Awarding the 26th Annual Golden Feather Awards

For the 26th annum, the time has arrived to consider the hits and misses, the triumphs and trials of what well may have been the most active year in jazz history.

The activity may not have been at a new peak qualitatively, but in terms of the number of people involved at every level--as professionals or students, musicians or critics--the year was surely without precedent.

Many of the precedents were set in that prime focal point of jazz activity: Japan. For a recent appearance by Miles Davis at Blues Alley in Tokyo, the club slapped on a door charge of 40,000 yen--about $292. Some of that profit presumably must trickle down to the leader and even to his sidemen.

Other people and places offered evidence of the continuing innovative urge. The following winners of this year’s Golden Feathers come readily to mind:

MAN OF THE YEAR: Dizzy Gillespie. At 73, the composer-trumpeter-traveler can probably count more airports on this year’s schedule than any musician has ever before accumulated. He hopped over the Berlin Wall during its demolition, played one night stands in Moscow and Prague, wrapped his first major movie acting role (“Winter in Lisbon”), and played dates in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Denmark, England, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Namibia, the Netherlands, Newfoundland, Puerto Rico and Switzerland. Honors have been showering on him like confetti, climaxed by the Kennedy Center Award earlier this month. Through it all, he has graciously spread the word for a music he has come to symbolize. Best CDs are on Pablo and Verve.

VIRTUOSO OF THE YEAR: Eddie Daniels. Dual-handedly, this man has brought the clarinet back to its rightful place with a series of albums that displayed his astonishing emotional and technical power. At a recent Los Angeles concert, teamed with pianist Mike Garson, he opened with Poulenc and Von Weber, closed with Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, proving that classical listeners are now receptive to the serious presentation of jazz--and vice versa. Several albums in diverse idioms on GRP Records.

SMALL GROUP OF THE YEAR: The Harper Brothers Quintet. Drummer Winard Harper, 27, and trumpeter Philip Harper, 24, offered renewed evidence that in an era almost overwhelmed by funk and fusion, unhyphenated acoustic hard bop shall not perish from the earth. “The Harper Brothers” and “The Harper Brothers: Remembrance” on Verve Records.

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR: Inner Voices. Organized by Morgan Ames, this four-women a cappella unit is a female counterpart to Take 6 in the beauty of its blend and the ingenuity of its arrangements. Only one album, a Christmas set just released on Rhino.

YOUNG MAN OF THE YEAR: Ryan Kisor. No, you have not heard of him, but it won’t be long. He is the astonishingly fluent 17-year-old high school student from Sioux City, Iowa, who last month won first prize at the Thelonious Monk Institute’s Louis Armstrong Trumpet Competition, held at the Smithsonian in Washington.

FATHER OF THE YEAR: Ellis Marsalis. Need we say more?

ALBUM OF THE YEAR (Instrumental): Stan Getz, “Anniversary” (EmArcy). The tenor sax, always a supremely adaptable horn, was never more sublime than in Getz’s hands during this live session at a Copenhagen club. Incomparable backing by Kenny Barron, piano; Rufus Reid, bass and Victor Lewis, drums.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR (Vocal): Carmen McRae, “McRae Sings Monk” (RCA Novus). With 15 Thelonious themes, set to ingenious lyrics furnished by Jon Hendricks and others, and with a singer who knows Monk inside out, this could scarcely miss.

RECORD COMPANY OF THE YEAR: Mosaic. Devoted to painstaking reissues in high-class, high-priced box sets, this mail order outfit has earned a unique reputation. This year it made available most of the classic Commodore Records catalogue, and last month the legendary Charlie Parker tapes preserved by the late Dean Benedetti. No, your local store won’t help; try 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, Conn. 06902.

JAZZ MOVIE OF THE YEAR: A tough call. “Mo’ Better Blues” boasted a splendid sound track, but the plot fell apart. “Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones” was a farrago of three-second sound-and-sight bites that seemed to equate rap with jazz. It seems only fair to hold the award for “Benny Carter: Symphony in Riffs.” Though to date it has been shown mainly in England and awaits a wide release here, it is just what a one-hour documentary on a jazz giant should be: musically and historically valuable.

BIG BAND OF THE YEAR: The surviving big bands seem to consist of two classes: those that work year-round and are aimed mainly at the nostalgia crowd, and those that work sporadically because their music is ahead of the public’s attention span. In the first category are the ghost bands of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey et al.; also the not-quite-ghost bands led by Frank Foster and Mercer Ellington under the names of Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

The second group comprises part-time orchestras led by, among others, Louis Bellson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Bill Berry, Bill Holman, the Frank Capp/Nat Pierce Juggernaut--all heard too seldom in-person or on records.

The award goes to a band heard even less frequently, the admirable Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra. Ignored by East Coast critics who never check out the Los Angeles scene, this ensemble owes its success to the multiple talents of the bassist-composer/arranger-conductor John Clayton, and to his partners, brother Jeff Clayton (saxes) and Jeff Hamilton (drums). They have only two albums out, one backing singer Ernestine Anderson, and a far more representative instrumental set, “Groove Shop” (Capri).

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It was a year when modest talents too often earned immodest rewards. Harry Connick Jr. is now a giant record seller and a motion picture actor, while Eric Reed, a major pianist now with Wynton Marsalis, and Kenny Colman, one of the finest singers in the Sinatra tradition, go all but unnoticed.

Again, blue notes abounded during a year that said adieu to Sarah Vaughan, June Christy, Emily Remler, Pearl Bailey, Major Holley, Lee Castle, Al Sears, Mel Lewis, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, Walter Davis Jr., Bill Hardman and too many others. But as long as the Ryan Kisors and other players (and singers) of his generation continue to flow out of the colleges and conservatories, our hopes for the future remains strong.