National Endowment for the Arts ■ 1 1 1 V k MM (IW jNATIO \ NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FORTHE ARTS A great nation deserves great art. The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Endowment is the nation’s largest annual funder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities, and military bases. National Endowment for the Arts America's Highest Honor in Jazz 25th Anniversary Credits This publication is published by: National Endowment for the Arts Office of Communications Febcia Knight, Director Don Ball, Publications Manager/Editor Designed by: Fletcher Design Inc., Washington DC Cover Photo: NEA Jazz Masters Jimmy Heath, Chick Corea, Paquito D’Rivera, and James Moody take the stage during the 2006 NEA Jazz Masters concert and awards ceremony at the International Association for Jazz Education conference in New York City. Photo by Tom Pich Special Thanks: Vance Jacobs, Tom Pich, Lee Tanner, and Michael Wilderman for the use of their photographs. Kate Kaiser and Stuart Klawans for their contributions to the text. The following reference texts were used in researching biographical information of the Jazz Masters: All Music Guide to Jazz by Vladimir Bogdanov, Claris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Backbeat Books American. Musicians II by Whitney Balliett, Oxford University Press Biographical Encyclopedia ofjazzby Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler, Oxford University Press Four Jazz Lives by A.B. Spellman, University of Michigan Press Jazz: The Rough Guide by Ian Carr, Digby Fairweather, and Brian Priestley, Rough Guides Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 4th Edition by Richard Cook and Brian Morton, Penguin Talking Jazz: An Oral History by Ben Sidran, Da Capo Press Voice/TYY: (202) 682-5496 For individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Individuals who do not use conventional print may contact the Arts Endowment's Office for AccessAbility to obtain this publication in an alternate format. Telephone: (202) 682-5532 National Endowment for the Arts 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20506-0001 (202) 682-5400 Additional copies of this publication can be obtained for free by contacting the NEA Web site: www.arts.gov. Additional information about the jazz artists noted in this publication can be accessed at the International Association for Jazz Education Web site: www.iaje.org. This publication was printed on recycled paper. A Message from the Chairman I t is my great pleasure to introduce the 25th anniversary class of NEA Jazz Masters. Since the program’s inception in 1982, the title of NEA Jazz Master has been bestowed upon 90 of the greatest living American jazz musicians. The NEA Jazz Masters Award is the nation’s highest honor in jazz. It is given to individuals who liave made a major contribution on this great American art form as a lifetime achievement award. Since 2004, four non-musicians who have championed jazz also have been honored with the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy. In addition to honoring achievements in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters initiative has developed into an ambitious and comprehensive program to honor and promote the art. Last year we introduced a groundbrealdng jazz education initiative for high school students, NEA Jazz in the Schools, which was developed in partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center and with support from the Verizon Foundation. We also have brought jazz to all 50 states through the NEA Jazz Masters on Tour program, in partnership with Arts Midwest and sponsored by Verizon, in which NEA Jazz Masters presented live jazz performances, master classes, and lectures in geographic areas otherwise underserved by high quality live jazz. Additionally, the Arts Endowment has partnered with Jazz Alliance to support NEA Jazz Masters residencies on the campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The NEA also is supporting the production of nationwide syndicated radio and television broadcasts highlighting the lives and careers of individual NEA Jazz Masters, such as the public television series Legends of Jazz, to further the reach of this unique American art form. Finally, the agency continues to lend support to major public jazz archives — among them the Smithsonian Institution — in their efforts to obtain, maintain, and make permanently accessible to researchers and the public important oral histories of some of the most significant jazz musicians. The NEA Jazz Masters honored here are the eminent ambassadors for America’s most influential musical export. The NEA’s mission is to assist these great musicians by lending support to those entrusted with the preservation of our jazz legacy, to assist organizations focusing on presenting the music, and to provide quality teaching materi- als for student education to assure future generations of jazz audiences and artists. We salute the 2007 NEA Jazz Masters, the newest members of this esteemed group. Chairman National Endowment for the Arts iii 2007 NEA Jazz Masters Photo by Vance Jacobs 1982-2007 1982 Roy Eldridge* Dizzy Gillespie* Sun Ra* 1983 Count Basie* Kenny Clarke* Sonny