Jazz Music Awards co-hosts Dee Dee Bridgewater and Delroy Lindo.

Jazz Music Awards co-hosts Dee Dee Bridgewater and Delroy Lindo.

Credit: MSHAKA MEDIA

The year 2024 isn't the only thing that began with fireworks.

The opening number of the inaugural Jazz Music Awards - debuting at 8 p.m., Jan. 1 on GPB-TV - finds multiple nominee The Baylor Project, the renowned Dianne Reeves and fellow vocalist Jazzmeia Horn performing the spirited "We Swing (The Cypher)" as they affirm that declaration at the same time.

It's almost as if the ceremony starts at the grand finale.

But as co-host (and Tony Award winner) Dee Dee Bridgewater explains at the top, the goal of the entire two-hour program is to educate, celebrate and elevate.

And while those three specific objectives weren't named in the eight categories of awards handed out, ladies and gentleman, these moments were among the many that qualified:

Honoree and educator Dr. Lenora Helm Hammonds gave the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre audience a homework assignment from the podium, offering new meaning to the Atlanta acronym, ATL.

(But what did you expect as The Jazz Music Awards is a nonprofit division of Clark Atlanta University's Jazz 91.9 WCLK.)

"Ask for more jazz," Hammonds "lecture" began. "So that's 'A." 'T' - tell other people how much you love jazz and why...[then] listen. Help people listen to the music."

The Songs of Social Justice Performance featured (l-r) Jazzmeia Horn, Dianne Reeves, Ledisi, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Lizz Wright (as Terri Lyne Carrington smiles from the drums)

The Songs of Social Justice Performance featured (l-r) Jazzmeia Horn, Dianne Reeves, Ledisi, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Lizz Wright (as Terri Lyne Carrington smiles from the drums)

Credit: MSHAKA MEDIA

About midway through the Jazz Music Awards co-host and Peabody Award winner Delroy Lindo introduces a medley of songa on social justice "by captivating women." 

And talk about celebratory. We're talking Reeves, Bridgewater, Horn, Lizz Wright and Ledisi taking on "Endangered Species," "Freedom Day," "It's Up To Me And You," "Strange Fruit" and "Work Song."

Whew. If you somehow aren't elevated, again, by the time these powerhouses link arms and take their earned bow, you must have moved away from the screen when singer/actress Somi sauntered on the stage barefoot, transporting the elegant audience as she seemed to transform into a slowly churning instrument at the end of "House of the Rising Sun."

Even the In Memoriam section became a warm, kind of singalong as musical director and executive producer Terri Lynne Carrington led the All-Star Band (Ray Angry, Milena Casado, Braxton Cook, Orrin Evans, James Genus, Nikki Glaspie, Gerson Lazo-Quiroga, Kassa Overall, Marcus Strickland and Mark Whitfield) to the conclusion of the medley, Earth, Wind & Fire's "Sun Goddess."

And did we mention how the show started?

What a start for the inaugural Jazz Music Awards.