April is National Jazz Month so there’s no better time for the Jazz Journalists Association to announce their 2020 class of Jazz Heroes, which they define as “activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz.” Nominated by their own communities, the class includes 27 advocates for jazz from around the country.
One of them is Cleveland’s own Terri Pontremoli, director of the Tri-C Jazz Fest, which had its 40th anniversary last year. She is a Cleveland Institute of Music graduate who first worked with JazzFest from 1990-2004, then spent eight years as the director of the Detroit Jazz Fest before coming back to Cleveland to take over the reins of the Tri-C JazzFest.
She transitioned the model from a series of events taking place around town to a jam-packed one-weekend festival that turns a single location, Playhouse Square, into a hive of activity indoors and out, with food, drink, free music, dancing and art outside and ticketed shows in the various Playhouse Square theaters. She also helped develop a more robust education component.
“Terri Pontremoli has long been one of the country’s leading jazz festival producers — a woman of impeccable personal integrity, who understands that high artistic standards, creative programming, robust education programs and community partnerships all play key roles in creating sustainable festivals,” said Mark Stryker, an arts reporter from Detroit, on the piece on Pontremoli posted at the Jazz Journalists Association website.
One of the other Jazz Heroes for 2020 is Warren, Ohio-born, Baltimore-based trumpeter Sean Jones who serves as artistic director of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra from 2010-2015. He also taught at Oberlin and is currently a professor at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.
The honorees will be presented with their engraved statuettes at a later date when gatherings resume. Unfortunately, Tri-C JazzFest, scheduled for June 25-27, has been cancelled due to the pandemic.