The NEA honors Jim Hall:

“Jim Hall, the greatest living jazz guitarist, has been making records for close to a half-century. He’s worked with everybody from Sonny Rollins to Pat Metheny and played everywhere from the Village Vanguard to the White House. His colleagues view him with something approaching outright awe. But Mr. Hall, like most jazz musicians, is unknown to the public at large–a fact that doesn’t seem to bother him in the least…

To be sure, Mr. Hall, who turns 73 next month, is nobody’s idea of a natural celebrity. Bald, bespectacled and soft-spoken to a fault, he looks less hip than shyly professorial. (A well-read art lover, he has written a thoughtful book called ‘Exploring Jazz Guitar’ in which he suggests that jazz musicians could learn from looking at the seascapes of J.M.W. Turner.) His intensely intimate music gets under your skin rather than grabbing you by the lapels.

Given sufficient time, though, such artists have a way of evening the odds. Today, the National Endowment for the Arts names Mr. Hall an NEA Jazz Master, an honor accompanied by a check for $25,000.” —WSJ Opinion Journal