Milwaukee’s “godfather of jazz” Manty Ellis and Chicago-born avant-garde jazz master Roscoe Mitchell are among 20 musicians recently honored for their lifelong contributions to the American artform. They’re part of the inaugural cohort of the Jazz Legacies Fellowship, a new $15 million program by the Jazz Foundation of America and Mellon Foundation.
The fellowship will support 50 seasoned and accomplished jazz artists aged 62 years and older over the next four years. Each artist receives a lifetime achievement award and an unrestricted grant of $100,000.
“The selection process considered creativity, generational impact, and the realities of being a working jazz musician in America,” stated Joe Petrucelli, Executive Director of the Jazz Foundation of America, in a press release.
“With a sense of consensus and urgency, we celebrate these artists as mentors, trailblazers, and inspirational figures. This fellowship not only recognizes their contributions but also provides much-needed financial security—an all-too-rare resource in the field.”
Manty Ellis
You’ll often hear “Manty Ellis is Milwaukee jazz” in reference to this 92-year-old guitarist. And rightfully so! Born in the early 1930s, Ellis has been pivotal to the shaping and strengthening of jazz in the city and beyond.
A staple of the local jazz music scene (playing piano in local bands since he was nine!), he also owned Manty Ellis Music Center. It was a regular stop for famous jazz musicians (the likes of Freddie Hubbard, Frank Morgan, Eddie Harris, Sonny Stitt, and George Benson) when they visited the city.
“I had some of the best music come out of the store that you can’t even get recordings of … I’m talking about the heavyweights,” he said in a 2016 interview with Radio Milwaukee.
In 1971, he co-founded a jazz studies program at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music with pianist-educator Tony King. After urban renewal in 1960s devastated Milwaukee’s jazz district, the program helped the resurgence of the jazz scene. In that interview, Ellis said, “People call it jazz, but I’ve always called it Black classical music.”
Roscoe Mitchell
This master saxophonist was described by the New York Times as a “leader in experimental music for over a half a century” in a 2017 feature. In the interview, the now 84-year-old said, “I’ve always believed in studying music across the board. I’ve never been fascinated with putting myself in certain categories.”
That’s what the Chicago native’s lifelong contributions to music have been—high caliber experimentation and “embracing the plurality of music.”
In the 1960s, he founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago and joined the Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians as one of its first members. Both groups were known for pushing the boundaries of performance. Some of their records included “unorthodox devices” as toys and bicycle horns, and small playful instruments.
For over six decades, Mitchell has been “a restless explorer of new forms, ideas, and concepts,” according to ECM Records. He’s also spent those years teaching composition and improvisation.
“… one goal has always been to be a really good improviser who really does create spontaneous composition. So I study all the time … There are so many paths to investigate, and not just contemporary paths,” he said.