Romarna Campbell had a sneaking suspicion that she was being tokenized. So she decided to indulge in a little mischief.

When the UK-based drummer was commissioned for a piece, she noticed something was off. Her male counterpart had received a detailed prompt; Campbell just got a bare request for music. "There was no guidance. There was no, 'We would like it in this space, or to be inspired by this,'" she tells GRAMMY.com. "They were very much more interested in having press shots and biographies than they were in this commission."

Campbell felt blithely compartmentalized — an unwilling vessel for a performative gesture. "It baffles me that you could reduce my art solely to me being Black or being a woman because it ticks a box for you somewhere," she continues. "And probably a funding box as well." To get one over on them, Campbell submitted the most rudimentary, half-baked music she could drum up — mostly some MIDI loops with rotten harmonies.

And, of course, it was accepted enthusiastically.

"During my friend's commission, he was sending them parts and they would give him feedback," she says. "I sent them this trash commission, and they sent me this really happy email that was like, 'Oh, Romarna, we're so grateful for your artistry.'" Campbell called out the commissioners, directing them to her Bandcamp stuffed with fully conceptualized and executed works as a point of reference.

When they requested a new composition, Campbell asked for more money — as she'd held up her end of the contract — which they couldn't, or wouldn't, give. And when they asked for a meeting about her experience to ascertain how they could improve it, Campbell refused.

"I'm not a cultural or diversity consultant," she says. "So, why is that my responsibility for an organization that's trying to say that they have this diverse roster of musicians and composers?"

*Romarna Campbell. Photo: Iza Korzack*

Campbell's story resonates because it bears so many hallmarks of what women and gender-expansive musicians face in jazz and creative-music spaces: tokenism, patronization, a request to "educate" those perpetrating such attitudes. This is ironic given how couched in progressive politics and academia this world is — imbued with an intellectual air.

Granted, women and gender-expansive musicians have made strides over the decades. Not only are brilliant yet underheralded artists of yore like Mary Lou Williams, Geri Allen and Lil Hardin increasingly venerated, analyzed and discussed, but the pages of magazines like DownBeat and JazzTimes are full of women and non-cis, non-hetero musicians.

But in almost every sector of the jazz world, there's a long way to go — from how writers talk about women, to fair representation on festival lineups, to interpersonal interactions at residencies and workshops, and so on. 

That's why Campbell joined up with M³, or Mutual Mentorship for Musicians — a community meant to establish "a new model of mentorship" that elevates women and gender-expansive musicians, while offering chances for unique, collaborative commissions.

*Jen Shyu, a co-founder of M³*. *Photo: Daniel Reichert*

Founded by musicians Jen Shyu and Sara Serpa in 2020, M³ is just one of a host of jazz-adjacent organizations offering an alternative to outdated and occasionally corrosive systems of gatekeeping, hierarchy and exclusion.

Because of the sheer diversity of its members' creative and cultural backgrounds, M³ provides a wellspring of insight. Across a litany of interviews with its members, common themes emerge — identifying fundamental issues, but also potential solutions.

"I think part of it needs to be developed on a grassroots level, on a community level, and even moreso on a structural and cultural level — where the culture starts to shift in terms of it being a male-driven community and culture," saxophonist and composer Caroline Davis tells GRAMMY.com. "This patriarchal, boys' club situation."

Speaking Mindfully

In Davis' view, a possible first step to challenging that paradigm is simply being mindful of the way we talk to each other in the jazz community — including who gets the often bandied-upon designator of "genius."

"Older women are not geniuses, but older men are always geniuses and they have their following," Serpa notes. "And I'm not talking about people in the mainstream or who have access and resources. We have had musicians in our cohorts that have been on the scene for 30, 40 years. Even us — we haven't heard of them."

Plus, in the jazz community, especially adept players are often described as "killing" or "murdering" or "taking no prisoners." Obviously, nobody means that literally, and it's generally meant as a term of endearment or admiration. Still, Davis says, speech like that can alienate in surprising ways — and not simply due to varying tastes or sensibilities.

