{"id":403,"date":"2011-06-24T09:16:20","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T13:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2011\/06\/new_nea_jazz_masters_a_classy\/"},"modified":"2011-06-24T09:16:20","modified_gmt":"2011-06-24T13:16:20","slug":"new_nea_jazz_masters_a_classy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/06\/new_nea_jazz_masters_a_classy.html","title":{"rendered":"New NEA Jazz Masters: A classy last class"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Endowment for the Arts’s final designated Jazz Masters<\/a> are all worthy: drummer Jack DeJohnette<\/a>, saxophonist Von Freeman<\/a>, bassist Charlie Haden<\/a>, singer Sheila Jordan<\/a> and trumpeter-educator-organizer-gadfly Jimmy Owens<\/a> have had long and profoundly influential if not broadly celebrated or financially rewarded creative careers. So much the worse that this 30 year program highlighting genuine American artistic heroes has been zeroed out in the 2012 budget, to be replaced by proposed “American Artist of the Years Awards” that will toss jazz musicians into a mix including every kind of artist working in the performing arts (defined as dance, music, opera, musical theater and theater), with a de-emphasis on long-demonstrated artistry (I’ve blogged about this in detail<\/a> previously<\/a>). <\/p>\n

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The Jazz Masters announcement was made in conjunction with announcements of new NEA National Heritage Fellowships<\/a> and NEA Opera Honors<\/a> recipients; both those programs have also been eliminated in the NEA’s 2012 budget.<\/span><\/div>\n


\nEnding the Jazz Masters program<\/a> which the NEA ballyhoos as “the nation’s top jazz honor” and which has conferred that status on 124 people over the past three decades leaves many equally worthy candidates without hopes of the $25,000 prize and, more significantly, official U.S. governmental admiration for lives exemplifying the USA’s forward-looking, democratic ideals regarding original individual expression and spontaneous collaboration. I have my own long, long list as to whom should be put on the Jazz Masters’ pedestal and they are entirely subjective (Sam Rivers<\/b>, age 87; Roscoe Mitchell<\/b>, age 71; Henry Threadgill<\/b>, 67; Eddie Palmieri<\/b>, 74; Andrew Cyrille<\/b>, 71; Dee Dee Bridgewater<\/b>, 61; Roswell Rudd<\/b>, 75; Dave Holland<\/b>, 63; Dave Burrell<\/b>, 70; and Reggie Workman<\/b>, 74 are at the top) and you can create your own, as jazz musician and educator Noah Baerman has<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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There are those who deny that the Jazz Masters program is good for jazz, and I think they’re wrong. But in any case, here are listening recommendations from the recorded works of the new Masters:<\/p>\n

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