Terri Lyne Carrington, Kevin Eubanks, Lizz Wright, The Marsalis Family and Cassandra Wilson Nominated for a 2011 BET★ SoulTrain Award!

Congratulations to drummer/composer Terri Lyne Carrington, guitarist Kevin Eubanks, vocalists Lizz Wright and Cassandra Wilson, and The Marsalis Family for being nominated for the BET★ SoulTrain 2011 Best Trad Jazz Album!! You can vote below by clicking on the album cover of the artist that you want to win. When you click on your choice, the link will take you to the BET★ SoulTrain page where you cast your vote. 

Cedric the Entertainer will be the host this year and the show will be televised on Sunday, November 27th 9P/8C.

Good luck to all of the nominees!!

Vote Below for BET★ SoulTrain 2011 Best Traditional Jazz Album:

Terri Lyne Carrington - The Mosaic Project

"Everything about this recording is about making a larger picture out of many various elements," says Carrington, who produced the 14-song set. "I assembled several friends - most of whom I've performed with in the past, and all of whom bring their own individual story - to help me create the big picture. For as talented as each of them are as individuals, when I put them all together, I have a much greater musical story - one that can be told in an interesting and compelling way."

Included on that list of friends are some of the most prominent female jazz artists of the last few decades: Esperanza Spalding, Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sheila E., Nona Hendryx, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen and several others. Carrington says the emergence of so many great female jazz artists is what finally makes an album like The Mosaic Project possible, more so now than in decades past.

"If I had tried to do something like this in the past - like when I started playing 25 years ago - I might have felt limited by the pool of available musicians," she says. "But now there are so many talented women whom I've been playing with anyway - not just because they're women but because I love the way they play. So it has become easier to do a special project that celebrates the artistry and the musicality of these women."

Kevin Eubanks - Zen Food

Guitarist Kevin Eubanks held one of the most coveted chairs in television for nearly 18 years as the leader of The Tonight Show Band, when his muse struck and prompted him to take his axe and move on.

Kevin surely did not idle away what little free time he had during that tenure, touring everywhere in the country and world where time permitted him, plus releasing several CDs on his own imprint. Before taking the TV slot that boasted talents like Branford Marsalis and the venerated Doc Severinsen, Kevin had an acclaimed recording career spanning several labels garnering many awards and a host of followers along the way. 

This release finds him in the company of his favorite players, most of whom can be found jamming with him at L.A.'s famed Baked Potato (a guitar paradise where Larry Carlton, Allan Holdsworth, Steve Lukather, Lee Ritenour, etc. have all performed). Run, don't walk, to the nearest player and check out Spider Monkey Café, The Dirty Monk and more sizzlin six-string songs.

Lizz Wright - Fellowship

Fellowship continues Lizz Wright's celebrated collaboration with acclaimed singer-songwriter Toshi Reagon, who co-produced the new album and wrote/performed on a number of tracks on Wright's previous release. The record features several traditional songs that Wright grew up with in church including "Amazing Grace," "Sweeping Through the City," and a gospel medley featuring "I've Got a Feeling" and "Power Lord." Wright also covers a number of songs by noted writers including "Presence of the Lord" by Eric Clapton and "In From the Storm" by Jimi Hendrix. Bernice Johnson Reagon performs on two tracks, including "I Remember, I Believe" which she composed. Lizz Wright, whom The Wall Street Journal calls "a thoughtful, sensitive soul," has received critical praise from Time Magazine, NPR, Ebony, Essence, New Yorker and Billboard, and her music is featured in several major television shows. Wright was born in the small town of Hahira, Georgia, to a local minister. She grew up traveling through the South singing with her parents and siblings. She first came to national attention in 2002 when she performed in a series of Billie Holiday tribute shows. Since then, she's released Salt (2003), Dreaming Wide Awake (2005) and The Orchard (2008), all three critical and fan favorites.

The Marsalis Family - Music Redeems

One of the most famous of New Orleans' multigenerational jazz families, it is extraordinarily rare for the Marsalis clan to assemble all together in one place.

However, approaching Father's Day of last year, the family gathered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to honor its patriarch and the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival's Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Ellis Marsalis. With sons Branford on saxophones, Wynton on trumpet, Delfeayo on trombone, Jason on drums, poet Ellis III reciting a piece written especially for his father for the occasion, and special guests Dr. Billy Taylor and family friend Harry Connick, Jr., Ellis inspired an evening of lively performances of repertoire with special meaning to the Marsalis Family, punctuated by family stories and anecdotes about growing up in New Orleans.

All proceeds from the project will go straight to programming support for the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, an education center and heart of the New Orleans Musicians' Village community, conceived in 2005 by Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. in partnership with New Orleans Habitat for Humanity following Hurricane Katrina.

Cassandra Wilson - Silver Pony 

2010 album from the vocalist widely regarded as the top Jazz singer of her generation. The sultry, smokey-voiced chanteuse breaks new ground once again on her new album Silver Pony. A collection of live and studio recordings that highlight the creative prowess of a stellar band, the original idea behind Silver Pony was to use excerpts from the live shows as the genesis for further explorations in the studio. Blending the two environments leads to some truly inspirational moments and brand new songs evolve as the band in the studio continues to develop some of the same themes initiated in live performances from Warsaw, Seville, and Granada.