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Award / Grant

Sonny Rollins Honored at the Whitehouse

Source: RJ on Jazz by R.J. DeLuke
March 3, 2011

The Man, who personified art, gets a medal for it. At last. “Jazz is life," the legend, Sonny Rollins, told me a couple of years back. “It's what happens every minute of every day. It's fresh and new. Creative, just like life itself." It's kind of a summary, and yet the tip of the iceberg with Sonny, who at age 80 is still going strong. Breathing fire. Shaking tree limbs to see what falls. Taking what comes through his head ...

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Sonny Rollins Among NEA Honorees

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
March 2, 2011

Today at the White House, President Obama will present the National Medal of Arts to ten creative Americans, including Sonny Rollins and Quincy Jones. From the announcement by the National Endowment for the Arts, here is the complete list of 2010 recipients:Robert Brustein, theatrical critic, producer, playwright, educator; Van Cliburn, pianist, music educator; Mark di Suvero, sculptor; Donald Hall, poet; Quincy Jones, musician, music producer; Harper Lee, author; Sonny Rollins, jazz musician; Meryl Streep, actress; James Taylor, singer, songwriter; Jacob's ...

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Sonny's Still on a Roll

Source: Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes
March 1, 2011

The high honors, perhaps long overdue, keep on rolling in for saxophonist Sonny Rollins. His historic 80th birthday concert in New York's Town Hall three nights after his September 7 birthday was one of the top jazz events of 2010 Then you add in Edward MacDowell Medal, a lifetime achievement award from the Montreal International Jazz Festival, being the subject of an artful and insightful book (John Abbott and Blumenthal's Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins) and induction into ...

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Sonny Rollins to Receive National Medal of Arts at the White House, March 2

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity
March 1, 2011

Saxophonist Sonny Rollins is one of ten honorees who will receive the 2010 National Medal of Arts for outstanding achievements and support of the arts, it was announced by the White House today. The presentation will be made tomorrow, March 2, at 1:45 pm, by President Barack Obama in an East Room ceremony at the White House. Mrs. Michelle Obama will also be in attendance. “I'm very happy that jazz, the greatest American music, is being recognized through this honor, ...

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Berklee Jazz Students React to Esperanza Spalding's Grammy Award

Source: MassJazz: Jazz in Massachusetts
February 26, 2011

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East St. Louis HS Jazz Band Named One of 15 Finalists in Essentially Ellington Competition

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
February 25, 2011

The jazz band from East St. Louis High School (pictured) is one of 15 ensembles from across the United States to be accepted as finalists for Jazz at Lincoln Center's 2011 Essentially Ellington jazz band. (Link goes to .pdf file.) The ESL HS band is directed by Delano Redmond, and was selected from among 110 bands that entered this year's competition. The 15 finalists will go to New York City May 12 through May 14 to compete and participate in ...

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Congratulations to Jazz Drummer Roy Haynes on Winning Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award

Source: MassJazz: Jazz in Massachusetts
February 23, 2011

Congratulations to Roy Haynes, who grew up in Roxbury and learned his music there, for receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Boston Herald jazz writer Bob Young noted, “Roxbury-born Roy Haynes has kept some pretty good company in his nearly seven decades in the music business. Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Pat Metheny have all shared the stage with the man known as the father of modern jazz drumming." With ...

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The Ten Best Moments at the 53rd Annual Grammys

Source: Jazz (Jazzers Jazzing) by Carl L. Hager
February 22, 2011

Before this year's Grammy awards are incorrectly written off as a series of acrimonious disappointments and bizarre twists, it's important to quickly note several very good things that happened. Not that it's easy to overlook the Grammy for Record of the Year going to a country band's tune that could well become subject to a plagiarism suit over the changes borrowed almost note-for-note from the Alan Parsons Project 1982 “Eye in the Sky," (George Harrison was successfully sued for less) ...

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