Jazz Journalists Honor Two UVA Legends

The Jazz Journalists Association has named John D’Earth, left, a “jazz legend,” and Nicole Mitchell Gantt, right, its Jazz Flutist of the Year – for the 13th time.

Charlottesville is known for many things – the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, wine, the Downtown Mall and the list goes on.

Now you can add jazz to that list.

According to the Jazz Journalists Association, the city is home to two major figures in the musical genre. The group recently named trumpeter John D’earth, a UVA lecturer and director of jazz performance, as one of 33 “2024 Jazz Heroes,” and music professor Nicole Mitchell Gantt as its Jazz Flutist of the Year for the 13th time since 2008.

D’earth’s citation, written by WTJU’s Russell Perry, co-host of the community radio station’s “Jazz at 100 Now!” program, traces D’earth’s four-decade history in Charlottesville, which includes mentoring a young bartender and aspiring musician named Dave Matthews.

Besides performing, D’earth is an accomplished composer and ensemble leader. At UVA, he leads the UVA Jazz Ensemble, a student musical group, and has been a member of the faculty Free Bridge Quintet for more than 25 years.

“John routinely contributes his time and talents to causes in the region and is frequently found on the bandstand if there is money to be raised for a progressive cause,” Perry writes. “In demand as a teacher, he is as known for his deep musical knowledge as he is for his encouragement and support of young players.”

Gantt, who performs as Nicole Mitchell, is a flutist and composer who emerged from the Chicago avant-garde music scene in the late 1990s, where she also served as president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. At UVA, she is a professor of composition and computer technologies.

In 2022, the University of Minnesota Press published Gantt’s “The Mandorla Letters,” which it described as: “Part memoir, part manifesto, part Black speculative novella, this book explores inequity, the musical legacies of jazz, creative music, and intercultural collaboration to guide readers toward an alternative society that disrupts binaries, hierarchies, and Western ideas of progress. Paying homage to inspiring artists, it opens channels for artistic proliferation that are integral to the collective survival of our planet.”