Carr Center Artistic Director Receives NEA Jazz Honor
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) recently announced their 2021 Jazz Masters. Among the four luminaries receiving this prestigious award is Terri Lyne Carrington, the Carr Center’s gifted Artistic Director. Carrington is one of the youngest NEA Jazz Masters ever recognized. She is founder of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, and earlier this year she topped the DownBeat Critics Poll for best Jazz Artist; her ensemble Social Science was voted the Jazz Group of the year, and the group’s debut album, Waiting Game, won Jazz Album of the Year.
The NEA has been awarding this distinguished honor to great jazz artists since 1982. Past recipients have included the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald, Dianne Reeves, Chick Corea and Miles Davis.
The other outstanding 2021 honorees are avant-garde saxophonsist Henry Threadgill; broadcaster Phil Schaap, who will receive a special recognition for jazz advocacy; and hard-bop drummer/educator Albert “Tootie” Heath. They will all be honored through a tribute concert to be broadcast online, April 22, 2021.