May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins Passes Away at 95
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
The National Endowment for the Arts announced the recipients of its 2009 NEA Jazz Masters Award, which honors six recipients with a $25,000 grant. The 2009 recipients are George Benson, Jimmy Cobb, Lee Konitz , Toots Thielemans and Snooky Young. Recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder will receive the 2009 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy.
The ceremony and concert will be held on Oct. 17 at Frederick P. Rose hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center and will feature the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis in a program dedicated to the honorees’ works.
“Jazz is a vital part of our nation’s history and cultural heritage,” said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, “and I am delighted to announce the artists of the class of 2009, whose bodies of work have had, and continue to have, a decisive and enduring impact on the development of this art form.”
More info: arts.endow.gov
Onstage, Rollins would move about restlessly, thrusting his tenor sax in the air as he blew.
May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
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