Rollins 1984 Ornette Coleman Miles Davis* Max Roach 1985 Gil Evans* Ella Fitzgerald* Jo Jones* 1986 Benny Carter* Dexter Gordon* Teddy Wilson* 1987 Cleo Brown* Melba Liston* Jay McShann* 1988 Art Blakey* Lionel Hampton* Billy Taylor 1989 Barry Harris Hank Jones Sarah Vaughan* 1990 George Russell Cecil Taylor Gerald Wilson 1991 Danny Barker* Buck Clayton* Andy Kirk* Clark Terry 1992 Betty Carter* Dorothy Donegan* Sweets Edison* 1993 Jon Hendricks Milt Hinton* Joe Williams* 1994 Louie Bellson Ahmad Jamal Carmen McRae* 1995 Ray Brown* Roy Haynes Horace Silver 1996 Tommy Flanagan* Benny Colson J.J. Johnson* 1997 Billy Higgins* Milt Jackson* Anita O’Day* 1998 Ron Carter James Moody Wayne Shorter 1999 Dave Brubeck Art Farmer* Joe Henderson* 2000 David Baker Donald Byrd Marian McPartland 2001 John Lewis* Jackie McLean* Randy Weston 2002 Frank Foster Percy Heath* McCoy Tyner 2003 Jimmy Heath Elvin Jones* Abbey Lincoln 2004 Jim Hall Chico Hamilton Herbie Hancock Luther Henderson* Nat Hentoff Nancy Wilson 2005 Kenny Burrell Paquito D’Rivera Slide Hampton Shirley Horn* Jimmy Smith* Artie Shaw* George Wein 2006 Ray Barretto* Tony Bennett Bob Brookmeyer Chick Corea Buddy DeFranco Freddie Hubbard John Levy 2007 Tashiko Akiyoshi Curtis Fuller Ramsey Lewis Dan Morgenstern Jimmy Scott Frank Wess Phil Woods Deceased Table of Contents Introduction l A Brief History of the Program 3 Program Overview 5 2007 NEA Jazz Masters 7 Toshiko Akiyoshi 8 Curtis Fuller 9 Ramsey Lewis 10 Dan Morgenstern 11 Jimmy Scott 12 Frank Wess 13 Phil Woods 14 NEA Jazz Master Barry Harris performs during the 2006 awards ceremony at the International Association for Jazz Education conference in New York City. Photo by Tom Pich Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/neajazzmastersam00nati_0 Photo by Vance Jacobs Introduction T here is general agreement that the United States has produced three original art forms: movies, modern dance, and jazz. All speak to the genius of American culture. Film is indicative of our ability to convert new technology into a medium for mass consumption, frequently achieving the status of high art. Modern dance, an indigenous kinesthetic art capable of an unbounded range of expression, from treatments of contemporary issues to pure abstraction. And then there is jazz. Jazz lives at the very center of the American vernacular. It is the gift of the generations of new urban African American people whose capacity for the synthesis of diverse strains of musical forms brought schottisches, quadrilles, habaneras, and marches into the bases of the blues and ragtime to create a whole new way of making music. It was built on the discipline of collective improvisation, a remarkable skill when you think about it, which allowed for maximum expression of the individual within the context of the group. Jazz is democratic and virtually without hierarchy: the composer is one more collaborator in the group, and even bandleaders do not stand above the soloists. These qualities are entirely appropriate for what is best about America. The old jazz principle that “you’ve got to make it new” is so American that it could go on the dollar bill. These defining qualities have made jazz arguably the United States’ most wel- comed cultural export. It has taken root wherever it has been planted, moving into and becoming a part of the cultures of other countries and then becoming an aspect of their national expression, in the way that Russian jazz is vastly different from Afro-Cuban jazz. Some years ago, just after apartheid had fallen, I heard a young South African ensemble that com- prised an Indian pianist, a tabla player, a white female flutist, and a black bassist. Distinct traces of each of these musicians’ heritages were audible in their solos, yet they performed with intimate ease. I thought, how marvelous that, as these young peo- ple are at a point in history when they can speak to each other as equals, jazz provides the vocabulary. It is no accident that jazz has been a favored medium of cultural diplomacy. For decades, Willis Conover’s jazz series on the Voice of America kept ears open to the United States Information Agency (USIA) all over the world. Uncounted numbers of jazz musicians have traveled abroad under the 2007 NEA Jazz Masters 1 auspices of the State Department. Many of the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Randy Weston, and Billy Taylor, have toured the glohe as our cultural representatives The NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships program was created to say to jazz musicians that their govern- ment values the way that they keep our culture rich hy continually producing such fabulous music. Mastery is a difficult status to achieve. No creative discipline has more than a few true masters, for it takes exceptional talent, dedication, hard work, and opportunity to become one. NEA Jazz Masters have demonstrated these qualities and more. The National Endowment for the Arts is honored to recognize these great artists for the outstanding contributions they have made to American culture. A. B. Spellman Poet and Author, Four Jazz Lives Former Deputy Chairman for Guidelines & Panel Operations National Endowment for the Arts 2 2007 NEA Jazz Masters Photo