FIRST OFF . . .

The National Academy of Jazz, founded in 1985 with the intention of staging a major television program to compensate for the lack of jazz on the Grammy Awards show, is officially defunct. “We just didn’t have the funding to continue,” said Jim Washburn, vice president and former president of the academy. “What funds we have are being turned over to the Woody Herman Foundation. George Rappaport, the recent academy president, and others who had been active in the academy, will help organize benefits to come to the aid of musicians who suffer catastrophic illnesses as Woody did.” Herman died of congestive heart failure, emphysema and pneumonia on Oct. 29, 1987. Washburn said one problem the academy faced was lining up branches in other cities, and consequently trying to line up major sponsors needed to carry out the television program.