"It could be as simple as us shifting our language to include less brutalized words," she continues. "Maybe that seems performative, but I think it actually makes a huge difference to shift the way we talk about music, and the way people are sharing music."

Guitarist and composer Jessica Ackerley agrees: "Everything is rooted in harming other people," they tell GRAMMY.com. "Which is completely ridiculous."

*Sara Serpa, a co-founder of M³. Photo: Ebru Yildiz*

To fellow M³ member Anjna Swaminathan, this doesn't just serve to swerve around sensitivities — it offers a more holistic and inclusive model of success that doesn't just mean brute athleticism and might.

"It becomes this ego fest of how fast you can play, how complex you can get, how many polyrhythms you can learn," Swaminthan, a multidisciplinary artist, tells GRAMMY.com. "Straight, cis, white men who probably thought that they were happy with that success — they themselves will be able to heal, because we are offering another option."

But a need for more thoughtful language doesn't just extend to the classroom, or backstage, or in private conversation; it applies to how journalists write about musicians who aren't straight, white males.

Sticking To The Music — And Dispensing Of Boxes

In features, profiles and reviews, wrongheaded writing usually goes in one of two directions. The first is an example of old-school chauvinism — a writer salivating over a femme-presenting person's appearance before dealing with their art in any meaningful way.

The second is shoehorning them into readymade categories — even, or especially, when it's to a "progressive" end. Miriam Elhajli, a singer, composer and improviser who uses she/they pronouns, recalls one particularly off-putting exchange to this end.

"Someone was trying to write this article about me, and they were like, 'Well, tell me about your sexuality. What are your pronouns?' And I was just like, 'Honestly, dude, this has nothing to do with the music," she tells GRAMMY.com. "I don't want to tell you any of that s—t because it has nothing to do with it."

Elhajli goes on to question the idea of "having my moment to shine" — just because they happen to fit in a category of marginalized people at a convenient time.

*Miriam Elhajli. Photo: Daniel Katzenstein*

"There's boundaries, and there's a personal life too," they say. "I don't want to be pigeonholed. I contain multitudes. Why should I have to adhere to any identity politics? Identity politics are just getting really claustrophobic right now for me. We're missing the plot a little bit."

Campbell's thinking would seem to jibe with this; she highlights how attempts at inclusivity can tip over into reductionism. This aligns with M³'s grander aim — not to divide musicians by perceived degrees of marginalization, but reflect the reality on the ground and open doors for talent from all walks of life.

"Maybe we can have a relationship between macho [behavior] and jazz in the history of jazz," pianist and composer Paula Shocron, who hails from Buenos Aires, tells GRAMMY.com. "But if you go to the States and see the jazz scenes, it’s not the same."

"I just want to make it clear that we're not, in doing this mutual mentorship for musicians program, [we're not making] an effort to eschew or exclude anyone," Davis adds.

As Shyu puts it to GRAMMY.com, "It's important to educate, but, at some point people have to educate themselves. We've made this model of M³. We want people to embrace that and make their own mentorship models. But at some point, don't the men and the white cis males, need to also have these conversations?

"It's more of an effort to say, 'Come along with us," Davis adds. "We're all here trying to fight this together, and we need everyone.'" This doesn't only apply to M³, but all the other organizations in their constellation trying to make jazz and creative music a fairer, more holistic place.

A Constellation Of Initiatives

Next Jazz Legacy, an apprenticeship program for women and nonbinary musicians, helmed by The New Music USA organization and Berklee Institute of Jazz & Gender Justice, is pushing for the same outcome.

"We not only have to face the facts that misogyny and sexism are still very much a part of the music industry," Terri Lyne Carrington, a GRAMMY-winning drummer and Next Jazz Legacy's artistic director, said in 2022. "We have to change the systems and patterns that have remained oppressive in order for the music to fully flourish and match how humanity is evolving."

When Kris Davis, a pianist and composer at the cutting edge of the New York scene, got the call from Carrington about Next Jazz Legacy, she felt close to tears.