by Michael Wilderman National Endowment for the Arts 1991 American Jazz Masters Fello wship Awards Buck Hill (sax) and NEA Jazz Master Clark Terry (flugelhorn) at the 1 991 Awards ceremony. A Brief History of the Program A melding of African and European music and cultures, jazz was born in America, a new musical form that used rhythm, improvisa- tion, and instruments in unique and exciting ways. Jazz came to prominence in the early 20th century on the dance floors of major cultural centers such as Kansas City and New York. With the advent of sound recording techniques, the increased availability of affordable gramophones, and the rise of radio as pop- ular entertainment, jazz quickly conquered the coun- try. By the 1930s and 1940s, jazz had become America’s dance music, selling albums and perform- ance tickets at dizzying rates and sweeping millions of fans in foreign countries off their feet. By the 1950s, however, with the advent of rock and roll and the tilt in jazz toward bebop rather than the more popular swing, jazz began a decline in its popularity. It was still seen as an important and exciting art form, but by an increasingly smaller audience. Jazz was still being exported overseas, though, especially by Voice of America radio broad- casts and U.S. Department of State goodwill tours that featured such musicians as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, and Dave Brubeck. By the 1960s, when the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was created by Congress, jazz album sales were down and jazz performances were becom- ing more difficult to find. Large dance orchestras dis- banded for lack of work, and musicians found them- selves in stiff competition for fewer and fewer gigs. The music, starting with bebop and into hard bop and free jazz, became more cerebral and less dance- oriented, focusing on freeing up improvisation and rhythm. It was moving to a new artistic level, and if this high quality were to be maintained, it would need some assistance. NEA assistance to the jazz field began in 1969, with its first grant in jazz awarded to pianist/com- poser George Russell (who would later go on to receive an NEA Jazz Master award in 1990), allowing him to work on his groundbreaking book, Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, the first major academic work in jazz. In a decade, jazz bind- ing went bom $20,000 in 1970 to $1.5 million in 1980 to more than $2.8 million in 2005, supporting a wide range of activities, including jazz festivals and concert seasons, special projects such as Dr. Billy Taylor’s Jazzmobile in New York and the Thelonious 2007 NEA Jazz Masters 3 Monk Institute of Jazz’s Jazz Sports program, educa- tional jazz programming on National Public Radio, artists-in-schools programs, and researcli. While tlie NEA recognized and acted on tlie need for public funding for jazz, the pioneers of the field were rapidly aging, and often dying without the appropriate recognition of their contribution to this great American art form. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, two of the giants of jazz in terms of both musicianship and composition, both died in the early 1970s without the importance of their contribu- tions being fully acknowledged and appreciated. In an effort to nationally recognize outstanding jazz musicians for their lifelong achievements and mastery of jazz, the Arts Endowment in 1982 created the American Jazz Masters Fellowships — now the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships — given to musicians who have reached an exceptionally high standard of achievement in this very specialized art form. In addition to the recognition, the NEA included a monetary award of $20,000 for each fellowship. The rigors of making a living in the jazz field are well documented. Jazz is an art form to which the free market has not been kind. Despite their unparal- leled contributions to American art, many jazz greats worked for years just barely scraping by. The mone- tary award often has provided a much needed infu- sion of income. That such recognition was long overdue is exem- plified by Thelonious Sphere Monk, one of the great American composers and musicians. Monk was nominated for an NEA Jazz Master Fellowship in the first year of the program, but unfortunately passed away before the announcement was made (the fel- lowship is not awarded posthumously). The three who were chosen certainly lived up to the criteria of artistic excellence and significance to the art form: Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sun Ra. The panel in that first year included stellar jazz musi- cians themselves, including some future NEA Jazz Masters: trumpeter Donald Byrd and saxophonists Frank Foster, Chico Freeman, Jackie McLean, and Archie Shepp. In addition, legendary Riverside record company co-owner and producer Orrin Keepnews was on the panel. From that auspicious beginning, the program has continued to grow and provide increased awareness of America’s rich jazz heritage. In 2004, the number of fellowships awarded increased from three to six (in 2005, the number increased to seven), and a new award was created for those individuals who helped to advance the appreciation of jazz. In 2005, the