Jazz icons celebrate in City Hall council chamber at passage of historic resolution on rights.

New York City Council has passed a resolution aimed at ensuring that jazz musicians are accorded the same rights and respect as their classical and Broadway counterparts.

Council members joined musicians and supporters of Justice for Jazz Artists on the steps of City Hall after the historic vote recognising the successful campaign, which aims to improve the lives of musicians working in New York’s jazz clubs.

“Today the New York City Council has formally recognised that musicians who have provided us with one of the world’s great art forms have been deprived of a major benefit that musicians working in other fields rely on,” said John O’Connor, Associated Musicians of Greater New York, Local 802 AFM Recording Vice President.

Resolution 702 A maintains that jazz is an “esteemed American art form inspiring passionate devotion among generations of fans and recognized by the United States Congress in 1987 as a ‘national treasure’” and acknowledges New York as “an international jazz mecca to which music lovers from around the world travel in order to experience legendary venues such as the Blue Note, Birdland, the Jazz Standard, Iridium and...