Tracey Jordan to Receive Inaugural Sheila Jordan Trailblazer Award

Mount Sinai Hospital's Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine (LACCM), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is introducing the Sheila Jordan Trailblazer Award. Based at Mount Sinai, the Center will present the award annually at its Wonderful World Gala to a music industry executive whose career reflects artistic excellence, cultural impact, and the transformative power of music.

The new award honors Sheila Jordan (1928–2025), an NEA Jazz Master and Blue Note recording artist (among other labels), whose singular voice in jazz and extraordinary life embodied music's capacity to heal, sustain, and illuminate the human spirit — a connection between music and wellbeing central to the Center's mission. Each year, the award will go to an executive who, like its namesake, has blazed new paths in championing artists and shaping culture with integrity.

The inaugural award will be presented at this year's 33rd Wonderful World Gala to Tracey J. Jordan, daughter of Sheila Jordan and pianist Duke 'Jordu' Jordan. A graduate of New York's High School of the Performing Arts, Tracey Jordan built a decades-long career that broke barriers for African American women in senior label roles. She began at PR firm Solters/Roskin/Friedman, running global campaigns for Motown Records, Tony Bennett, and Dolly Parton, before rising to Director of R&B Artist Development & Publicity at Arista Records under Clive Davis and VP of Artist Development & Video Production at Motown.

Over her career, Tracey Jordan has helped shape the careers of Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Tupac, Boyz II Men, Johnny Gill, New Edition, and the Notorious B.I.G. She went on to hold roles at ABKCO Music & Records, MTV Networks, and SiriusXM, where she served as Senior Director of Talent & Industry Relations. She currently serves as a Governor of the Recording Academy's New York Chapter and last year joined de Passe Jones Entertainment as Consulting Producer.

In honoring Tracey J. Jordan with this inaugural award, the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine celebrates a career and a life shaped by music, a legacy passed down from her mother.

About the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine

The Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, was established in 1994 to provide an innovative model of patient care integrating music and medicine. For the past 32 years, it has made music therapy available to patients of all ages and diagnoses, plus their families, in settings throughout the Mount Sinai Health System. The Center is considered a leader in the field of music therapy, providing direct patient care, conducting ground-breaking research and offering a rich training ground for professional education.

The legendary musician Louis Armstrong was a patient at the hospital at which LACMM was founded (formerly Beth Israel, now Mt. Sinai), where his beloved doctor Gary Zucker took him through many years of treatment to help him maintain his good health. Originally founded as The Louis & Lucille Armstrong Music Therapy Program, continued philanthropic support from Louis and his wife Lucille made music therapy services possible, with a focus on music therapy and pediatric pain. From those wonderful beginnings, the program has expanded to serve many New Yorkers, developing a worldwide reputation.

LACMM's development of an integrative approach to the application of music and music therapy in medical settings has served an impressive, wide swath of the population, including: neonates, adults with COPD and/or stroke victims, cancer patients (regardless of stage or type), children with emotional needs such as ADHD, depression, and PDD, children with autism and intellectual disabilities, children and teens with asthma, musicians and performing artists who have performance-related physical ailments and emotional issues. The LACMM music therapists conduct daily sessions with patients of all ages who are receiving care throughout the Mt. Sinai Health System in departments ranging from intensive care, maternity, and pediatric emergency to oncology, pain management and palliative care.

Each October, LACMM celebrates Armstrong's legacy at its signature fundraiser, the Wonderful World Gala (this year on October 13, 2026), which brings together the music, medical, and philanthropic communities in his honor. The Gala honors 1) a patient who has been helped by music therapy, 2) a medical professional who has been instrumental in the dissemination of music therapy, and 3) a celebrated musician. This year marks the launch of a fourth honor, the Sheila Jordan Trailblazer Award, which will be presented annually to trailblazers in the music and recording industries — people whose vision and leadership have helped shape and advance the business.

Past Wonderful World Gala music honorees include Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal, Paul Shaffer, Samara Joy, David Sanborn, Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones, David Amram, Vanessa Williams, Eddie Palmieri, Wayne Shorter, Jackson Browne, Dionne Warwick, Jon Batiste, Pete Seeger, Jon Hendricks, Levon Helm, Dave Brubeck, and more.

LACMM's work has been widely covered in outlets including The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, and CBS News.