The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the recipients of the nation’s highest honor in jazz.
The 2025 NEA Jazz Masters are:
- Marshall Allen is a master saxophonist and 100-year-old leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra.
- Marilyn Crispell is an avant-garde pianist and composer.
- Chucho Valdés is a pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger, and influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz.
- Gary Giddins is a jazz critic and biographer, and recipient A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy.
NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD, said:
We are delighted to welcome these four luminaries to the ranks of NEA Jazz Masters—they have each in their own way played a crucial role in the nurturing and evelopment of this art form and demonstrate the immense diversity and creativity found in jazz today.
Each honoree will receive an award of $25,000 and celebrated at a free tribute concert held in collaboration with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on April 26, 2025. For more information, go here.
