Frank Mantooth to Receive IAJE Award

The International Association of Jazz Educators conference begins tomorrow January 10. Although I have been to past conferences I will not be making it to New York this year unfortunately.  The conference will be awesome I'm sure as it always is so I envy those of you who will be in attendance.

One thing I wanted to make note of here is that my good friend and sorely missed arranging buddy, the late Frank Mantooth,  will be receiving the International Association of Jazz educators Hall of Fame award for jazz education.

The award will be presented posthumously to Mantooth's family, his wife Carrie and son Matt Mantooth, during the IAJE Annual Conference. The purpose of the Hall of Fame is to honor those individuals whose musical contributions and dedication to jazz education over the past 25 years have created new directions and curricular innovations for jazz education worldwide.

Frank certainly deserves this award. His contributions to jazz education through his charts and books are enormous. He published over 100 charts and numerous jazz education books during his lifetime.  I consider his book Voicings for Jazz Keyboard to be the best around and I use the concepts Frank lays out in that book all the time when teaching students simple ways to construct chords for both piano playing and for arranging.

If you happen to make it to the IAJA this year, stop in to the award ceremony and say hi to Carrie and Matt Mantooth. Have fun!