In April the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), which runs the Grammy awards, dropped 31 categories of competition, including Latin jazz, zydeco, Hawaiian and Native American. Musicians remain free to enter their work into competition in overlapping related categories. Now four Latin jazz musicians have filed suit, arguing “that NARAS is in effect forcing Latin jazz artists to now compete in broader jazz categories against more mainstream artists, hurting their chance of winning an award.” [Jazz Times]
4 Comments
How dare NARAS remove those award categories! Just think what NARAS is doing to the Latin Jazz musicians’ self-esteem. I think everyone should get an award.
While I never watch the Grammy Awards (or for that matter any other ceremonies where groups give themselves awards), I was always struck by the fact that from the news reports it seemed that not only did everyone get an award but that they got multiple awards.
This is worse than the parents who sue because their daughter didnt make the cheerleading team.
If I ran the academy I would reinstate the award, and declare that all those who sued are the “winners”, and they would be the winners again every single year until they got embarrassed and quit coming. It wouldnt take long.
There’s no Latin Jazz category for the Nobel prize either. I think they should sue over that.
The category should be named Jazzish.