Flushing Town Hall no longer requires visitors or performers to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19; wearing a mask is optional but recommended. For more details, please visit www.flushingtownhall.org/covid-safety 

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Flushing Town Hall’s Annual NEA Jazz Masters Concert is back! This upcoming concert will present these five NEA Jazz Masters: 

Bassist Ron Carter, Saxophonist Gary Bartz, Pianist Joanne Brackeen, Drummer Louis Hayes and Band Leader Trumpet Master Jimmy Owens... 

...and featuring the amazing Trombonist Wycliffe Gordon!

The concert will exhibit the brilliant virtuosity of these acclaimed musicians, who have all performed with the best of the best in the world of jazz. 

The concert will present great music from the American Songbook and Jazz Classics, performed in their own inimitable fashion with dazzling jazz improvisations and jaw dropping moments. 

Get ready for one of the most exciting and historical Jazz concerts being presented in New York City, bar none! This is one show you don’t want to miss.

Jimmy Owens



Renowned jazz artist Jimmy Owens (trumpet, flugelhorn) has over forty-five years of experience as a jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, lecturer, and music education consultant. His experience covers a wide range of international musical achievements, which include extensive work as a studio musician, soloist, bandleader, and composer of orchestral compositions, movie scores, and ballets. Owens is one of the few trumpeters of his generation who performed with many extraordinary jazz leaders, including sitting in with Miles Davis at age 15 and playing with Kenny Barron, Count Basie, Kenny Burrell, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Golson, Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Archie Shepp, Billy Taylor, and Gerald Wilson. 

For more information on Jimmy Owens, please visit www.jimmyowensjazz.com. 

Wycliffe Gordon



Wycliffe Gordon boasts an impressive career touring the world, performing to great acclaim from audiences and critics alike. The Jazz Journalists Association named him 2020 “Trombonist of the Year” for the record-breaking 13th time, and he has topped Downbeat Critics Poll for “Best Trombone” again an unprecedented six times (2020, 2018, 2016, 2014, 2013 & 2012). Last year, he was the recipient of the “Louie Award,” the International Trombone Award and the Satchmo Award, among others. Wycliffe is a prolific recording artist and is extremely popular for his unmatched signature sound, plunger technique, and unique vocals. He can be heard on hundreds of recordings, soundtracks, live DVDs, and documentaries. Musicians and ensembles of every caliber perform his music throughout the world, and his arrangement of the theme song to NPR’s “All Things Considered” is heard daily across the globe.

For more information on Wycliffe Gordon, please visit www.wycliffegordon.com.

Ron Carter



Ron Carter is among the most original, prolific, and influential bassists in jazz. He has recorded over 2200 albums, and has a Guinness world record to prove it!

From 1963 to 1968, he was a member of the acclaimed Miles Davis Quintet. Over his 60 year career, he has recorded with so many of the jazz greats greats: Lena Horne, Bill Evans, B.B. King, Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, Bobby Timmons, Eric Dolphy, Cannonball Adderley and Jaki Byard to name a few. He can be heard on many iconic jazz records of the 60's and 70's such as Speak No Evil, Maiden Voyage, Red Clay, Speak Like a Child, Nefertiti and Miles Smiles, to name a few.

In 2015 Carter earned a Guinness World Record as the most recorded jazz bassist with 2,221 recordings. Since that time he has recorded hundreds more.

For more information on Ron Carter, please visit roncarterjazz.com.

Joanne Brackeen

Whatever the musical setting—whether solo, duo, trio, quartet, or quintet—pianist Joanne Brackeen's unique style of playing commands attention. In addition to her captivating and complex improvisations, she has written intricate, rhythmically daring compositions in a wide stylistic range. She is a full-time professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, and a Berklee guest professor at the New School in New York City.

Brackeen was a child prodigy who at age 11, learned to play the piano in six months by transcribing eight Frankie Carle solos. By 12, she was already performing professionally. Some of her musical constituents at the time were Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, Bobby Hutcherson, Scott Lafaro, and Charles Lloyd. Simultaneously, the Los Angeles Conservatory heard of her musicianship and offered her a full scholarship. She attended classes less than one week before deciding the bandstand was more significant.

She continues to teach and tour internationally, has a long list of awards, and to date, she has played in 46 different countries.

For more information on Joanne Brackeen, please visit joannebrackeenjazz.com.

Gary Bartz

Music embodies a high purpose for Gary Bartz, a man totally dedicated to the furtherance of black Americans and their musical heritage.

Gary formed his Ntu Troop in 1969 (Ntu is a word from the Bantu language, where as a noun, suffix, and common denominator it unifies all things—time and space, living and dead, seen and unseen forces. The word is pronounced “into”). He has recorded five albums for the Milestone label; the first two, Harlem Bush Music (Taifa and Uhuru), were great commercial successes. After three more Milestone albums, Bartz switched over to the sister label, Prestige, where each album has met with an ever-increasing acceptance.

Bartz’s forte is communication. He uses the saxophone (alto and soprano) and his voice to express his deeply felt convictions about the role of the black American in today’s world. A careful listening to any of Bartz’s lyrics will attest to that. As one critic said of Gary’s work: “He has an energy and honesty missing in pop music; but at the same time, he can communicate easily with audiences that have never heard his style of music before.”

For more information on Gary Bartz, please visit concord.com.

Louis Hayes

Louis Sedell Hayes was born May 31, 1937 in Detroit Michigan. He was always surrounded by music, actually first starting with the piano, before his father gave him a set of drums at age 10. A cousin noticed his talent, took him under his wing and made sure that his approach to the instrument would serve him well. And well it did, for after developing his skills in the fertile musical ground of Detroit in the 1950's with the likes of Yusef Lateef, Kenny Burrell, Doug Watkins and others, Louis found himself at the tender age of 18 in New York as a member of the great Horace Silver Quintet. His first recording with Horace, the classic Six Pieces Of Silver would introduce him to the jazz world as a new force to be acknowledged. 

For the next decade or more he became leader or co-leader of a series of electrifying groups which included musicians such as Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Barron, Junior Cooke, Woody Shaw and Dexter Gordon.

Recent engagements of note would include The Kennedy Center for the Arts, The JVC Jazz Festival, The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and the Chivas Jazz Festival in Brazil.

His current endeavor is a project entitled "Serenade for Horace" which is a tribute to his friend and mentor, Horace Silver, and his debut as a leader on Blue Note Records.

For more information on Louis Hayes, please visit louishayes.net. 

This engagement is made possible in part through the Jazz Touring Network program of Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.