"I thought, 'Wow, she's really going to make a difference. The mentors are super famous musicians,'" she tells GRAMMY.com. "And whether people know about the grant or not, they're going to see these young people's names next to these incredible mentors — and that's saying something to the community." (Today, she's on the advisory board.)

Linda May Han Oh, an Australian bassist who works in an apprenticeship role at Next Jazz Legacy, views these dovetailing initiatives as working in parallel with women's and LGBTQ+ rights writ large — including transforming gender roles and the right to vote.

"It's always been a very traditional role for a woman to be a wife, to be a mother, to stay at home while the male, the husband, works and tours and brings in the money," she tells GRAMMY.com. "And I think that in itself lends itself to inequality or inequity."

Oh impresses upon her students the importance of cultivating "your own resilience and your resourcefulness in a way that you can be as independent as you possibly can," she says. "It's a combination of grit, but also flexibility."

Also of note is jazz luminary Dee Dee Bridgewater's Woodshed Network Residency, which focuses on connecting, supporting and educating women and non-gender-conforming artists. In an interview with JazzTimes, Bridgewater's daughter and manager, Tulani, who co-founded the residency, cited "an appreciation for the gift of mentorship I’ve received at various junctures."

“I’ve tried to give back along the way,” she added. "But this opportunity created by my greatest mentor, my mother, offered a concrete and focused way to pay that forward."

Speaking with GRAMMY.com, the elder Bridgewater — a two-time GRAMMY winner — explains her unique, pragmatic approach to mentoring young women.

"I decided that I would concentrate on the business aspect of the music industry and try and give women a kind of head start for their careers," she says, "knowing that they would have all the information that they needed to have a career, to start a career, or to take the career to the next level — if they already had one started, but it was kind of faltering.

"It was born out of a kind of necessity," she continues. And if you wonder where rising musicians like saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin and bassist Amina Scott got their launchpad, thank Dee Dee Bridgewater for recognizing that necessity.

Going Global

These types of programs are far from exclusively stateside affairs. REVA Inc, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit with an aim to "develop art experiences that educate, inspire and heal people and communities," has a purview reaching as far as South Africa.

And the seed was an online hang during the pandemic, facilitated by their co-artistic director — tenor saxophonist, pianist and composer Jessica Jones, who also has run JazzGirls Day at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. The name? Global JazzWomenHang.

Soon, it was wholeheartedly embraced by a number of women from a South African jazz camp, Jazz Camp for Female Instrumentalists Mamelodi, and eventually hosted by one of the camp's founders, bassist and composer Sibongile Buda.

*Akhutleleng Kekwaletswe, Jessica Jones and Sibongile Buda. Photo: Leroy Nyoni*

When the pandemic made live performance impossible, Buda saw an opportunity. "[We searched] for a bigger concept of performance that could incorporate people in different countries," she tells GRAMMY.com. "And also show how the number of women has increased in all the countries that we kind of tapped into."

The online collaboration network eventually blossomed into a real-life festival in Botswana, helmed by Buda, Jones and saxophonist and music teacher Akhutleleng Kekwaletswe. A preceding one-day workshop arranged by Kekwaletswe found more than 50 girls on different instruments; the festival itself involved 24 women on stage.

"The future is very bright, That's a very common line in Botswana: 'The future is bright,' meaning that you see some hope," Kekwaletswe says. "There is a lot of positivity and positive energy towards what we are doing."

*The complete festival lineup. Photo: Nthabiseng Segoe*

Throughout the jazz ecosystem, this mission has serious wind in its sails. To say nothing of the Women in Jazz Organization (WIJO), whose membership has a significant overlap with M³ and Next Jazz Legacy. Among WIJO's mentorship class are Carrington, Caroline Davis, pianists Helen Sung and Marta Sanchez, trumpeter Bria Skonberg, and other modern greats.

"The impact that being a woman has on your pursuit of a jazz career can't be boiled down into one issue, nor should it," WIJO's founder, saxophonist Roxy Coss, told DANSR. Therein, she noted the multitude of indignities often involved: microaggressions, exclusions, discouragements, dismissals. "The fact of being a woman affects your experience entirely, and the specific ways it affects one's pursuit are often unnoticed, even by the woman herself."