award was designated the A. B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy in honor of A. B. Spellman, a jazz writer, accomplished poet, innova- tive arts administrator, and former NEA Deputy Chairman, who has dedicated much of his life to bringing the joy and artistry of jazz to all Americans. Additionally, the amount of the fellowship was increased to $25,000. In 2005, Chairman Dana Gioia greatly expanded the NEA Jazz Masters initiative to include several new programs in addition to the fellowships. A two-CD anthology of NEA Jazz Masters’ music was produced by Verve Music Group. NEA Jazz Masters on Tour, sponsored by Verizon, is bringing jazz musicians to all 50 states throughout 2005-06 for performances, com- munity events, and educational programs. A new arts education component was created in partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center and with support from the Verizon Foundation, NEA Jazz in the Schools. This educational resource for high school teachers of social studies, U.S. history, and music includes a five-unit, Web-based curriculum and DVD toolkit that explores jazz as an indigenous American art form and as a means to understand U.S. history (more information can be found at www.neajazzintheschools.org). New broadcasting programming was created, such as 14 one-hour shows on NEA Jazz Masters featured on the public radio series Jazz Profiles, hosted by NEA Jazz Master Nancy Wilson, and NEA Jazz Moments, radio shorts for broadcast on satellite radio XM. Since 2005, the Arts Endowment has partnered with Legends of Jazz, a weekly public television series dedicated to legendary jazz artists and often highlighting NEA Jazz Masters. Each passing year brings increased international recognition of the NEA Jazz Masters Awards as the nation’s highest honor for outstanding musicianship in the field of jazz. The recipients of the NEA Jazz Masters Award cover all aspects of the music: from boogie-woogie (Cleo Brown) to swing (Count Basie, Andy Kirk, Jay McShann); from bebop (Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Clarke) to Dixieland (Danny Barker): from free jazz (Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor) to cool jazz (Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Ahmad Jamal): and everywhere in between. What ties all these styles together is a foundation in the blues, a reliance on group interplay, and unpredictable improvisation. Throughout the years, and in all the different styles, these musicians have demonstrated the talent, creativity, and dedication that make them NEA Jazz Masters. Celebrating its 25tb anniversary in 2007, the award offers a solid platform for raising worldwide awareness of America’s rich jazz heritage by not only honoring those who have dedicated their lives to the music, but also by leading the way in efforts encour- aging the preservation and nourishing of jazz as an important musical form for generations to come. 4 2007 NEA Jazz Masters Photo by Vance Jacobs NEA Jazz Masters Louie Bellson, Roy Haynes, Chico Hamilton, and James Moody at the luncheon for the 2005 NEA Jazz Masters event in Long Beach, California- Program Overview T he National Endowment for the Arts recog- nizes the importance of jazz as one of the great American art forms of the 20th century. As part of its efforts to honor those distinguished artists whose excellence, impact, and significant con- tribution in jazz have helped keep this important tra- dition and art form alive, the Arts Endowment annu- ally awards NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships, the high- est honor that our nation bestows upon jazz musi- cians. Each fellowship award is $25,000. The NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship is a lifetime achievement award. The criteria for the fellowships are musical excellence and significance of the nomi- nees’ contributions to the art of jazz. The Arts Endowment honors a wide range of styles with awards currently given in the categories of rhythm instrumentalist, solo instrumentalist, vocalist, key- boardist, arranger/composer, and bandleader. There is also a special award given to a non-musician, the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Master Award for Jazz Advocacy, which is awarded to an individual who has made major contributions to the appreciation, knowledge, and advancement of jazz. Fellowships are awarded to living artists on the basis of nominations from the general public and the jazz community. The recipients must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States. An indi- vidual may submit only one nomination each year, and nominations are made by submitting a one-page letter detailing the reasons that the nominated artist should receive an NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship. Nominations submitted to the Arts Endowment by the deadline are reviewed by an advisory panel of jazz experts and at least one knowledgeable layper- son. Panel recommendations are forwarded to the National Council on the Arts, which then makes rec- ommendations to the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Nominations remain active for five years, being reviewed annually during this period. Information on submitting a nomination