American National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has announced the winners of Jazz Masters Award – the biggest jazz acknowledgment in the USA that is being given for lifetime achievement and extraordinary contribution to development and promotion of jazz. .
Musicians and composers Carla Bley, George Coleman and Charles Lloyd were honored for their work, beside the symbolic value the award includes a 25.000 USD check.
“To receive the NEA Jazz Masters award is a great and unexpected honor,” Bley said. “I can think of many musicians who deserve this award, and won’t be getting it. Luckily, I’m not one of them.”
Carla Bley is just one winner of the most important recognition in jazz that performed at Jazz Fest Sarajevo. It was in 2005 in Dom policije where she played with Charlie Haden, another NEA Jazz Masters winner. Haden shared the award in 2012 with an another participant of Sarajevo’s Jazz Fest – Jack DeJohnette.
NEA Jazz Masters prizes are being awarded since 1982. The awarding ceremony where Carla Bley, Goerge Coleman and Charles Lloyd will receive their award will be held in April 2015, already traditional jazz appreciation month.
Watch one small piece of atmosphere from the last awarding ceremony of this prestigious award held in January this year.