This week, a brand new fellowship was introduced that granted twenty jazz musicians of retirement age a present of $100,000 every.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
OK. That is sort of a cool fellowship, a little bit bit totally different. Generally you get a fellowship once you’re a scholar and comparatively younger. Generally individuals get fellowships to allow them to go off and examine mid-career. This can be a fellowship for jazz musicians who’re no less than 62 years previous, and 20 of them get $100,000 every. NPR’s Phil Harrell stories.
PHIL HARRELL, BYLINE: The Andrew W. Mellon Basis got here up with the concept of honoring elder jazz musicians. Elizabeth Alexander is Mellon’s president.
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: Lots of the people who’ve been making the music ceaselessly had been in want of help. What wouldn’t it imply to essentially say, we acknowledge your brilliance, and we wish at this level in your lives to have the ability to be as useful as attainable?
JOE PETRUCELLI: The lifetime of a working jazz musician is a precarious one.
HARRELL: That’s Joe Petrucelli. He is the chief director of the Jazz Basis of America, which is administering the fellowships. The group repeatedly provides help to struggling musicians.
PETRUCELLI: They do not have enough insurance coverage. They actually reside gig to gig. And once you encounter a disaster, there’s little or no to fall again on.
HARRELL: That is why the panel made a degree of emphasizing principally unheralded artists.
PETRUCELLI: Who’re the artists who’re so deserving of an honor like this however have by no means acquired something prefer it?
HARRELL: They’re as younger as 62-year-old drummer Shannon Powell and as previous as 94-year-old trumpeter Dizzy Reece.
(SOUNDBITE OF DIZZY REECE’S “I HAD THE CRAZIEST DREAM”)
HARRELL: Petrucelli hears that a whole lot of the recipients need to use the cash to proceed their work.
PETRUCELLI: Artists who’ve composed operas which might be unfinished that can now have a possibility to finish them. Musicians who’ve archives of unreleased recordings that they’ve by no means actually been in a position to get round to evaluating and releasing.
HARRELL: Sixty-eight-year-old drummer Herlin Riley says he intends to present away his hundred thousand.
HERLIN RILEY: I attempt to be a giving and sharing individual. So I am comfortable that I may also help make a distinction in another individuals’s lives.
HARRELL: Riley spent his profession maintaining the beat for greats like Wynton Marsalis….
(SOUNDBITE OF WYNTON MARSALIS’ “BUGGY RIDE”)
HARRELL: …Additionally George Benson, Ahmad Jamal, Marcus Roberts. It is a formidable checklist. Riley says the fellowship got here as an entire shock, particularly at this stage of his profession.
RILEY: Oftentimes, it occurs the place you get your accolades after you move away. It is so good to get your flowers when you can nonetheless odor them.
HARRELL: The plan is to award 30 extra fellowships over the subsequent three years, no less than.
Phil Harrell, NPR Information.
(SOUNDBITE OF WYNTON MARSALIS’ “BUGGY RIDE”)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional info.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This textual content is probably not in its ultimate kind and could also be up to date or revised sooner or later. Accuracy and availability might fluctuate. The authoritative document of NPR’s programming is the audio document.
