NEA Announces 2003 Jazz Masters

  I  

The National Endowment for the Arts has announced that saxophonist Jimmy Heath, percussionist Elvin Jones and vocalist Abbey Lincoln will receive the 2003 American Jazz Masters Fellowships. The awards recognize significant contributions to jazz, artistic excellence and impact on the music field. Every year, a panel of experts selects up to three artists from a pool of nominations submitted by the national jazz community and the public. Each artist receives a one-time fellowship of $20,000.

A.B. Spellman, a Deputy Chairman at the Arts Endowment and author of Four Lives in the Bebop Business, made the announcement at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. “The National Endowment for the Arts is honored to recognize these great artists not only for their exceptional talent, dedication and hard work but also for the outstanding contributions they have made to the uniquely American art form that is jazz,” Spellman said.

The American Jazz Masters Fellowship awards will be presented at an Arts Endowment-supported concert on January 10, 2003, in Toronto, Canada during the 30th annual conference of the International Association for Jazz Education. To date, 67 artists have been named American Jazz Masters, among the nation’s most prestigious honors in the jazz field. These jazz masters form an unofficial jazz hall of fame and include Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie.



  • Zakir_Hussain_2011_Symphony_Center_copy.jpg

    “Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.

  • ART7087_Mike_Stern_by_Sandrine_Lee_72dpi_RGB_PR8391_copy.jpg

    “I love doing ballads,” Mike Stern says. “It’s just a part of me, some part of emotionally how I feel sometimes.”

  • KennedyCenter.jpg

    Queen Latifah extols Harlem and the Apollo Theater at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.

  • Jernberg_Photo_Jon_Edergren_2_copy.jpg

    “With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.

  • herb1.jpeg

    Robertson had a penetrating, pliant sound with a remarkable softness at its center.


On Sale Now
February 2025
Sullivan Fortner
Look Inside
Subscribe
Print | Digital | iPad