via 2024 GRAMMYs

We are thrilled to announce that five TKA artists have received 6 awards for The 66th Annual Grammy Awards. These artists include Béla Fleck (x2), Meshell Ndegeocello, Bobby Rush, and Terence Blanchard.

Congratulations to every one of the winners for their outstanding achievements and well-deserved recognition!

Full Winners List Below:

Best Alternative Jazz Album  —  Meshell Ndegeocello

The Omnichord Real Book

Best Traditional Blues Album — Bobby Rush 

All My Love for You

Best Global Music Performance — Béla Fleck

Pashto –  Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer & Zakir Hussain ft. Rakesh Chaurasia

Best Contemporary Instrumental Album — Béla Fleck

As We Speak – Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer ft. Rakesh Chaurasia

Best Opera Recording — Terence Blanchard 

Blanchard: Champion – The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus

via Jazz Journalists Association

Winners of the Jazz Journalists Association’s 29th annual Jazz Awards have been announced on JJAJazzAwards.org. Among the honorees are Cécile McLorin Salvant for Female Vocalist of the Year, Artemis for Mid-sized Ensemble of the Year, and Béla Fleck for Player of Rare Instruments in Jazz. TKA congratulates all the winners and nominees of the 2024 JJA Awards.

You can find the full list of winners on JJAJazzAwards.org.

<WINNERS>
Female Vocalist of the Year
– Cécile McLorin Salvant
Mid-sized Ensemble of the Year
– Artemis
Player of Instruments Rare in Jazz
– Béla Fleck

<NOMINEES>
Jazz Musician of the Year
– Cécile McLorin Salvant

Record of the Year
– The Omnichord Real Book — Meshell Ndegeocello (Blue Note Records)
– Melusine  — Cécile McLorin Salvant (Nonesuch Records)

Recordings Producer of the Year
– Don Was

Female Vocalist of the Year
– Veronica Swift

Trumpeter of the Year
– Wynton Marsalis

Flutist of the Year
– Charles Lloyd

Guitarist of the Year
– Pat Metheny

via The Blues Foundation

Bobby Rush celebrated double victories at The Blues Foundation Presents The 45th Annual Blues Music Awards held in Memphis on May 9, 2024. The legendary artist and the Blues Hall of Famer clinched the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year Award, along with the Soul Blues Album Award for his recent album “All My Love for You.” Rush’s triumphs underscore his enduring influence within the blues music community, marking another milestone in his illustrious career.

Bobby Rush on TKA

via DOWNBEAT

Over the course of his remarkably eclectic, multiple-Grammy-winning career — one that stretches across four decades — banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck has boldly, almost defiantly, taken his five-stringed instrument where no banjo player has gone before. Consider this globe-trotting itinerary: 2023’s Grammy-winning As We Speak (India), 2020’s The Ripple Effect (Africa), 2009’s Grammy-winning Throw Down Your Heart (Africa) and 1996’s Tabula Rasa (India and China).

Add in his contemporary jazz excursions with his Flecktones and love of old-timey Appalachian music, which he performs in duets with wife Abigail Washburn, his various one-on-one encounters with Chick Corea, his deep immersion into the classical canon on 2001’s Perpetual Motion (which won a Grammy for Best Classical Crossover Album) and two banjo concertos that he’s written and performed with symphony orchestras, and you get a sense of the sheer breadth of his musical range.

Read Full Article on DOWNBEAT

Béla Fleck on TKA

via The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Terence Blanchard graced the stage on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday evening, April 15, 2024, delivering a stunning performance that included his own composition “Breathless.”

Béla Fleck made a separate appearance on the show on Tuesday night, April 30, 2024, joining the house band. He showcased his tunes “Big Country” and “Stomping Grounds,” along with “Unidentified Piece for Banjo” and “Rhapsody in Blue” from his recent album tribute to George Gershwin, titled “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Terence Blanchard on TKA

Béla Fleck on TKA