Savage Content, the online platform that offers innovative opportunities to hear and experience music and entertainment, has announced its second annual “How I Fell in Love with Jazz” video contest.
The online contest, open to the public, offers cash awards to 27 finalists: a $5,000 grand prize and a $2,500 second prize – both double last year’s grants -- and 25 “crowd favorites” awards of $100 each – for the best video diary of one to three minutes in length, explaining how jazz fans and players developed their love for America’s indigenous musical art form. Entries are open through Nov. 30, and public voting will take place through Dec. 31 at www.savagecontent.com.
Savage Content was launched last year by entrepreneur Kent Savage to foster a deeper understanding of and involvement in jazz and other arts and entertainment. Concurrent with the site’s founding, the Kent and Martha Savage Family Foundation made generous donations to the Jazz Foundation of America’s COVID-19 Musicians Emergency Fund, the non-profit organization mounted last year to serve musicians in need after the pandemic lockdown shook the touring and recording industries.
Kent Savage: “When we launched How I Fell in Love with Jazz last year, I was so inspired by the creativity and passion that emanated from the videos submitted to us. While we continue to face many challenges, I hope great music continues to lift up everyone's spirit and look forward to seeing the 2021 submissions.”
As it did last year, Savage Content has secured a distinguished group of jazz professionals to judge the “How I Fell in Love with Jazz” submissions after the contest closes at the end of December. The 2021 judges are:
• Wayne Shorter, saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. Active since the late 1950s as principal composer for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, a member of Miles Davis’ celebrated ‘60s quintet, and as a solo leader on Blue Note Records, Shorter co-founded the bestselling fusion band Weather Report with Joe Zawinul in 1971. He is the winner of 12 Grammy Awards as a player and writer, including a 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. Since 2000, the Wayne Shorter Quartet has performed his symphonic works with such orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
• Steve Jordan, drummer, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. Jordan has recorded with Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Beyoncé, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, Alicia Keys, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea, to name only a few. He is currently on tour with the Rolling Stones, in the drum chair previously occupied by the late Charlie Watts. He has produced and played on three albums by Keith Richards and the X-Pensive Winos, and has also helmed recordings by Mayer, Guy, Beyoncé, Booker T. & the MG’s, and Bettye Lavette, among others. He co-founded and records with the Verbs for Jay-Vee Records, a musical partnership with his wife Meegan Voss. He captured an Emmy Award for his musical direction of Movies Rock.
• Pedro Pablo “Pedrito” Martinez, drummer, percussionist, singer, bandleader, and composer. Born in Havana, Cuba, where he began his musical career at the age of 11, conguero Martinez is a leading light of Afro-Cuban jazz. He emigrated to New York in 1998, and has recorded or performed with such stars as Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Paquito D’Rivera, Chucho Valdez, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Camila Cabello, and Sting. After co-founding the celebrated band Yerba Buena, he formed his Pedrito Martinez Group in 2008. He has received four Grammy nominations for his Latin jazz and classical crossover releases.
• Emmet Cohen, pianist and composer. Cohen is the leader of the Emmet Cohen Trio and creator of the Masters Legacy Series, and has collaborated with such titans as Jimmy Cobb, Ron Carter, Benny Golson, Tootie Heath, and George Coleman. He was the winner of the 2019 American Pianists Awards and was the Cole Porter Fellow of the American Pianists Association and artist in residence at the University of Indianapolis. Cohen has headlined at the Village Vanguard and other major New York venues and international jazz festivals. During the 2020 pandemic lockdown, he created “Live From Emmet's Place,” a weekly livestream that received millions of internet views worldwide.
• Andromeda Turre, vocalist and composer. Turre is the founder of Growing Up Jazz, an educational program teaching American History through the lens of jazz. In addition to performing internationally as a jazz vocalist, she is also a speaker, host and curator of jazz events worldwide. The daughter of acclaimed jazz musicians Steve Turre and Akua Dixon, Andromeda attended the Berklee College of Music and got her first professional job as a Raelette singing with Ray Charles. She has since toured in over 17 countries and her compositions have been used for television, film and video games. She was the winner of Savage Content’s inaugural “How I Fell in Love with Jazz” competition in 2020.
