Jazz.NEXT

Current Cycle

Round 2 Grants

Berklee College of Music
Boston, MA
Grant:  $68,600

Founded in 1945, Berklee College of Music is one of the leading institutions for the study of contemporary music in the United States. Berklee’s annual High School Jazz Festival attracts more than 3,000 students and 200 big bands, combos, and vocal ensembles, primarily from the New England states, for performance and competition showcases, and education clinics.  The college hopes to include more high schools from throughout the United States and will utilize new online technologies to extend the reach of this single annual event to a year-round, interactive, web-based, “cyber association” of high school jazz instructors and students. Jazz.NEXT support will enable the development of a new open-source interactive website featuring online access to student/faculty rehearsal clinics, performance and instructional webcasts and artist/instructor profiles, and streaming of Festival performances, among other content.

Dave Douglas
Croton on Hudson, NY
Grant:  $74,750

Dave Douglas is widely recognized as one of the most prolific and original jazz trumpeters and composers of his generation, as well as one of the few jazz artists at the forefront of utilizing technology.  His own record label, Greenleaf Music, and website have created innovative and groundbreaking modes of distribution, promotion and marketing rare within the jazz industry.  Douglas will use support to develop four new platforms to include stand-alone applications for mobile devices; revamping Greenleafmusic.com to allow for greater intuitive information management; integration of social media sites to facilitate greater communication between artists and fans; and creating an open-source database to allow other artists to utilize these same technologies.

Jazz Journalists Association
New York, NY
Grant:  $38,200

Founded in 1986, the Jazz Journalists Association is an international professional organization of writers, broadcasters, photographers and new media producers primarily focused on jazz reporting. Established and emerging jazz journalists are challenged by the demise of traditional print and broadcast formats and struggling to adapt to new digital technology.  The Jazz Journalists Association will solicit 30 veteran and emerging jazz journalists and equip them with basic training in the use of new, inexpensive, Web-ready pocket-video camera technology.  Jazz.NEXT support will enable the purchase and distribution of cameras, training workshops on video journalism techniques, and production of up to 150 video clips on jazz related events and individuals for utilization on various jazz websites, blogs and other digital platforms.  Each participant will post five video submissions over a six-month period, creating a viral jazz campaign that will be promoted through online publicity and marketing, as well as targeted advertising in traditional print outlets. 

Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild
Pittsburgh, PA
Grant:  $93,600

The Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild is a multidisciplinary arts and learning center, which since 1987 has been one of the country’s leading jazz presenting organization noted for its MCG Jazz program’s concert and recording series. Jazz.NEXT support will enable the organization to continue the design and implementation of the next two phases of an interactive national jazz website that seeks to become a living repository of information on jazz presenters and engagements across the United States.  The Jazz Information Commons will capture and aggregate myriad information and media about jazz presenters and performances such as programming calendars, artist personnel and biographies, instrumentation, set lists, venue descriptions, ticketing, routing, social media links and recorded audio and video.  A consumer portal will connect potential jazz consumers to opportunities for purchasing concert tickets, subscriptions to live performance streams via all web platforms, artists’ product, and access to jazz education content.  The site will also utilize music recommendation technology to assist consumers in discovering new artists. 

National Federation of Community Broadcasters
Oakland, CA
Grant: $93,600

National Federation of Community Broadcasters (“NFCB”) is a national alliance of noncommercial, educational, and public radio stations; producers; and related organizations committed to local, diverse, and mission-driven public service radio. With Jazz.NEXT support, NFCB will design a national metadata library for jazz stations, entitled “Jazz InfoVault”.  Metadata is defined as data about data, and, for jazz radio, that information represents crucial historical content, which currently is diffuse and often inaccessible. NFCB will consolidate existing noncommercial efforts, standardize collection practices, and develop a prototype database to be tested on up to two jazz stations.  Once populated the national metadata library will serve as a digital jazz encyclopedia for use by radio stations across the United States that program jazz. 


Symphony Space
New York, NY
Grant:  $93,600

Symphony Space is a multidisciplinary presenting organization noted for its film, literary and performing arts programming, including the Selected Shorts, Symphony Space Live, and Wall-to-Wall series.  The organization is currently poised to release more than 100 recordings of live performances, including jazz. Through Jazz.NEXT support, Symphony Space will create a smart phone application, called The Symph App, configured to stream jazz performances on Apple’s iPod and iPad products as well as Google’s Android and Google TV. The application will be open-coded and distributed free to the jazz community for use by other artists and venues.  The organization is committed to streaming the content, rather than allowing for downloads, so that artists are given greater control over the use of their work. The Symph App will be launched in spring 2011 when at least 34 jazz events and discussions will be made available.

Round I Grants

National Federation of Community Broadcasters (“NFCB”)
Oakland, CA
Planning Grant: $32,800

As jazz musicians and small record labels move to digital recording formats and distribution, jazz radio stations require significant assistance to access the music and convert their existing CD and vinyl libraries to digital formats. NFCB will engage up to eight public radio jazz stations, representing the spectrum of the nearly 70 public stations from across the country that primarily program jazz, to explore the planning, training and development of best practices to access, catalog and store digital music.  The planning process will ultimately yield a blueprint to develop curriculum that trains jazz stations to create and maintain digital music libraries and enhance their music programming. 

Monterey Jazz Festival
Monterey, CA
Implementation Grant: $98,300

The Monterey Jazz Festival will enhance its Internet-based Digital Music Education Project, an interactive online music resource supporting jazz education, through the incorporation of new technology applications.  Proposed upgrades will combine digital sound files, music downloads, streaming video, and images from the Festival’s extensive photo archives, and link these elements together to create a compelling digital education environment responsive to the needs of each visitor to the site.  While the site will be free of charge, opportunities exist for generating potential new revenue streams for the host and featured artists through downloadable music sales. 


National Public Radio (“NPR”)
Washington, DC
Implementation Grant: $98,300

NPR will launch a new website solely focused on jazz, NPR.org/jazz.  The new site will build on the organization’s jazz blog, A Blog Supreme, which presents commentary, analysis, hyperlinks, streaming audio and embedded videos; their highly influential music website, NPR.org/music; and their on-air jazz programming.  NPR member stations producing original jazz content will be featured on the new site, while receiving support to enhance their own websites.  With a weekly audience of over 27.5 million people and partnerships with more than 860 public radio stations in the United States, NPR.org/jazz presents the potential to dramatically reach new constituencies for jazz and deepen their relationship with existing jazz fans.


Savannah Music Festival
Savannah, GA
Implementation Grant: $97,600

Utilizing new technology applications, the Savannah Music Festival will expand the reach of its music education program Swing Central High School Jazz Band Competition and Workshop to a broader national audience. The current program, which provides intensive instruction by renowned jazz artists and music educators, reaches students at 50 high schools across the United States. Jazz.NEXT support will enable the development of a Swing Central interactive website with online video lessons, student/faculty performance webcasts and profiles, streaming of Festival performances, and links to artists’ websites, among other content, which would then be available as a pedagogical tool for interested jazz students and educators across the country.