and on the NEA Jazz Masters award is available on the NEA Web site: www.arts.gov. 2007 NEA Jazz Masters 5 iiiii i 2007 Fellows Toshiko Akiyoshi VOCALIST Jimmy Scott SOLO INSTRUMENTALIST COMPOSER-ARRANGER SOLO INSTRUMENTAUST Phil Woods Ramsey Lewis JAZZ ADVOCATE Dan Morgenstern Names in bold in biographies denote NEA Jazz Masters awardees. All recordings listed in Selected Discography are under the artist's name unless otherwise noted. Years listed under recordings in Selected Discography denote the years the recordings were made. 2007 NEA Jazz Master Toshiko Akiyoshi ; Akiyoshi BANDLEADER Born December 12, 1929 in Dairen, Manchuria PIANIST COMPOSER ARRANGER O ver the course of a six-decade career, pianist, band- leader, and composer-arranger Toshiko Akiyoshi has made a unique and vital contribution to tire art of big band jazz. Born in Manchuria, where she began playing the piano at age six, Akiyoshi moved back to Japan with her par- ents at the end of World War II. Her family, enduring the hardships of the period, could not provide her with an instrument, and so, just to touch a piano, she took her first job as a musician, playing in a dance-hall band. She was not exposed to real jazz until a Japanese record collector introduced her to the work of Teddy Wilson, whose music immediately impressed her. In 1952, pianist Oscar Peterson discovered Akiyoshi while he was on a Jazz at tire Philharmonic torn of Japan and recommended that producer Norman Granz record her. Thanks to this opening, she came to die ^DDISCOO^ > Long Yellow Road, RCA, 1974-75 Farewell, Ascent, 1 980 Carnegie Hall Concert, Columbia, 1991 Four Seasons ofMorita Village, BMG, 1996 Hiroshima: Rising from the Abyss, True Life, 2001 United States in 1956 to study at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. She moved to New York in 1959, playing at Birdland, die Village Gate, the Five Spot, and the Half Note; but despite a brief attempt in the 1960s to showcase her talents as a composer and arranger for large ensembles, she did not have die opportu- nity to form a big band until she moved to Los Angeles in 1972 with her husband, saxophonist/ flutist Lew Tabackin. The following year, the couple formed die Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra featiuing Lew Tabackin. In 1976, the band placed first in die Down Beat Critics’ Poll, and Akiyoshi’s album Long Yellow Road was named best jazz album of the year by Stereo Review. In the 1970s, Akiyoshi began explor- ing Japanese themes in her compositions and arrangements, mixing them with the strong jazz base in her music. In 1982, the couple returned to New York, where Akiyoshi re-formed her band widi New York musicians. The band enjoyed a critically successful debut at Carnegie Hall as part of the 1983 Kool Jazz Festival. Akiyoshi has recorded 22 albums to date with the orchestra. Her recording Four Seasons of the Morita Village was awarded the 1996 Swing journal Silver Award, and her big band albums have received 14 Grammy Award nominations. Akiyoshi is the first woman ever to place first in the Best Arranger and Composer category in the Down Beat Readers’ Poll. In 1995, the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra was invited to play in China, and in 1996 Akiyoshi completed her autobiography Life With Jazz, which is now in its fifth printing in Japanese and will soon be translated into Korean. Among tire many honors she has received are fire Shijahosho (1999, from fire Emperor of Japan); the Japan Foundation Award, Order of tire Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosetta (2004, from the Emperor of Japan): and tire Asahi Award (2005, from the Asahi Shimbun newspaper). 8 2007 NEA Jazz Master’s A remarkably fluent trombonist, whose impeccable sense of time and ambi- tious solos made him a mainstay of the hard-bop scene, Curtis Fuller was born in Detroit, where he began his music stud- ies in high school. A stint in an Army band (where he played with Cannonball Adderley) helped him mature into a pro- fessional with virtuoso skills. After work- ing in Detroit with Kenny Burrell and Yusef Lateef, he moved to New York, where he made his recording debut as a leader on Transition in 1955. He also became a strong presence on the Blue Note label, work- ing with Clifford Jordan, John Coltrane (on the clas- sic Blue Train) and his own The Opener (with Hank Mobley). Always in demand — he also played on late-1950s sessions for Prestige, United Artists, and Savoy — Fuller is the only trombonist to have recorded with Coltrane, Bud Powell, and Jimmy Smith. In 1959, he became a founding member of The Jazztet with Benny Golson and Art Farmer, then joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1961. For the next four years, working in a front line with Wayne Shorter and Freddie Hubbard, Fuller helped make this edition of the Messengers Born December 15, 1934 in Detroit, Ml one of tire defining bands of tire hard-bop era. In 1968, Fuller toured Europe with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band. During tire 1970s, he experimented for a time playing hard bop arrangements in a band featuring elec- tronic instruments, heading a group with guitarist Bill Washer and bassist Stanley Clarke. He concluded that