This may hold true on stages, in conservatories, and in classrooms, and we've assuredly got a long way to go. But, rest assured: as this field goes, we've got our best and brightest on the case. And few who behold them on the bandstand would dare to say otherwise.

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Lakecia Benjamin didn't call her last album Pursuance just because it's a Coltrane tune. Sure, that guest-stuffed 2020 album paid tribute to John and Alice — but also to Benjamin's indomitable doggedness.

And over Zoom — where she looks crisp and prosperous in futuristic, trapezoidal glasses and a chunky, ornate gold necklace — Benjamin's tenacity is palpable.

"You've got to just say, Until the day I die, I'm not going to stop," Benjamin declares to GRAMMY.com. "I only have one gig today. Okay, tomorrow I'll have two. The next day I'll have three, and I'm not going to leave. I'm not going to stop. Oh, I don't have a record deal. I'm not stopping."

So much could have tripped her up for good: The jam sessions she was laughed out of, with a dismissal to "Go learn changes." The epic cat-herding session for Pursuance, which could have fallen apart completely. The car accident she suffered in 2021, on the way home from a gig, which could have easily been fatal.

Benjamin just wanted 2023's Phoenix to be a worthy entry in her growing discography. The jazz saxophonist didn't have GRAMMY dreams; she didn't even presume it would be more successful than Pursuance.

Now, Phoenix is nominated for three golden gramophones at the 2024 GRAMMYs: Best Instrumental Album, Best Jazz Performance ("Basquiat") and Best Instrumental Composition ("Amerikkan Skin").

"I was just trying to tell my story about what happened to me, what's continuously happening to me," Benjamin says of Phoenix, which was produced by four-time GRAMMY-winning drummer and composer Terri Lyne Carrington. "Just trying to give people an idea of what it's like to be resilient, what it's like to not give up, what it's like to fight.

Read on for an interview with Benjamin about her journey to the GRAMMYs, and where she unpacks her personal dictum, which should apply to creatives the world over: "Keep going. Keep going. Keep going."

This interview has been edited for clarity.

What role have the GRAMMYs historically played in your life?

I remember being a little kid, watching the GRAMMYs and all. As a musician, at least in America, it's the highest award you can get.

It's something that you dream about. You dream about being nominated. You dream about walking on that stage. You dream about being in that audience, seeing your other peers and superstars performing. I personally dreamed about the red carpet.

Are there past jazz nominees that you found super inspiring?

All of them, really. Chick Corea, Christian McBride, Ron Carter, Terri Lyne, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter. There are just so many.

I first interviewed you for JazzTimes about your album-length tribute to John and Alice Coltrane, Pursuance. What was the underlying theme of Phoenix?

Just the idea that things are possible. You don't have to get things done in a certain timeline, in a certain frame. You just have to keep going, with a lot of determination. That was my goal.

I did not think that the reception would have been bigger than Pursuance. There's no way I saw that coming. It's been a really wild rollercoaster year, for sure.

Working with Terri Lyne Carrington was a huge step. It seems like you were swinging for something bigger. What was that thing?

She was actually the catalyst for the whole thing. I picked her before I even had the music — everything — because I wanted someone that could get the best out of me. Someone who's going to tell me the truth, tell me when it's not good enough, tell me what's not possible.

I felt that the guests that I have picked in mind — and they had already agreed to the project — were in her sphere of people that she's worked with. I felt she could understand my dedication in this project to highlight women musicians, and to highlight [how] women musicians have had to climb the ladder, and sometimes they fall back down and climb back up again.

I felt that her story is a true testament of that. I just felt she embodied where I am right now, and what I'm trying to do.

Terri Lyne commands such a musical universe. You could have made Phoenix with so many different configurations and ensembles. What made these particular folks perfect to tell your story?

The fact that [pianist] Patrice Rushen started as a jazz musician, moved into the pop world, super megastar, back into the jazz world, back into the trenches, still teaching and still educating.

