NOIMC - Awards

photo by Al Kennedy

Each year NOIMC presents awards
from the following categories:

Henry Kmen Award for Music Research

Sidney Bechet Award for Musical Innovation

The Clyde Kerr Sr. Award for Music Education

NOIMC Father/Son Award

Lifetime Achievement Award

NOIMC Family Award

Class of 2005

Ms. Albertha Edwards - Clyde Kerr Sr. Award for Excellence
in Music Education
Ms. Albertha Edwards retired in 2003 after 43 productive years in the New Orleans Public Schools as a vocal music teacher at Carver, Clark (with last year’s winner Mercedes Tucker Stamps), and O. Perry Walker high schools, as well as at Carver Junior High and many elementary schools. She influenced several generations of vocalists in New Orleans, and a number of her former students are music teachers in the school district. Among her myriad former students active in all genres of music are singer Lillian Boutte, who was named "New Orleans Musical Ambassador" in 1986, and Shirley Stewart, music teacher and soloist in many local opera programs.

Alfred ‘Uganda’ Roberts - Sidney Bechet Award for Innovation
Presented by Michael Gourrier, jazz historianAlfred “Uganda” Roberts, legendary percussionist, has been a positive light in the New Orleans music scene for over 35 years playing his own style of congas drums. One of Mr. Roberts many pinnacles in his musical life is having played for many years with the late great Professor Longhair. In addition to playing with Professor Longhair, Alfred also has taught many of today’s great percussionists such as Kenyette Simon, the late Michael Ward along scores with of other young up and coming musicians, most recently at the Crescent City Drum Camp.

Lynn Abbott - Henry Kmen Award for Excellence in Music Writing
Lynn Abbott, a researcher and archivist, musician and photographer, is the co-author of the recently published book Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music 1889-1895, published by University Press of Mississippi, 2003. In 1981 Abbott settled in New Orleans and launched a survey of the city’s black vocal quartet tradition, collecting oral history from some 150 informants. He published articles on a variety of vernacular music-related subjects, often in collaboration with Seroff, in such journals and magazines as American Music, The American Music Research Journal, The Jazz Archivist and 78 Quarterly. From 1987 to 2000, Abbott played drums with Bruce Daigrepont’s Cajun Band. Abbott is now an archivist at the Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University.

Pecoraro-Pecora- Mannino Family
Lifetime Achievement Award
The Pecoraro-Pecora-Mannino Family is another example of a famous New Orleans aggregate of multi-generational musical talent. The most well known member of this family is Santo Pecora, the noteworthy trombonist, composer and bandleader who started out in Jack Laine’s bands and later recorded with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings after their return to New Orleans. He was a regular in Hollywood before returning to New Orleans where he played with Sharkey Bonano and led his own band at the Famous Door nightspot on Bourbon Street.

Santo Pecora’s son Alan Pecora was a drummer for many years, playing with Little Queenie and the Percolators in the 1970s and working as an A.S.C.A.P. representative. Santo Pecora’s first cousin Santo Pecoraro also worked as a drummer for many years while holding down a day job in the band instrument department at Grunewald’s Music Store. He played in bands with his cousin Santo Pecora and with his other cousins in the Mannino family. Santo Pecora’s sister married into the Mannino family and her son Frank Mannino (Frankie Mann), clarinetist, saxophonist and bandleader, and her grandsons Marco and Milo Mannino, both trumpet players, extended the family musicians to a third generation.

Class of 2004

photo by Al Kennedy

Francis Gonzales – Clyde Kerr Sr. Award for Music Education
Mr. Gonzales helped shape the music of the city through his work in public school classrooms. His former marching band or orchestra students include gifted composers and outstanding musicians such as Moses Hogan, Nicholas Payton, Jason Marsalis, Kenyatta Beasley, Mark Braud, Ronald Markham, Kirk Joseph and many others. He has added immeasurably to the lives of thousands of students and to the cultural life of New Orleans.

The Humphrey Family – Lifetime Achievement Award
The Humphrey Family is receiving this lifetime achievement award for four generations of brass band musicians. Starting with Professor J.B. Humphrey, through his son William Humphrey, his three grandsons Willie, Earl and Percy Humphrey, to his great-grandson Terrence Humphrey, they have maintained an unbroken family tradition of brass band musicianship through four generations.