phase with the 1973 album Crankin'. Fuller toured with tire Count Basie Baird from 1975 to 1977; co-led the quin- tet Giant Bones with Kai Winding in 1979 and 1980; and played with Art Blakey, Cedar Walton, and Benny Golson in the late 1970s and early '80s. During the 1980s, Fuller toured Europe regularly with the Timeless All-Stars and performed and recorded with a reconvened Jazztet. hr more recent years, Fuller has become known nationally and internationally as a master clinician in jazz studies programs, having worked with students and young professionals at institutions including Skidmore, Harvard, Stanford, tire University of Pittsburgh, Duke, the New England Conservatory of Music, and tire John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He holds an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music. ^DDISCOo^ A > Blues-ette, Savoy, 1 956 Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Ugetsu, Rlverside/OJC, 1963 Crankin ’ , MRL, 1973 The Jazztet, Real Time, Contemporary, 1986 Keep It Simple, Savant, 2003 2007 NEA Jazz Masters 9 2007 EDUCATOR BROADCASTER Born May 27, 1935 in Chicago, IL W ith a style I hat springs from his early gospel expe- rience, his classical training, and a deep love of jazz, pianist and composer Ramsey Lewis has built a decades-long career as one of America’s most popular performers. Born in Chicago, where he continues to make his home, he began taking piano lessons at the age of four and credits his teacher Dorothy Mendelsohn with awaken- ing him to the communicative power of music. He recalls her telling him to ‘“Listen with your inner ear,’ and ‘Make the piano sing.’ These concepts were revelations!” During diese early years, though, Lewis had no experience with jazz, except for the records his father would play at home from artists such as Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and Meade “Lux” Lewis. He was already 15, and an accomplished gospel pianist, when a fel- low church musician, Wallace Burton, asked him to join his band and helped Lewis learn the fundamentals of jazz. With his very first trio album, Ramsey Lewis and the Gentlemen of Swing, Lewis captivated a large and diverse jazz audience. By 1965, he was one of the nation’s most successful jazz pianists, topping the charts with “The In Crowd,” “Hang On Sloopy,” and “Wade in the Water.” Since then, he has won three Grammy Awards and the Recording Academy Governor’s Award (2000), and earned seven gold records and three honorary doctorates. Expanding his career through teaching, programming, and work in radio and television, he also has become an ambassador for jazz. Lewis has served as Art Tatum Professor in jazz Studies at Roosevelt University; as Artistic Director of the “Jazz at Ravinia” series of the Ravinia Festival; and as host of a weekday morning drive-time radio show on Chicago’s WNUA-FM, for which he has been awarded R&R's 1999 and 2000 Personality of the Year Award. He hosts the syndicated Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis, a two-hour radio program that airs throughout the United States, and is the co-producer (widr PBS television station WTTW-Chicago) and host of a television series of die same name, which features emerging and established jazz musicians. Active in community affairs, espe- cially on behalf of youdi, Lewis helped organize the Ravinia Festival’s Jazz Mentor Program. In recognition of his activities, he was featured as the “Person of the Week” on ABC Nightly News in February 1995 and has received the prestigious Lincoln Academy of Illinois Laureate Award in Springfield, Illinois, in April 1997. He currently tours and performs with his own trio, featuring Larry Gray on bass and Leon Joyce on drums. ^SODISOOg, # v % The In Crowd, Chess, 1 965 Dancing in the Streets, Cadet, 1968 Ramsey Lewis/Billy Taylor, We Meet Again, Columbia, 1988-89 Appassionata, Narada, 1999 With One Voice, Narada, 2005 10 2007 NEA Jazz Masters JAZZ HISTORIAN AUTHOR EDITOR ARCHIVIST EDUCATOR D irector of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University since 1976, Dan Morgenstern is a jazz historian and archivist, author, editor, and educator who has been active in the jazz field since 1958. The Institute of Jazz Studies is the largest collection of jazz- related materials anywhere. Born in Germany and reared in Austria and Denmark, Morgenstern came to the United States in 1947. He was chief editor of Down Beat from 1967 to 1973, and served as New York editor from 1964; prior to that time he edited the periodicals Metronome and Jazz. Morgenstern is co-editor of the Annual Review Of Jazz Studies and the monograph series Studies In Jazz, published jointly by the IJS and Scarecrow Press, and author of Jazz People. He has been jazz critic for the New York Post, record reviewer for the Chicago Sun Times, and New York correspondent and columnist for England’s Jazz Journal and Japan’s Swing Journal. He has contributed to reference works including the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Dictionary of American Music, African-American Almanac, and Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year; and to such anthologies as Reading Jazz, Setting The Tempo, The Louis Armstrong Companion, The Duke Ellington