Jake Gold, a pianist and composer enrolled in The University of New Orleans music program has been named as a recipient of the 2020 ASCAP Louis Armstrong Foundation Jazz Composition Award. Gold will receive a $3,000 scholarship from the educational arm of the foundation for demonstrating excellence in music composition. According to the foundation, Louis Armstrong began the program in 1969 as a way of reportedly “giving back to the world some of the goodness he received throughout his lifetime.”
Gold, originally from Queens, New York, moved to New Orleans in 2012. He says that he enrolled in the UNO music program with the goal of developing a deeper understanding of jazz music.
“It feels really uplifting and humbling to have my compositional work recognized, particularly by the incredible jazz studies faculty here at UNO, and by such relevant groups as the ASCAP Association, and by the Louis Armstrong Foundation,” the pianist and composer says.
“Plus, the monetary aid that this scholarship provides has allowed me to finish my studies at UNO while at the same time finishing my album, which has been in the works for almost two years and features many of my musical compatriots from New Orleans and the Northeast, and has been a real labor of love, time, and money.”
(Gold plans to graduate next spring and release an album of original music around the same time.)
Gold began studying piano at age 5. A graduate of Wesleyan University where he studied ethnomusicology, performance, and composition, the musician wrote and arranged music for a small orchestra in an original musical theater production. Over the next decade, Gold wrote for and performed with countless jazz, funk and reggae bands in Boston and Vermont, leading original projects Jupitang, SunDyL and Gold Standard, which were largely influenced by jazz, film soundtracks, pop and ambient music.
Gold has recorded on over 40 releases, several of which have featured his compositions and production. His songs have been featured in a number of short films and radio pieces. Since moving to New Orleans Gold has become a regular fixture in the local music scene, performing regularly on Frenchmen Street and at the city’s festivals with numerous bands in a wide variety of genres.
The ASCAP Foundation Louis Armstrong Fund provides scholarships to jazz composers studying in New York, New Orleans and Los Angeles.
For more information on Jake Gold, visit here.
Follow Jake Gold on Instagram @golddamn/
