Samara Joy and Etienne Charles are among the jazz artists nominated for this year’s NAACP Image Awards.
They are nominated for Outstanding Jazz Album for Joy’s Portrait and Charles’ Creole Orchestra, other nominees include smooth jazz saxophonist Kirk Whalum (Epic Cool), acclaimed organist Matthew Whitaker (On Their Shoulders: An Organ Tribute) and tenor saxophonist and bandleader Javon Jackson, whose album Javon and Nikki Go to The Movies is a collaboration with the late celebrated poet and intellectual Nikki Giovanni, who passed away on December 9, 2024 at the age of 81.
Another jazz nominee in other categories is composer Michael Abels whose nominated twice for Best Original Score for TV/Film for the films Star Wars: Acolyte and The American Society of Magical Negroes. Abels is a renowned composer known for creating orchestral music rooted in jazz, bluesgrass and the blues as well as his genre-defying scores for films such as Get Out, Us and the opera Omar which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
The 2025 NAACP Image Awards, celebrating its 56th year, continues the tradition of excellence, uplifting values that inspire equality, justice, and progressive change, and highlighting artists committed to that purpose.
The 56th Annual NAACP Image Awards takes place on Saturday, February 22, 2025 at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium with a telecast airing at 8pm EST.
You can view the complete list of this year’s nominees here.