Angela Davis — a huge iconic figure — had her own adversities. They all represent in their own stories the idea of persevering, the idea to keep going, but also doing that while operating at an extremely high level.

As a musician myself, there's always self-doubt about the past. I wish I did this when I was younger, I wish I made this choice, I wish I pushed harder, blah, blah. But it took until my thirties to realize that I have all this life to live. I don't have to cram everything into the now and beat myself up. It seems like you had a similar moment of self-realization.

I guess I still have those struggles as well too. I think we all do, but I think you start to realize you're alive right now.

You can't control what you did 10 years ago. You can't control what you did five years ago. You can only control what's happening right now, and you could sit around and sit in that regret and doubt, and that becomes your story. Or, you could choose to get up and decide, I'm going to make a new reality for myself. I'm going to brand myself, and I'm going to try to accomplish the things that I'm dreaming about.

Why dream about, If I had known this 10 years ago, I would've did this? But it's right now, you know it. You can go ahead forward and try to get there. You don't have to listen to other people's limitations, the part of their life and their reality. But it's not a part of yours.

We're all on Jazz Instagram. We see everyone competing over gigs and vibing each other out. It seems like you're trying to get out of that rat race and be like Terri Lyne, where it's a whole life — a continuum.

That's what I started thinking. Even as a bandleader, everyone's in this pool, crabs in a barrel trying to drag each other down, waiting for a call, waiting to say, "I have more gigs," waiting to say, "I have more GRAMMYs," and I decided the best thing I could do is to take my future into my own hands.

If I become a bandleader, if I'm making the calls, I'm the one doing this. I have a little bit more control, and then I can choose to say, You know what? I'm going to try to live out my dreams, and if it doesn't work out for me, I can die knowing I gave it my all. I did everything I can to get the things I want in life.

And to me, that's enough — if I know that I've tried the very best I can to do something.

What helped you get out of that tunnel-vision mindset?

I wouldn't say I'm all the way out of it, because those thoughts creep in; you're programmed this way. But I do think you have to just say, There's no other road I can take. I'm going straight. I'm not going through the sewer. If there's a roadblock, I'm not going to the left. I'm going straight down this road.

When I did Pursuance [I thought], You know what? I got all 45 of these cats up in here. I did it myself, on my dime, on my time, the way I wanted to do it.

After that, there's immense pressure. What's going to happen with Phoenix? Is it going to be good enough? Is it going to be this? And to know I was able to tell my own story. I was able to get these guests the same way, figure it out, get this music together and get it together, lets me know that I may be crawling to get there, but I'm getting there.

I'm moving forward, and I'm doing it in a way that I'm getting better as an artist. I'm not just getting more, I guess, accolades and noteworthy my actual talent is because I'm choosing to put the music first.

Here's a spicy question. How have people treated you differently now that you're a first-time GRAMMY nominee?

It's only happened recently, but it is drastically changing. I will say that. There are some people that this whole year, the last two years, it started to seriously change. There are people that went from thinking, I'm just an ambitious girl out there, "Good luck. She's trying her best," to taking me a little bit more seriously when I have these [nominations]; they're not dreams anymore. They're like, "She's making things happen."

Where are you at in your development as a saxophonist? What's the status of you and the horn?

I've got a long way to go, but you spend three years playing Coltrane, you'll definitely expedite the process of: at each gig I'm forced to be at a certain level, minimum.

I think I'm making some progress — and we'll have to battle that out with Terri Lyne, but I think I'm getting better, and that's the most important thing. I wish I could expedite that a little faster, but these albums are just pictures of where I am at the time.

John and Alice were such outstanding models for how to live a creative life.

It's inspiring. I tell you that. For everyone out there that is wondering how to keep pushing forward, how not to give up, every time you get a minor victory, that's another example of going the right way.

My first two albums were projects that were more, let's say, ear friendly. You would think people would gravitate to that more because they understand that music is more contemporary, and they [performed] decently.

But then I come out with this Coltrane project and it does exponentially better, and that's being true to myself, then I do another project that's even deeper into the pool of what it's supposed to be, and then has even more success.

