Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
Keeping the Flame at Van Gelder Studio
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
Drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath is among the 2021 NEA Jazz Masters.
(Photo: Ghylian Bell & Mychal Watts)The National Endowment for the Arts recently announced the 2021 class of Jazz Masters, which includes drummers Albert “Tootie” Heath and Terri Lyne Carrington, and reedist Henry Threadgill. Radio host Phil Schaap was announced as the next recipient of the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for Jazz Advocacy.
“Following up on 2020’s joyful and inspiring virtual concert, we look forward to working with SFJAZZ to celebrate these honorees next April in an evening that will showcase their incredible contributions to jazz,” said Mary Anne Carter, chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts, in a press release.
Heath—whose brothers were the late saxophonist Jimmy Heath and the late bassist Percy Heath—performed alongside giants of the genre, including John Coltrane, Nina Simone and Dexter Gordon. Carrington, a bandleader, educator and activist, this year topped the DownBeat Critics Poll in the category Jazz Artist; her ensemble Social Science was voted the Jazz Group of the year, and the group’s debut album, Waiting Game, won honors as Jazz Album of the Year in the poll. Threadgill continues to premiere demanding work deep into his 70s and in 2016 was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his album In For A Penny, In For Pound (Pi). Grammy-winner Schaap, for his part, has hosted a jazz show on WKCR for 50 years and founded the educational Swing University initiative at Jazz At Lincoln Center.
A ceremony to celebrate the 2021 nominees is set for April 21, 2021.
The 2020 honorees, who were acknowledged during an online bash, included vocalist Bobby McFerrin, saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and bassist Reggie Workman, as well as curator/producer Dorthaan Kirk. DB
Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.
Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
Trio aRT with its avalanche of instrumentation: from left, Pheeroan akLaff, Scott Robinson and Julian Thayer.
Sep 3, 2025 12:03 PM
Trio aRT, a working unit since 1988, shockingly released its very first studio recording this summer. Recorded in…
“Think of all the creative people I’m going to meet and a whole other way of thinking about music and a challenge of singing completely different material than I would have sung otherwise to my highest level in dedication to the moment,” Elling says about his Broadway run.
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Kurt Elling was back at home in Chicago, grabbing some family time in a late-June window between gigs. Sporting a smile…
Pat Metheny will perform with his Side-Eye III ensemble at Big Ears 2026 in Knoxville, Tennessee, next March.
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Big Ears has announced the lineup for its 2026 festival, which will take place March 26–29 and include 250…
Mark Masters, right, with Billy Harper.
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The Rising Star Category of this publication’s annual Critics Poll was once called Talent Deserving Wider Recognition…
