The National Endowment for the Arts on Monday announced its class of 2018 Jazz Masters, awarding the annual fellowship to a broad range of honorees at various stages of their careers.
The winners are the vocalist Dianne Reeves; the guitarist Pat Metheny; the pianist and educator Joanne Brackeen; and the former club owner and record producer Todd Barkan, who will receive the A. B. Spellman N.E.A. Jazz Masters Fellowship for Jazz Advocacy. Each awardee will receive a $25,000 prize, and will be honored at the Kennedy Center on April 16.
The announcement betokens the generational turnover afoot in jazz: Ms. Reeves and Mr. Metheny, both in their early 60s and just stepping into their role as elders, hit the national spotlight in the late 1970s and early ’80s as part of jazz’s fusion generation. (The award is available only to living musicians and advocates.)
Larry