The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the 2026 recipients of its Jazz Masters Fellowship, described as the highest honor the United States bestows on jazz musicians and advocates. Vocalist and composer Carmen Lundy, Brazilian percussion genius Airto Moreira, pianist and hitmaker Patrice Rushen, and veteran broadcaster Rhonda Hamilton make up the new class of honorees.
The announcement was made Friday in Washington, D.C., ahead of the United States' planned celebrations for the 250th anniversary of its founding in 2026. NEA Senior Advisor Mary Anne Carter said the agency is using this moment to recognize artists who have kept one of the country's signature art forms evolving and visible around the world.
Each NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship comes with a 25,000 dollar award and is given only once in a lifetime. Since the program began in 1982, the NEA has honored 181 musicians and advocates, including Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Wayne Shorter, Maria Schneider, Chucho Valdés and Bobby McFerrin.
Lundy, a vocalist, composer and arranger, has built a career of more than five decades, with more than 150 published songs and a body of work that blends straight ahead swing, contemporary harmonies and social commentary. The NEA notes that her multifaceted artistry, which also includes work as a visual artist, has significantly influenced modern vocal jazz.
Moreira, 84, is widely regarded as a defining voice in jazz percussion. After emerging in Brazil's vibrant scene in the 1960s, he became a crucial bridge between Brazilian music and the American jazz world, recording with Miles Davis and joining pioneering fusion bands Weather Report and Return to Forever. He has also led his own projects for decades, often collaborating with his wife, singer Flora Purim.
Rushen, honored for a career that connects jazz, R&B, classical and pop, first gained attention in the 1970s as a prodigious post bop pianist before crossing over with the 1982 hit Forget Me Nots, later reworked for the film Men in Black. She has balanced her profile as a performer with extensive work as a musical director and educator, including years on the faculty of the University of Southern California's Popular Music program and recent high profile jazz headlining appearances in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Hamilton receives the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship for Jazz Advocacy, which recognizes non performing figures who have shaped the music's ecosystem. She helped launch Newark public radio station WBGO in 1979, becoming one of the most familiar voices in jazz radio, later expanding that reach through early work with satellite radio. She now hosts a weekday show on KKJZ in Los Angeles and has previously been recognized by the Jazz Journalists Association for excellence in broadcasting.
The 2026 NEA Jazz Masters will be celebrated at a free tribute concert on April 18, 2026, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, with the event also streaming online. Additional details about ticket reservations and broadcast plans will be released closer to the date.
For the NEA, the new class underlines how jazz veterans from the 1970s and 1980s continue to shape the sound and story of the music, from the recording studio to the airwaves and the classroom.
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