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NEA Jazz Masters - 2020


Chuck Nessa

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Harold Mabern should have gotten this a long time ago. This bugs me.

While I'm sure Dorthann Kirk has done great things for the Jazz world and a well deserved nominee, this is the first time I've heard her name.

Edited by bresna
Correcting the fact that Dorthann Kirk is not a Jazz singer.
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11 minutes ago, bresna said:

While I'm sure Dorthann Kirk is a phenomenal Jazz singer and a well deserved nominee, this is the first time I've heard her name.

Maybe read before you write, just once in a while? Not every woman involved with jazz is a singer (and the rest aren't all pianists or harpists) -- from the NY Times link:

 

Ms. Kirk was already working to support jazz music before the death of her husband, the famed saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, in 1977. But after he died, she recommitted herself. Ms. Kirk became just the third person hired at WBGO 88.3 FM, the only full-time jazz station in the New York region, and has worked there for over 40 years. She has also helped organize and program concerts across the city.

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33 minutes ago, bresna said:

Harold Mabern should have gotten this a long time ago. This bugs me.

Mabern is one of several pianists who should have been named NEA Jazz Masters by now.  To name just a few more, Richard  Wyands, Norman Simmons and Steve Kuhn are also deserving.

Congratulations to the winners.  I'm particularly glad to see Workman be recognized.  With deserving bassists like Workman, Ron Carter and Richard Davis in, to name some living masters, I hope that the great Cecil McBee joins them.

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41 minutes ago, king ubu said:

Maybe read before you write, just once in a while? Not every woman involved with jazz is a singer (and the rest aren't all pianists or harpists) -- from the NY Times link:

Thank you for the correction - I mis-read where the adjective was being applied to McFarrin and thought it was her.

However, I still have never heard of her, no matter how much she has done for Jazz in the world. I am not downplaying her influence or her contributions. It's just that I have personally never heard of her and at this point in my life, I thought I'd heard of most. :)

On the flip side - I have heard of Harold Mabern... and Richard Wyands and Norman Simmons and Steve Kuhn.

On top of all this, it bothers me more when I read that up to 7 artists can be elected each year and yet they never do, which results in the situation we're in now.

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I own a fair number of Rahsaan Roland Kirk CDs, and Joel Dorn frequently mentioned Dorthaan in the liner notes of his 32Jazz RRK releases.

I only became aware of her radio activities a few years ago.

Edited by T.D.
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20 minutes ago, jlhoots said:

Everybody O.K. with McFerrin? I have 0 of his music.

I also have zero of his music but I think 2 great choices out of 4 is OK especially when it’s two well deserving legends. Makes the other choices seem odd in comparison as in what’s wrong with this picture. But I’m not an awards kind of person.

 

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NEA JAZZ MASTERS ANNOUNCEMENT

2020 NEA Jazz Masters 
& Tribute Concert at SFJAZZ Center Announced!

2020 Jazz Masters Tribute Concert

THU, APR 2, 2020 · FREE CONCERT

The National Endowment for the Arts, in collaboration with SFJAZZ, will honor 2020 NEA Jazz Masters Bobby McFerrin, Roscoe Mitchell, Reggie Workman, and Dorthaan Kirk—who is the recipient of the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for Jazz Advocacy— with the nation’s highest honor in jazz. This free and open to the public concert event will feature performances by stars of the jazz and music world. Tickets about this event, as well as other related NEA Jazz Masters events in San Francisco featuring the 2020 Jazz Masters will be announced at a later date.

+++

I'll DEFINITELY go to this!

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10 hours ago, jlhoots said:

Everybody O.K. with McFerrin? I have 0 of his music.

He's done a lot of stuff off the radar of his "don't worry///" moment of fame. Very talented and thoughtful performer. Not sure how he falls in the pantheon of this particular award, but he's certainly not a lightweight.

10 hours ago, bresna said:

Well I certainly wouldn't even have to think about looking up Mabern or Wyands or Kuhn. :)

Get them in the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, them and Hank!

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Everything is political, so if you want his nomination to gain traction, do the work and find the streams through which the juice flows. I guarantee you that everybody who gets one of these or those other things has had their people advocating to those people for as long as it took for the notion to take root and sprout.

Joe Chambers would be a great choice, btw. But be ready to do more than just nominate.

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27 minutes ago, bertrand said:

I nominated Joe Chambers 5 years ago, they keep them in the pool 5 years. I would have to renominate him. Should I bother? I have a feeling it is all political, and he does not 'play the game'.

Do you know why they don't choose the full number of deserving Jazz honorees each year? It seems strange to me that when choosing from an ever-aging pool of Jazz superstars, they choose to defer. Mabern is 83. Wyands is 90. Kuhn is 81. These guys are most likely not going to be around much longer. Why wait? Do they figure that if they die, they saved some money (that was sarcasm).

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9 minutes ago, kh1958 said:

Perhaps they only have funding for four.

 

1 hour ago, bresna said:

These guys are most likely not going to be around much longer. Why wait?

Two things you should know:

The Arts Endowment is legally prohibited from lobbying Congress or participating in advocacy for increasing its budget.

The President’s 2020 budget proposes the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts.

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