I just think that we got to spend less time trying to find these gimmicks, and people really respond when something is authentic, when it's a live show and they see you pouring your soul out there authentically, that's what gravitates them — not trying to find a way to get over on them.

"Get over on them." What do you mean by that?

I feel like that's what a gimmick is. If I say, I'm going to hold this note for 10 minutes because the audience will really love it. I'm trying to find a way to convince them that this is good, this is cool.

I'm like, Let me dress up in this outfit, because this'll convince them. Rather than just coming out and just being like, This is who I am. This is what it is. And putting it all on the stage, and then they can see authentically, This is who I'm voting for.

Do you see a lot of charlatans out there in the jazz scene, just trying to dazzle with cheap tricks?

I will say that I pray for humanity to be more authentic.

Terri Lyne Carrington Is Making Strides For Inclusion And Mentorship In Jazz. And You Can Hear All Of Them In Her Sound.

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

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He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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When young jazz luminary Samara Joy accepted a golden gramophone for Best New Artist at the 2023 GRAMMYs, the sequence of expressions that flitted across her visage seemed to cover the entire spectrum of feeling.

The 23-year-old vocalist born Samara Joy McLendon had already won a GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal Album at the Premiere Ceremony, for her acclaimed second album and Verve debut, Linger Awhile. This win during the CBS telecast was an entirely different beast. 

The artist who just a few years ago had been a promising undergrad and audibly nervous on the phone now stood onstage at the Crypto.com arena before global megastars from Taylor Swift to Lizzo to Adele — not to mention 12.55 million people at home.

Speaking to GRAMMY.com in its wake, Joy likened the experience to living "in a parallel universe or a movie."

"I'm still in shock and disbelief because I truly didn't think that I would be in the position to receive such an honor," Joy said of the Best New Artist win, where she forged ahead of fellow nominees like Brazilian star Anitta, genre-blending singer/songwriter Omar Apollo, British indie oddballs Wet Leg, and her fellow rising jazzers DOMi & JD Beck.

"I am, however, grateful for the honor, because it reassures me of the fact that I want to continue pursuing music and growth as a musician," Joy continued. "This signifies the beginning of a musical journey that I'm nervous but excited to embark on."

While Joy's  post-show comments focused on her continued development as an artist, the effect of her win quickly became conspicuous. Less than two weeks after the Feb. 5 ceremony, she appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" to perform the recitative standard and Linger Awhile cut "Guess Who I Saw Today."

But it's worth considering what this General Field win means not only for Joy, but the jazz community writ large. Like other genres that appear deeper down the GRAMMY nominees list — from classical to reggae to spoken word — jazz can be treated as a little niche, partitioned off into a corner of the music landscape. Even the most heralded rising talents seldom rocket to celebrity status.

It's only once in a while that jazz completely and utterly perforates the mainstream — like in 2020, when Pixar's Soul was released, featuring consulting work from real-deal musicians from deep in the NYC scene, like Jon Batiste and Terri Lyne Carrington.

Some of these breakthroughs have happened at the GRAMMYs. In 2003, the charismatic and versatile Norah Jones swept the General Field, winning GRAMMYs for Best New Artist, Album Of The Year (for Come Away With Me) and Record Of The Year (for "Don't Know Why"), on top of wins for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Pop Vocal Performance.

Five years later, Herbie Hancock — one of the most brilliant harmonic thinkers of the 20th century, and 21st — won Album Of The Year for River: The Joni Letters, his tribute to his old collaborator and fellow game-changing genius Joni Mitchell. In that category, the album beat out Kanye West's Graduation and Amy Winehouse's Back to Black.

In 2011, bassist, composer and vocalist Esperanza Spalding won Best New Artist and has been a steady presence at the GRAMMYs ever since, winning right up to the 2022 GRAMMYs (Best Jazz Vocal Album, for SONGWRIGHTS APOTHECARY LAB) and landing a nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for her work with Wayne Shorter, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Leo Genovese on that year's Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival.