Benny Jones, Jr. – Lifetime Achievement Award
Benny Jones is leader of the Treme Brass Band, one the top brass bands in the world. The rhythms that bass drummer Lionel Batiste and Benny Jones play have been handed down over the years. Mr. Jones has served as an inspiration and role model for an entire generation of young musicians. Great New Orleans musicians like James Andrews, Troy Andrews and the Rebirth Brass Band, to name a few, have all given credit to Benny Jones for passing on and keeping the tradition of the brass band music alive.

Charles Suhor, Ph.D. – Henry Kmen Award for Excellence in Music Writing
Charlie Suhor, Ph.D., Percussionist/writer/teacher, born in New Orleans and raised in the Ninth Ward, has played with Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, Bill Huntington, Buddy Prima, The New Orleans Pops Orchestra, and others. Suhor's articles, poems and reviews have appeared in many magazines, including down beat, Gentlemen's Quarterly, Jazz Educators Journal and New Orleans Review. His book, Jazz in New Orleans The Postwar Years (Scarecrow Press, 2001), called "a groundbreaking account" by Orleanian Tom Sancton, Jr., Paris Bureau Chief for Time magazine, provides accurate information about, and a credible interpretation of, jazz in New Orleans from the end of World War II through 1970.

Class of 2003

Ms. Mercedes Tucker Stamps - Clyde Kerr Sr. Award for Music Education
In her 40-plus years of teaching in New Orleans schools, Ms. Stamps served as instructor and mentor for numerous musicians and composers who have made their marks in the music world, including Ellis Marsalis Jr., Harold Battiste, Yvonne Busch, Roger Dickerson, Nathaniel Perriliat, Earl Turbinton, Freddy Lonzo and Roger Lewis

Dr. Al Kennedy - Henry Kmen Award for Music Research
Recognized for his acclaimed book Chord Changes on the Chalkboard: How Public School Teachers Shaped Jazz and the Music of New Orleans (Scarecrow Press, 2002).

George Buck - Lifetime Achievement Award
Buck has devoted his life to recording and broadcasting traditional jazz music as well as saving defunct labels and reissuing old ones.

Class of 2002

George "Tex" Stephens - Lifetime Achievement Award (post-humus)
Legendary radio DJ

Cosimo Matassa - Lifetime Achievement Award
Recording pioneer

Class of 2001

photo by Al Kennedy

Dr. Bert Braud - Sidney Bechet Award for Musical Innovation
He deloped the first jazz/classical vocal music curribculum at NOCCA in 1973.

Dr. Ernest Chachere - Clyde Kerr, Sr. Award for Music Education
Taught music at public, elementary, and secondary schools in New Orleans. He trained many prominent musicians, but, even more important, shared his love for music with countless students.

A.J. and Michael Guma - NOIMC Father/Son Award
Professional musicians who developed the Isidore Newman band program, and who still work together in the classroom, teaching music.

Mr. Stanley Mendelson - Lifetime Achievement Award
A great New Orleans pianist who toured with Shrkey Bonano, perfromed with Lizzie Miles, and played with the Dukes of Dixieland for years. He also had a successful solo career.

Mr. Lionel Ferbos - Lifetime Achievement Award
He began his career performing with the Captain Handy and Walter Pichon bands, played in the WPA band, and still appears regularly, at age 89, with the Palm Court Jazz Band -- a true New Orleans treasure.

Class of 2000

Germaine Bazzle - Clyde Kerr, Sr. Award for Music Education
A highly regarded singer, she has made her mark in the classroom, having taught vocal music and chorus for 38 years - 12 years in Thibodaux, and the past 26 years at Xavier Prep.

Don Marquis - Henry Kmen Award for Music Research
Presented with the award for his work on In Search of Buddy Bolden, and influential jazz biography that redefined the way people would write about New Orleans Jazz

Class of 1999

photo by Al Kennedy

Richard B. Allen - Henry Kmen Award for Music Research
A music scholar at Tulane Universtiy, his work Music in New Orleans set a high standard for research in New Orleans Music

Clyde Kerr, Jr. - Clyde Kerr, Sr. Award for Music Education

Sam Henry, Jr. - Sidney Bechet Award for Innovation in New Orleans Music

Ed Lewis Clements - Lifetime Achievement

Waldron "Frog" Joseph - Lifetime Achievement

Joe and Phil Quagliano - Lifetime Achievement

Class of 1998

Yvonne Busch - Clyde Kerr Sr. Award for Music Education

Earl Palmer - Sidney Bechet Award for Innovation in New Orleans Music

New Orleans Jazz Club, 50th Anniversary - Special Achievement Award

Al Galladoro - Lifetime Achievement Award