The Coltrane Tribute Ensemble from the Jazz & African-American Music Studies Program (JAAMS) in the Department of Music & Dance has been selected to receive a 2025 Student Music Award from DownBeat Magazine: Outstanding Performance by an Undergraduate Small Jazz Combo. Widely recognized as the top publication devoted to “Jazz, Blues, and Beyond,” DownBeat announced the annual Student Music Award winners in its June issue.
The ensemble, one of 5 undergraduate chamber jazz ensembles in the department, includes Henry Bolduc (piano), Aidan Higgins (tenor sax), Ellen Jacobson (drums), Dhanishtaa Sivaraj (vocal) and Aeneas Strozier (bass). Like many groups in the JAAMS program, they focused on a particular jazz icon, in this case adapting Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”
Recordings by artists and ensembles are submitted to DownBeat from institutions nationwide in a variety of categories and are then adjudicated by panels of respected jazz performers and educators.
Under the direction of Jeffrey W. Holmes, the UMass JAAMS program has maintained a long tradition of DownBeat award success, with nearly 70 Student Music Awards garnered by ensembles and individual students in virtually every instrumental, vocal, ensemble and writing category over the past 35 years.
Read the full list of 2025 Award Winners in the DownBeat 2025 June Issue