Spring 2023

Award-Winning
Jazz Educator
in Our Own Backyard
by Johnathan Hamiel & Tina Robinett
In October 2022, Doctor Lenora Zenzalai Helm
Hammonds, interim music department chair at North Carolina
Central University, was the inaugural recipient of the Jazz
Music Awards’ Jazz Educator Award of Distinction. The awards
recognize people who have made lasting contributions to jazz.
NCMEA president Johnathan Hamiel recently sat down with
Helm Hammonds to discuss her career, jazz and her recent award.
What made you choose jazz?
One of the things that my dad always taught me was to watch
the crowd and go the other way. So my friends and peers in high
school, they all liked the kind of music we listened to growing up:
pop, R&B, soul, gospel…. I was in an R&B band. Only a handful
of people liked jazz. I thought it was interesting music. The people
I listened to who played jazz music, to me it was like mental chess.
Musical chess. I didn’t want to do something that seemed simple
and was just about shaking it on the dance floor.
I thought it was intelligent music. I thought it was music
that had good stories. I felt like it was the music of a culture that
represented all of the diaspora. I thought it represented American
excellence.
I couldn’t articulate that at 15, which is the age when I chose
jazz for myself, but I knew it was a special thing. My hair would
stand up on the back of my neck when I would hear Billie Holiday
or John Coltrane. And I thought, what is it about what they’re
doing that makes them sound like that.
Can you share your experience as a jazz educator, as
a performer, and as a black female. How has that been
maneuvering around the jazz world as a performer, educator
and as a black female?
I’m often the one and only. Right now, in my department, in
terms of jazz women performers, I’m the only one that’s black.
There’s a classical musician who’s on the research side of our jazz
studies degree, but the performers are all men.
In terms of jazz educators, when I go to jazz conferences, like
Jazz Education Network (JEN), think
how many black, jazz women educators
who are senior administrators at their
university.
[There aren’t many], and so what
that does to a student body is that
you’re a unicorn. And sometimes, the
incredulousness that comes with it… I
had a peer, a chair of a department from
another university, and I introduced
myself to them at an event, and told
them I enjoyed their performance.
And they said oh, okay, you’re chair, like someone’s trying to
figure it out. And I said yes, I wanted to see your performance
this coming weekend, but I won’t be able to because I have a
composition commission of my own, and I’ll be going out of town
for that with a string quartet, and a vibraphone and myself.
And he said, and you’re a composer? I said, yeah, and he said,
but I thought you were a singer. And I said yes. So that thing of
“but I thought you were a singer,” meaning the dissonance on his
face of I’m a singer, I’m a composer, like that doesn’t work together.
Maybe I should be a singer/songwriter. But the dissonance of that,
“And you’re chair, right?”
So, what that does to you, what Kimberly Crenshaw talks about,
that intersectionality where people don’t have an idea of that nexus
of “Oh, we hire women at our university.” “Oh yeah, and we hire
blacks. We have this black man…” Or, “We hire diverse groups of
people.” But the intersection of who I am is a dissonance for a lot of
people.
What that means is, you’re always working. You have to work
twice as hard, and go faster, longer, better. What that means in the
education space for our young people is they can’t be what they
don’t see.
I’m always navigating that intersection from my cultural
self, my professional self as a scholar in a university setting, in
a category and genre where the classical side of the house is
watching to see if I’m going to give enough love and pay attention
to everybody. My classical counterpart’s predecessors didn’t have
to do that. They just had to not be a barrier, but they didn’t have to
prove themselves.
So I have to have the kind of countenance of I’m a human being
who’s a musician. I’m a scholar and I’ve
earned my work. That’s why I’ve pushed
so hard to get my degree working full
time. When I started as an adjunct
A huge part of jazz is
improvisation. What is the first
thing you think about during an
improvisation?
The melody. Then I’m listening for
who’s playing with me. So I know who’s
going to respond with me.
When you’re at a party, if you’re at a table, having drinks and
food with friends, you start to match the energy of the way people
are talking, what they’re talking about , how loud to be, if you laugh
of whatever. You don’t just come in gangbusters and bring a whole
different energy that doesn’t match.
So beyond the melody, I’m listening to who my partners
are, and then it’s what story do I want to tell? I think it’s terribly
disrespectful to the audience to go in there ready, with a whole
thing.
Tell us about the Jazz Award, and what it felt like to win.
I was astounded! It was the inaugural one, so it was really
special to be the first one. But the Jazz Music Award is meant to
UNCG Summer Music Camp
Week 1: July 9–14, 2023 and Week 2: July 16–21, 2023
Openings remain for select instruments. For more information
and the online application, visit smcamp.uncg.edu.
Audition Dates for 2023–24
December 2, 2023 February 10, 2024
January 27, 2024 February 24, 2024*
*priority deadline for scholarship/assistantship consideration
Degree Programs
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Music
Music Minor
Master of Music
Doctor of Musical Arts
Doctor of Philosophy
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate
Post-Masters Certificate
be an answer to the GRAMMY awards, but for jazz artists. They
organized the event in Atlanta and it felt like the Jazz GRAMMY’S.
So to be the first one to receive the Jazz Educator Award of
Distinction was amazing. It was surreal. So much so, that when
I got the email, I read it quickly and
thought they wanted me to present an
award to someone.” And my husband
said, “No, Lee, read it again. They’re
giving you the award.” And I just wept.
Being there was like being
Cinderella. It was just amazing. After
that, a lot of people… it’s so weird
how getting an award like that, all of
a sudden people take you a little more
seriously. Or like I’ve been trucking
along all this time. So it felt really good
to be recognized for the work so far, four decades in.
What performance are you most proud of, whether it’s your
performance individually, or a student performance?
My Vocal Jazz Ensemble performed at JEN a couple of years
ago. The African American Jazz Caucus (AAJC) gave us the
spotlight that year as the AAJC Spotlight Group. We had standing
room only, and my students (from NCCU) showed out. They left
no prisoners. Afterwards, our peers came up and said such great
things. The elders in AAJC came up and said, “yes, you made us
proud!” But those students showed them what it sounds like when
you are proud of singing music from the diaspora. For my students,
that was my favorite performance.
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