Nea Jazz Masters
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NUMBER 1, 2017 NEA JAZZ MASTERSCELEBRATING 35 YEARS 1 Reverberations This issue The Ongoing Musical Since the NEA Jazz Masters Legacy of Betty Carter program first began 35 years ago, BY MICHAEL GALLANT 145 awards have been made to jazz artists and advocates who have NATIONAL COUNCIL made a significant contribution to ON THE ARTS the music. Though these awards Jane Chu celebrate the accomplishments of Chairman individuals, the impact and legacy Bruce Carter of our honorees spread far beyond Aaron Dworkin Lee Greenwood a single life. Through their talent 4 Deepa Gupta and vision, they have changed the Paul W. Hodes The Unencumbered sound, shape, and reach of jazz, Maria Rosario Jackson Herbie Hancock and pushed this uniquely American Emil Kang Musician, Educator, art form beyond the possibilities of Charlotte Kessler Humanitarian imagination. In this way, not only María López De León BY ANN MEIER BAKER do the NEA Jazz Masters represent Rick Lowe the epitome of musical skill, but they David “Mas” Masumoto allow all of us to celebrate the spirit Barbara Ernst Prey Ranee Ramaswamy of innovation, and better appreciate Diane Rodriguez the many ways jazz impacts our Tom Rothman lives. Olga Viso Because the work of NEA Jazz 7 Masters touches so many people EX-OFFICIO in so many ways, their legacies Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) Being True to Herself are fittingly varied. In this issue Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) Toshiko Akiyoshi Brings of NEA Arts, we highlight six Jazz Rep. Patrick J. Tiberi (R-OH) Japanese Culture to Jazz Masters who have made particularly BY KATJA VON Appointment by Congressional remarkable impacts. They have leadership of the remaining SCHUTTENBACH changed the sound of jazz recording ex-officio members to the from a studio in their parents’ council is pending. living room, and mentored future generations of rising jazz musicians. NEA ARTS STAFF They have developed new strains of Don Ball, Executive Editor jazz, and have shown that jazz is big Rebecca Sutton, Editor enough to embrace all manner of Kelli Rogowski, Graphic Designer cultural traditions. They have used Paulette Beete 10 jazz as a diplomatic and educational Victoria Hutter tool, and have extended the reach of Adam Kampe If You Build It… jazz to other art forms. Josephine Reed The Recording Legacy of Rudy Van Gelder To learn more about the lives BY DON BALL and legacies of any of our NEA Jazz Masters, please visit us online at arts.gov/honors/jazz. 14 Milt and Dizzy A Photographic Glimpse About the cover: of Dizzy Gillespie, COVER ART BY KELLI ROGOWSKI Courtesy of Milt Hinton BY REBECCA SUTTON 1 NEA Jazz Master Betty Carter performing at the Pori Jazz Festival in Finland in 1978. PHOTO BY KOTIVALO, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS REVERBERATIONSREVERBERATIONSREVERBERATIONSREVERBERATIONS REVERBERATIONSREVERBERATIONSThe Ongoing Musical Legacy of Betty Carter REVERBERATIONSBY MICHAEL GALLANT 2 Listen to 1992 NEA Jazz Master Betty Carter and brought to the Kennedy Center in 1998, effortlessly twist a melody into an alternate that Moran first directly felt Carter’s influence. dimension, alchemizing it into a raw, effortlessly As a student, he was selected to participate in virtuosic, and beautifully improvisational the Kennedy Center’s inaugural Jazz Ahead mutation of its originally composed form, and class. Along with a small group of fellow young you will understand that hers was a voice and musicians, he experienced what could well be creative brilliance for the ages. As singer Carmen described as an ongoing master class in musical McRae, also an NEA Jazz Master, once described, risk-taking. “There’s really only one jazz singer—only one: “During the two weeks we worked together, Betty Carter.” she gave me a lot of confidence in the kind Talk to any of the scores of ascendant jazz of approach I had,” said Moran. “This was artists sparked forward by Carter’s decades of around 1998, and my approach was still under musical mentorship, though, and you’ll realize construction. I might say I was a bit of an outsider. that her once-in-a-generation gift for voice and I proposed to perform a song with three singers, interpretation isn’t her only contribution to echo two saxophonists, two basses, piano, and drums.” into the future. Moran’s concept was indeed unusual, and his Carter was born in 1929 and laid to rest 69 piece unlike any other on the program. “Some of years later, leaving behind a roster of mentored the other students were whispering that when musicians that is every bit as impressive as the Betty would hear my song, she was going to tear body of work the singer recorded. That list of me apart,” he said. “But when Betty did hear musical heavyweights includes Stephen Scott, the song, she turned to everyone—at least in my Geri Allen, Don Braden, Mulgrew Miller, Cyrus mind she did!