Archives for January 14, 2010

Wednesday night, the 2010 NEA Jazz Master awards went to pianists Kenny Barron, Cedar Walton and Muhal Richard Abrams; arranger, composer and band leader Bill Holman; saxophonist and flutist Yusef Lateef; vibrahaphonist Bobby Hutcherson; singer Annie Ross (pictured at the ceremony); and record producer George Avakian. They received their medals and checks in a National Endowment For The Arts ceremony at Lincoln Center. To read accounts of the event by Nate Chinen of The New York Times and my artsjournal.com colleague Howard Mandel, click on their names in this sentence.
Congratulations to all of the recipients.

An American jazz master who relocated to Europe nearly four decades ago died yesterday in Denmark hours after eight of his peers were honored in New York. Drummer Ed Thigpen succumbed to heart and lung problems in a hospital in Copenhagen, his home since 1972. He was 79. Thigpen was universally admired for his technique, which he applied with taste and musicianship that made him one of the best known drummers in the world during his long run as a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio. Here, he is featured with Peterson and Ray Brown in Italy in1961, playing Clifford Brown’s “Daahoud.”