The National Endowment for the Arts announced the four newest recipients of the nation’s highest honor in jazz. Innovative jazz musicians Bobby McFerrin, Roscoe Mitchell, and Reggie Workman, as well as Dorthaan Kirk—who is receiving the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for Jazz Advocacy—are the 2020 recipients of NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships, an ongoing program of national cultural support.
They will be celebrated at a tribute concert on April 2, 2020, at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco, California, in collaboration with SFJAZZ.
Since 1982, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded 157 fellowships to great figures in jazz, including Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins, Dianne Reeves, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, and George Wein. The NEA’s website features resources and content about them, including video biographies, and tribute concert videos, podcasts, and more than 350 NEA Jazz Moments audio clips.
NEA Jazz Masters Fellows are nominated by the public, including the jazz community. Nominations are judged by an advisory panel of jazz experts, including administrators, performers, producers, and a knowledgeable layperson. The panel’s recommendations are reviewed by the National Council on the Arts, which sends its recommendations to the chairman, who makes the final decision. The Arts Endowment encourages nominations of a broad range of men and women who have been significant to the field of jazz, through vocals, instrumental performance, creative leadership, and education. NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships are up to $25,000 and can be received once in a lifetime. Visit the NEA’s website for detailed information and to submit nominations. The deadline for 2021 NEA Jazz Masters nominations is October 31, 2019.
The National Endowment for the Arts has also supported the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program, an effort to document the lives and careers of nearly 100 NEA Jazz Masters. In addition to transcriptions of the comprehensive interviews, the website also includes audio clips with interview excerpts.
Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the Arts Endowment supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America.
Visit arts.gov to learn more.
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