NEA Announces Jazz Masters

If the folks at the National Endowment for the Arts had been wise enough to include a bassist-say, Ron Carter-as one of the recipients of the 2003 Jazz Masters Fellowship, they could have had the group tour, raking in mounds of cash to fund the grants they annoyingly pass on to lousy performance artists year in and year out. The trio of legends that will receive the 2003 Fellowships, saxophonist Jimmy Heath, percussionist Elvin Jones and vocalist Abbey Lincoln (pictured), will surely make do without the bassist or the tour, seeing as that each will receive $20,000 in honor of their significant contributions to jazz, artistic excellence and impact on music in general.

The American Jazz Masters Fellowship awards will be presented at an Arts Endowment-supported concert on Jan. 10, 2003 in Toronto during the 30th annual conference of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE). Sixty-seven artists have been named American Jazz Masters to date including Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and most everyone else with greatest hits albums crowding the record store bins.