The National Endowment for the Arts has named saxophonist and Sun Ra Arkestra bandleader Marshall Allen, avant-garde pianist Marilyn Crispell, and Afro-Cuban pianist-composer-bandleader Chucho Valdes to the 2025 class of NEA Jazz Masters.
Journalist and music critic Gary Giddens, one of the leading jazz critics in the world, was also awarded the 2025 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy.
“This class of NEA Jazz Masters represents the finest in free thinking musicians,” said Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz Jason Moran in a statement on Tuesday. “Each has been an active and integral part of communities that have pushed the music forward to new heights.”
Since 1982, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded 177 fellowships to legendary musicians in jazz, from Dave Brubeck to Dianne Reeves to Quincy Jones. The NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship is the United States’ highest honour in jazz.
The 2024 NEA Masters were saxophonist Gary Bartz, trumpeter Terence Blanchard and composer Amina Claudine Myers. As part of the fellowship, the recipients will each receive $25,000 as will be honored on Saturday, April 26, 2025, at a free concert in Washington, DC, held in collaboration with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.