Additionally, at the 2022 GRAMMYs, Lady Gaga paid tribute to her collaborator, Tony Bennett, with a performance of "Love for Sale" and "Do I Love You" — both from their final duets album, which won Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at that year's ceremony. (Previously, their album Cheek to Cheek won in the same category, at the 2015 GRAMMYs.)

On top of all that, other crossover artists with jazz connections, from Jacob Collier to Robert Glasper to Thundercat, have made big splashes at Music’s Biggest Night.

Despite operating under the "jazz" umbrella, all these artists are wildly divergent in almost every possible way. Joy is connected to a jazz-vocal tradition that snakes way back in history, back to when her heroes like Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Carmen McRae were dropping jaws.

"I'm overjoyed at Samara's success. But not surprised," Lisa Goich-Andreadis, the Director of Awards and Jazz Genre Manager at the Recording Academy, tells GRAMMY.com. "The first time I heard her voice, I couldn't believe that it was coming out of a 22-year-old. It has the richness and depth of the legends that came before her. She channels something out of another era. Her rise is well-deserved."

What makes Joy fresh is that it's her doing this music, channeling it through her vibrant abilities and irresistibly vivacious spirit. There are a lot of singers doing standards, but there's only one Joy. 

"She f—ing deserves it, man," pianist Geoffrey Keezer, who took home a GRAMMY for Best Instrumental Composition at the same ceremony, tells GRAMMY.com. "She can sing her butt off, and I don't know her personally, but from everything I see, she seems like a really nice person, and really humble and down-to-earth. I think it's fantastic."

Keezer sees Joy's triumph at the 2023 GRAMMYs as a reminder, loud and clear, that jazz is no antiquated or peripheral artform. Rather, it is a vibrant and alive genre very much in the now. 

"The whole umbrella genre is Black American Music, and jazz is the branch of it that has a swing beat," he explains. "So, it's just as current and relevant as anything else. There's all these different branches of the same tree. When the one that swings wins, it's just nice to have that recognized as: Yes, we're still here. This is still part of it, and it's important, and it's where it all came from."

To Goich-Andreadis, Joy's win is significant because it shows that she's being noticed by a wide audience far afield from the jazz community — including that of such esteem as the pre-GRAMMYs MusiCares Persons Of The Year event, which honored Motown titans Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson.

"She received a rousing standing ovation by the crowd, with honorees Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson leading the way," Goich-Andreadis remembers of her performance. "It's great to see a representative from this genre touching so many with her talent."

Keezer views Joy's ascent as part of a greater mass of acknowledgement, including that of Spalding, Hancock, and five-time GRAMMY winner Billy Childs — a rising tide that lifts all boats. "I think cumulatively, it opens doors," he says. "It gives the general public, I almost want to say, permission to like this music and think it's cool.

"Audiences are smart, man. People want to hear good musicianship," he continues. "You watch the Olympics to see Simone Biles, or tennis to see Serena Williams, or whatever. You want to see human excellence in real time, in front of your eyes. So, that's what we're seeing with Samara Joy. She's the real deal, and she's doing it right in front of you with no gimmickry and no Auto-Tune."

As to the wider impact of her big wins, Joy can't prognosticate. She only hopes to move the needle.

"I hope that this win means that jazz musicians will be paid a bit more attention and respect for their contributions to music as a whole," Joy says. "It really is a wonderful community that deserves some more shine than it's been given. It's a small step but a step nonetheless."

No matter what happens, perhaps the essence of this victory is simply that the flame is proudly preserved and bore by a worthy ambassador. "Samara is carrying on this very treasured and important musical tradition," Goich-Andreadis says. "Jazz is America's gift to the world."

No Accreditation? No Problem! 10 Potential Routes To Get Into Jazz As A Beginner

The Recording Academy has announced Terri Lyne Carrington and Judith Sherman as honorees for their accomplishments as pioneering women in jazz and classical music. They will be honored at the Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing GRAMMY Week Event on Feb. 1 at The Village Studios in Los Angeles. The 15th annual event will return in-person for the first time since 2020, to kick off GRAMMY Week 2023. 

