Jennifer Pollard Receives SEMJA’s Ron Brooks Award
When one first falls in love with jazz, it is about the music, it is about resonance with human experience and the rhythms of life. Then, when you start to hear it live, you become connected with the musicians. From there, you become a member of the jazz community. This magic happened to Jennifer Pollard, creator of the “Lifting Up A2 Jazz” newsletter and Facebook group.
Jennifer Pollard, who is now a part of the Center for Teaching & Learning Team at the New Mexico in Albuquerque, became fascinated by jazz at an early age in her native Barbados. She treasured old movies on the single television for their music and dancing. In her teens she discovered the local radio program “Jazz Gems” which covered a full breadth of jazz — from vocal jazz greats like Ella and Sarah to the jazz organ of both Shirley and Rhoda Scott. She grasped that the organ was a great jazz instrument. She had big ears then and still does.
Her post-secondary academic career began in Montreal, Canada, where Jennifer completed her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degrees in Counseling Psychology at McGill University. At McGill she realized that listening to live jazz provided rest and respite and a sense of profound connection with musicians and fellow listeners. Fast forward to more than a decade later, , Jennifer came to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan to pursue a PhD in Higher Education (Academic Affairs & Student Development concentration) She brought the desire to experience live jazz with her to Ann Arbor and found it at every opportunity.
Jennifer’s jazz activist passion blossomed when she volunteered for the A2 Jazz Festival in 2016. After posting flyers on community boards and directly with people around town, , she decided, having realized that many people were not aware of many of the existing offerings around town, to make up a “sheet” of jazz sessions/venues to hand out at the festival. The sheet adapted into a mailing list and then the Facebook foruwhich friends shared with others. The service grew organically! She included all events from middle school to professionals honoring this special jazz community which was greatly appreciated.
With her significant academic responsibilities, how does Jennifer Pollard manage the LiftingUp A2 Jazz Facebook page, her Jazz Highlights and assist with moderating the Detroit Jazzheads page from New Mexico? “It becomes woven into your life. It is not a burden when you love this community. You develop a rhythm for following posts and communicating with musicians and by now there’s a working template for editing and updating. Also, it literally takes seconds to share events on other pages, benefitting the entire music ecology.”
We benefit from Jennifer Pollard’s communication for the Ann Arbor-Detroit jazz community, which is why SEMJA will present her with the Ron Brooks Award for Service to the Jazz Community on Wednesday, June 3, 2025, at Ziggy’s in Ypsilanti. Join us in grateful appreciation for Jennifer Pollard’s long-distance dedication to the Southeastern Michigan jazz community.
photograph by Jeff Dunn