Pittsburgh jazz drummer Roger Humphries is one of 20 members of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s inaugural class of Jazz Legacies Fellows from around the country.
The new program honors quote “creative achievement, technical mastery and boundary pushing expression” in artists ages 62 and up. It comes with an unrestricted grant of $100,000.
Humphries, who's 81, once toured with Ray Charles. He was honored in particular for committing his career to nurturing his hometown scene. He continues to perform live around town, and he and his band were recently headliners at the First Night Pittsburgh festival.
Other honorees included such luminaries as saxophonist George Coleman, 89, of New York City; drummer Billy Hart, 84, of Montclair, N.J.; vocalist Carmen Lundy, 70, of Los Angeles; trumpeter Dizzy Reece, 94, of the Bronx; and bassist Reggie Workman, 87, also of New York City.
In addition, the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival was among eight organizations offering jazz programming or education that received a total of $4 million from the Mellon Foundation.
The Jazz Legacies Fellowship, announced last week, is a $15 million program founded in partnership with the Jazz Foundation of America. The inaugural class of 20, including Humphries, are the first of 50 artists to be named over the next four years.
The Jazz Legacies Fellowship was designed in collaboration with musician advisors including Terri Lyne Carrington, Christian McBride, Jason Moran, Arturo O’Farrill, esperanza spalding and presenter Sunny Sumter.
Besides the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival, run by the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, other jazz-related entities receiving grants from the Mellon Foundation included The 369th Experience, Arts for Art, Afro Latin Jazz Alliance/Belongo, DC Jazz Festival, and the Ellis Marsalis Center.
“Jazz is a quintessentially American art form, central to our vast and varied American culture, and this initiative rightly and broadly honors the work of those who continue to drive the evolution of jazz while also safeguarding its histories,” said Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander in a statement.