Reader, The Miles Davis Companion, and The Lester Young Reader. Morgenstern has taught jazz history at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, Brooklyn College (where he was also a visiting professor at the Institute for Studies in American Music), New York University, and the $ Jazz People, H.N. Abrams, 1976 (reprinted by Da Capo Press, 1993) Louis Armstrong: 4 Cultural Legacy (with Donald Bogle, Richard A, Long, and Marc H. Miller), University of Washington Press, 1994 Living with Jazz: A Header, ed. Sheldon Meyer, Pantheon, 2004 Schweitzer Institute of Music in Idaho. He served on the facul- ties of the Institutes in Jazz Criticism, jointly sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and the Music Critics Association, and is on the faculty of the Masters Program in Jazz History and Research at Rutgers University. Morgenstern is a former vice president and trustee of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS); was a co- founder of the Jazz Institute of Chicago; served on the boards of the New York Jazz Museum and the American Jazz Orchestra; and is a director of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation arid the Mary Lou Williams Foundation. He has been a member of Denmark's International JAZZPAR Prize Committee since its inception in 1989. A prolific annotator of record albums, Morgenstern has won six Grammy Awards for Best Album Notes (1973, 1974, 1976, 1981, 1991, and 1995). He received ASCAP’s Deems Taylor Award for Jazz People in 1977 and in 2005 for Living with Jazz. Yj > 2007 NEA Jazz Masters 1 1 UDCALIST Born July 17, 1925 in Cleveland, OH F or more than five decades, vocalist Jimmy Scott has numbered the jazz world’s best singers among his select group of fans. No less an authority than Billie Holiday named Scott — and only Scott — as a vocalist she admired. Although he was, for a period, “perhaps the most unjustly ignored American singer of the 20th century” (according to Joseph Hooper in a New York Times Magazine profile), Scott today is once more finding a dedicated international audience for his emotionally penetrating art. Born in 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio, where he still lives, James Victor Scott got his first big break in 1949, when lionel Hampton hired him and billed him as “Little Jimmy Scott.” As featured vocalist with tire Hampton big band, Scott achieved fame in 1950 widi the ballad “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool.” His success continued throughout the next decade, notably with his hit recording in 1955 of the old Bing Crosby favorite “When Did You Leave Heaven?,” a song that he made his own. Scott subsequently spent long periods away from the microphone, working for a time as a hotel shipping clerk and as a caretaker for his ailing father. He returned to the stage in 1985 and began recording again in 1990, and his career took off again two years later when Seymour Stein heard him perform at song- writer Doc Pomus’s funeral and signed him to the Warner Brothers Sire label. Since that time, Scott recorded two albums for Sire, one for Warner Bros., and one for Artists Only! before joining Milestone Records in 2000. He sang new interpreta- tions of “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool" and “When Did You Leave Heaven?” on the Milestone CD Over the Rainbow, released in 2001, on which he returned the compliment Billie Holiday had paid him by performing his own distinctive version of one of her signature songs, “Strange Fruit.” Scott’s new fairs have rediscovered his original hit recordings of the 1950s on such collections as three-CD box set The Savoy Years and More released in 1999, which included his 1952 recordings for Roost Records and his 1955-75 recordings for Savoy, and his resurgence in the pub- lic eye included appearances on Lou Reed’s 1992 recording Magic and Loss and in an episode of David Lynch’s 1990s television series Twin Peaks. He continues to record and perform frequently. tSDDISCOo # V The Savoy Years and More, Savoy, 1952-72 Falling In Love is Wonderful, Rhino, 1 962 All the Way, Sire, 1992 Holding Back the Years, Artists Only, 1998 Over the Rainbow, Milestone, 2000 12 2007 NEA Jazz Masters Photo by Michael Wilderman FLUTIST SAXOPHONIST COMPOSER Wess Born January 4, 1 922 in Kansas City, MO multi-instrumentalist whose inspired solos have kept big-band jazz fresh and vital into the present, Frank Wess is revered as a smoodily swinging tenor saxophone player in the Lester Young tradition, as an expert alto saxophonist, and as one of die most influential, instantly recognizable flutists in jazz history. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Wess first studied classical music and played with the Kansas All-State High School Orchestra. After mov- ing to Washington, DC, as a teenager, in 1935, he began to play jazz in lunchtime jam sessions with fellow students, including Billy Taylor. An early touring career was inter- rupted by military service — he played in a 17-piece band dining World War II — and then was resumed when Wess came out of die Army and joined ^■$0 DISCoq/, 311 outstanding lineup in the Billy Eckstine Orchestra. It was at this time that he took up die dute, study- ing at the Modern School of Music in Washington. All this time, Count Basie had been calling. Wess finally joined his big band in 1953, helping it to evolve dining its so-called “New Testament” phase and remaining with it until 1964. Wess’s dute playing, set off by Neal Hefti’s arrangements, contributed strongly to die Basie Orchestra’s new sound, while his tenor saxophone playing served as a counterpoint to the more fiery sound of Frank Foster. Wess has played since the 1960s in countless settings: with Clark Terry’s big band, the New York Quartet with Roland Hanna, Dameronia (1981-85), and Toshiko Akiyoshi's Jazz Orchestra. During this period, he also bridged the worlds of jazz and popular show business. Wess performed as a staff musician for ABC Television, both for die Dick Cavett Show and for die David Frost Show (with the Billy Taylor Orchestra). In Broadway pit bands, he played for shows such as Golden Boy (starring Sammy Davis), Irene (with Debbie Reynolds), and Sugar Babies (widi Mickey Rooney). For ten years, he played drst-chair tenor saxophonist in die Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. He has also led his own big bands on world tours, and has played recently in the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni Big Band. Widely recorded on many labels, bodi as a leader and a side- man, Wess is a perennial favorite in Down Beat polls and a now-legendary presence on the jazz scene. Count Basie, Verve Jazz Masters, Verve, 1954-65 I Hear Ya Talkin', Savoy, 1959 Flute Juice, Progressive, 1981 Going Wess, Town Crier, 1 993 Without A Doubt, Koch, 2000 2007 NEA Jazz Masters 13 fe3 5 COMPOSER ARRANGER SAXOPHONIST BANDLEADER EDUCATOR Born November 2, 1931 in Springfield, MA B orn in Springfield, Massachusetts, Philip Wells Woods has devoted himself to tire alto saxophone since the age of 12. As a teenager, he briefly took private les- sons in improvisation from Lennie Tristano and also studied for a summer at the Manhattan School of Music, fir 1948, he enrolled in tire Juilliaxd School, where he remained through 1952, majoring in clarinet performance. While at Juilliard, he played for a brief period in Charlie Barnet’s dance band. Subsequently, he worked with leaders including George Wallington (replacing Jackie McLean), Kenny Dorhanr, and Friedrich Gulda and then, joining with one of his musical idols, traveled to tire Near East and South America with Dizzy Gillespie. By now established as one of the most brilliant alto saxophonists in jazz, Woods went on to perform in Buddy Rich’s quintet and toured Europe with Quincy Jones (1959- 60) and the U.S.S.R. with Benny Goodman (1962). From 1964 to 1967, Woods took a summer break from tire band- stand, teaching at tire Ranrblerny performing arts camp in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, still much in demand, he performed in New York in 1967 both as the leader of his own quartet (featuring Hal Galper, Richard Davis, and Dottie Dodgion) and as a member of Clark Terry's big band. hr 1968, Woods moved to France and formed the European Rhythm Machine quartet, with George Gruntz on keyboards, Henri Texier on bass, and Daniel Humair on drums. His talent as a composer blossomed during this period, when he wrote music for Danish and Belgian radio and composed a ballet for French television. After disband- ing tire quartet in 1972, Woods returned to tire United States, settled in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, and formed a jazz group with Mike Melillo, Steve Gilmore, and Bill Goodwin. With this ensemble, he staked his claim to being tire finest alto saxophonist in mainstream jazz, a repu- tation confirmed by his performances on Images (1975, with Michel Legrand), Live from the Showboat (1976), and Billy Joel’s 1977 hit recording, “Just tire Way You Are,’’ all of which received Grammy Awards. In 1975, he received an NEA Music grant that he used to compose the work “The Sun Suite,” one of more than 200 songs Woods has composed. He has recorded several albums with new arrangements of famous composers — such as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Tadd Dameron, Quincy Jones, and Henry Mancini — and in 2006 released a well- received album of stan- dards, American Songbook. He remains active internationally as a bandleader, composer- arranger, and soloist. Rights of Swing, Candid, 1960 Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival, MGM/Verve, 1969 I Remember, Gryphon, 1978 Encontro, Philology, 2000 Plays Woods, Philology, 2004 14 2007 NEA Jazz Masters Twenty-one NEA Jazz Masters turned up for the 2006 awards ceremony in New York City. From left to right, top to bottom, back row: Ron Carter, Bob Brookmeyer, Ray Barretto, Buddy DeFranco, Paquito D'Rivera, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard; middle row: NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, John Levy, Nancy Wilson, Chick Corea, Barry Harris, Tony Bennett, Jim Hall, Slide Hampton, David Baker; front row, seated: Clark Terry, Frank Foster, James Moody, Chico Hamilton, Roy Haynes, Nat Hentoff. A Great Nation Deserves Great Art National Endowment for the Arts 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20506-0001 202.682.5400 Not for sale — Available for free at www.arts.gov