In addition to celebrating the achievements of three-time GRAMMY winner Terri Lyne Carrington and revered classical producer and 13-time GRAMMY winner Judith Sherman, the event will celebrate the year-round work of the Producers & Engineers Wing and its members. They advocate for excellence and best practices in sound recording, audio technologies and education in the recording arts, along with proper crediting, recognition and rights for music creators.

"We’re thrilled to return live to The Village Studios for the first time in three years to celebrate two groundbreaking music creators who are dedicated to innovating both creatively and technically in the recording field," said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy. "Both Terri Lyne and Judith have made indelible contributions to music, and we look forward to bringing together producers, engineers and artistic professionals to honor these incredible artists and kick off our GRAMMY Week celebrations."  

Terri Lyne Carrington is an NEA Jazz Master, Doris Duke Artist, and three-time GRAMMY-winning drummer, composer, producer, and educator. She is the founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, as well as the artistic director for both Next Jazz Legacy program (a collaboration with New Music USA) and the Carr Center in Detroit. She has performed on more than 100 recordings over her 40-year career and has toured and recorded with luminaries such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Stan Getz, Esperanza Spalding, and numerous others.

Her artistry and commitment to education has earned her honorary doctorates from York University, Manhattan School of Music and Berklee College of Music, and her curatorial work and music direction has been featured in many prestigious institutions internationally. The critically acclaimed 2019 release, Waiting Game, from Terri Lyne Carrington + Social Science, earned the esteemed Edison Award for music and a GRAMMY nomination. In the fall of 2022, she authored two books, Three of a Kind (The AllenCarringtonSpalding Trio) and the seminal songbook collection, New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets By Women Composers. Her current GRAMMY-nominated album, New Standards Vol.1 (Candid Records), and her visual art curatorial debut at Detroit's Carr Center, Shifting the Narrative Part 1: New Standards, have accompanied the songbook release as part of the Jazz Without Patriarchy Project. 

Carrington is a 2022 inductee into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is co-executive producer and musical director for the newly formed Jazz Music Awards.

Judith Sherman has made an indelible contribution to the catalog of recorded classical music. 

She is an 18-time GRAMMY Award nominee and 13-time GRAMMY winner, including six GRAMMYs for Producer Of The Year, Classical (at the 36th, 50th, 54th, 57th, 58th, and 64th GRAMMY Awards). Early in her career she was employed at WBAI-FM in New York City, beginning as an engineer and over the course of four years working her way up to become producer and then music director. She was the recording engineer for the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont during the summers of 1976 through 1994 and worked as audio faculty at the Banff Centre in 2006 and 2008. A member of the board of directors of Chamber Music America, Sherman served first as secretary in 2002, and thereafter as vice president. She currently works as a freelance recording producer and engineer in New York.

Sherman has collaborated with a vast number of artists throughout her career including Rudolf Serkin, Ursula Oppens, Marc-André Hamelin, Llŷr Williams; with the Kronos Quartet and the Cleveland, Ying, Takács, and Pacifica String Quartets; with eighth blackbird and the American Brass Quintet; and with conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Donald Runnicles and David Zinman. Her recordings in the field of contemporary classical music have been particularly noted, including work with such composers as Steve Reich, Elliott Carter, Steve Mackey, Charles Wuorinen, John Adams, Shulamit Ran, David Rakowski, Philip Glass, Eric Moe, Joan Tower, and Terry Riley. Her recordings have appeared on many labels, including Nonesuch, Telarc, Cedille, New World, Avie, Albany, Signum, Hyperion, and Bright Shiny Things. 

"The Producers & Engineers Wing is privileged to pay tribute to two women who have pushed boundaries both in and outside of the studio," said Maureen Droney, Vice President of the Producers & Engineers Wing. "As GRAMMY nominees this year, Terri Lyne and Judith are awe-inspiring honorees who represent the best of the recording industry and whose contributions to their respective genres continue to resonate with our music community."

2023 GRAMMY Nominations: See The Complete Nominees List