2017 NEA Jazz Masters

Dee Dee Bridgewater performing at the 2014 International Jazz Day Global Concert in Osaka, Japan. Credit Keith Tsui / Getty Images

By ANDREW R. CHOW
JUNE 13, 2016

The National Endowment for the Arts has named its 2017 NEA Jazz Masters: the musicians — Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dave Holland, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Dick Hyman — and the jazz historian Ira Gitler. Each will each receive $25,000 and be honored at a tribute concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington on April 3, 2017.


All of the honored musicians still perform. Ms. Bridgewater is a Grammy- and Tony-winning singer who recently appeared as Billie Holiday in “Lady Day” Off Broadway. (Charles Isherwood, a New York Times theater critic, wrote of her performance: “I sank back happily into my seat and let her artistry, which melds her own sophisticated style with an effective vocal impersonation of Holiday, seduce me into a state of bliss.”) Mr. Holland, a bassist, played extensively with Miles Davis and Anthony Braxton, and this year toured internationally with his trio.

read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/arts/music/nea-jazz-masters-bridgewater-holland-smith-hyman.html?_r=0