Readers' Poll.

At the end of the month, jazz fans worldwide also will celebrate the ninth annual International Jazz Day on Thursday, April 30. Sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), International Jazz Day is designed to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe.

Capetown, South Africa had been scheduled to be the "global host city" for 2020, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the all-star concert there and other in-person activities planned for the day have been canceled. However, according to the website, "International Jazz Day will nevertheless be celebrated on 30 April mainly online. Resources, information and ideas on how to mark International Jazz Day can be found on jazzday.com, where jazz lovers and practitioners are invited to post their videos and audio recordings."

If you'd like to plan your own festivities, the Smithsonian offers a list of "ways to celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month," and has produced a poster (pictured) depicting Akiyoshi.

Created by Wynter Jackson, a senior visual arts student at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC, the 2020 posters were distributed for free to schools, libraries, music and jazz educators, music merchants and manufacturers, radio stations, arts presenters, and U.S. embassies worldwide, and are available to the general public as a downloadable PDF. You also can see and download commemorative posters from the previous 19 years of JAM here.