—and said, ‘See, this is what you all Chestnut, Benny Green, Kenny Washington, and should be trying to do!’ She had berated many 2017 NEA Jazz Master Dave Holland—and that’s students for bringing in songs that sounded too just the beginning. traditional. She then helped my song out, and Betty Carter Perhaps two of Carter’s most visibly it was eventually performed at the final concert. leading students in the Jazz Ahead program at accomplished mentees are bassist Christian She was proud and supportive, and I never forgot the Kennedy Center. McBride and pianist Jason Moran. McBride is a that.” PHOTOS BY five-time Grammy Award winner who serves in According to McBride, Carter’s passion for JEFFREY KLIMAN, leadership roles for organizations like the New giving opportunities to younger musicians such COURTESY OF THE JOHN F. KENNEDY Jersey Performing Arts Center and Newport as himself and Moran and supporting their CENTER FOR THE Jazz Festival and educates students through explorations was a two-way street, and one that PERFORMING ARTS the organization Jazz House Kids. Moran is paid all parties back in creative dividends. Carter a MacArthur herself once stated that she “learned a lot from Fellow who has these young players, because they’re raw and they been described come up with things that I would never think by Rolling Stone about doing.” as “the most “She herself always stayed fresh by having provocative young musicians around her,” said McBride. “It thinker in current was 50-50, and that comes from a long line of jazz.” He currently mentorship in music, particularly in jazz, but in leads the Betty classical music as well. It’s not like a rock band Carter’s Jazz where you get four musicians, try to make some Ahead program in hit records, and never break up…. In jazz, we have his role as artistic to make sure that all of these great musicians out director for jazz there get an opportunity to get heard and better at the Kennedy themselves, express themselves, and develop Center. their skills. Betty is part of a long line of mentors It was in fact in the history of jazz.” through Jazz McBride first became aware of Carter Ahead, a career during his pre-teen years, when he was initially development discovering the music that would shape his career residency program and artistic journey. It was hard to miss the iconic founded by Carter singer, he said, when being taught about the in 1993 in Brooklyn legends who shaped the legacy of jazz. 3 As a first-year student at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, McBride received an invitation to join Carter’s trio, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that thrilled him—but was unexpectedly lost due to an unfortunate miscommunication about who was supposed to call whom once Carter returned from a European tour. In 2017, McBride laughed about the crossed wires that cost him the seat in the band. Though Carter ended up hiring another bass player at the time, she and McBride went on to play together on many of present and future, personal and global. “Betty occasions, becoming close friends up to the time seemed to be ultimately concerned about the of the singer’s death. health of jazz and the musicians that create it,” Having supported her on the bandstand he said. “I think she fought insanely hard for her so many times, McBride described Carter’s place in the canon, and knew that another way approach as a truly original variation on the to ensure this was to influence the new crop of jazz vocal theme. “Most jazz vocal albums are musicians. She left a lot of seeds with us, and we highly polished, highly stylized, with nice, tight continue to place them carefully into the soil.” arrangements,” he said. “Now, Betty always Case in point, Moran continues to channel had nice, tight arrangements and great musical Carter’s guts, brilliance, and spirit in his work directors, but the way that Betty sang was so running Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead. “I only hire unorthodox with her sense of rhythm and timing. faculty members that worked with Betty,” said Even her sense of intonation was so unusual that Moran. “This ensures that we all know the vibe you were drawn in by its unusual-ness. I don’t Betty had during Jazz Ahead, and we keep up the think we’ll ever see another singer like Betty ever intensity.” again.” “In our past four years, the students continue Throughout the years, McBride saw Carter’s to shock us, and what we now understand is that impact on younger musicians like himself first- we are making an enormous family,” he hand. “Betty would police us,” he said with a continued.