The MOJA Arts Festival’s Artistic Director, Charlton Singleton, has been nationally recognized by the Jazz Journalist Association as its 2024 class of Jazz Heroes. This special recognition is reserved for musicians who demonstrate and share their passion for jazz with their community.

Charlton and Quintin Baxter, who has also been recognized as a Jazz Hero, are core members of the two-time Grammy Award-winning band Ranky Tanky. As a Jazz Hero both musicians share their commitment to jazz and they continuously use their platform to educate audiences about the musical riches of the Gullah culture and community. Congratulations Charlton and Quintin!

The JJA proudly hails drummer Quentin Baxter and trumpeter Charlton Singleton, the dynamic duo at the core of the Grammy Award-winning quintet Ranky Tanky, as Charleston Jazz Heroes for their ambitious, tireless promotion and support of the local and regional music of the South Carolina Lowcountry.

For over 30 years, these gentlemen have been friends, bandmates, educators and speakers emphasizing the enduring musical riches of the Gullah cultural community. Both were born in Charleston; both showed an early aptitude for music and both have profound family connections to the region’s unique African-American enclave that forged a distinctive culture from African traditions and shared experience as once-enslaved people.

Continue reading more at the source: 2024 Jazz Heroes Quentin Baxter and Charlton Singleton.