REGINA CARTER
Lifetime Achievement Award
MacArthur “Genius” Award Winner, Violinist & Composer

Trying to fit Regina Carter into a neatly defined musical category is pointless. She enjoys performing many styles of music—jazz, R&B, Latin, classical, blues, country, pop, African, and on and on. In each she explores the power of music through the voice of the violin.

A recipient of the MacArthur “genius” award and a Doris Duke Artist Award, Regina has been widely hailed for her mastery of her instrument and her drive to expand its possibilities. In 2018 she was named artistic director of the New Jersey Performing Arts All-Female Jazz Residency, a unique summer immersion program for aspiring women jazz professionals. In December of that year she was nominated for a Grammy for Best Improvised Solo for “Some of That Sunshine,” the title track on vocalist Karrin Allyson’s album. She is on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. Past positions have included artist in residence at the Oakland University School of Music, Theatre, and Dance; resident artist for San Francisco Performances; and resident artistic director for SFJAZZ.

Born in Detroit, Regina began studying violin at the age of four using the Suzuki method. She attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, and her training continued at the New England Conservatory of Music and at Oakland University in Michigan for jazz. She taught violin in public schools in Detroit and on a U.S. military base in Germany. She first gained attention with Straight Ahead, an all-female jazz quintet that recently celebrated its 25-year reunion at the Detroit Jazz Festival. She also recorded and toured for six years with The String Trio of New York.

A winner of multiple readers’ and critics’ poll awards from DownBeat, JazzTimes, and other publications, Regina tours with her own group and has appeared frequently as a guest soloist, including with such performers as Kenny Barron, the late bassist Ray Brown, Akua Dixon, Steve Turre, Stefon Harris, George Wein, Mary J. Blige, Joe Jackson, Billy Joel, Dolly Parton, Omara Portuondo, Cassandra Wilson, and Chieli Minucci and Special EFX.

BILL FRISELL
Lifetime Achievement Award
Doris Duke Artist, Guitarist & Composer

Bill Frisell’s career as a guitarist and composer has spanned more than 40 years and many celebrated recordings, whose catalog has been cited by Downbeat as "the best recorded output of the decade.

In recent years, Frisell has forged a distinctive and fruitful collaboration with the Blue Note label, releasing HARMONY, Valentine and FOUR to great acclaim.

"Frisell has had a lot of practice putting high concept into a humble package. Long hailed as one of the most distinctive and original improvising guitarists of our time, he has also earned a reputation for teasing out thematic connections with his music... There’s a reason that Jazz at Lincoln Center had him program a series called Roots of Americana."  - New York Times

Recognized as one of America’s 21 most vital and productive performing artists, Frisell was named an inaugural Doris Duke Artist in 2012.  He is also a recipient of grants from United States Artists, Meet the Composer among others.  In 2016, he was a beneficiary of the first FreshGrass Composition commission to preserve and support innovative grassroots music.  Upon San Francisco Jazz opening their doors in 2013, he served as one of their Resident Artistic Directors.  Bill is the subject of a documentary film by director Emma Franz, entitled Bill Frisell: A Portrait, which examines his creative process in depth, as well as an extensive biography by Philip Watson, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed The Sound of American Music.

NELBA MARQUEZ-GREENE
Contribution to the Arts Award
Activist, Therapist & YWCA Women’s Leadership Award Recipient

Nelba Marquez-Greene holds a Bachelor of Music from the Hartt School and a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy from St. Joseph College. Nelba taught and supervised the Family Therapy program at the University of Winnipeg’s Aurora Family Therapy Centre and later worked as the Coordinator for Klingberg Family Therapy Center’s outpatient child and adolescent psychiatric clinic. She also served as adjunct faculty at Central Connecticut State University.

Nelba founded the CTAMFT (Connecticut Association for Marriage and Family Therapy) Diversity Committee and served on the CTAMFT Board of Directors. For her advocacy, she received the 2004 Minority Fellowship Award by the AAMFT, the 2004 Distinguished Professional Service Award, and the 2013 Service to Families Award by the CTAMFT.   In 2017 she was awarded the Key to the Centre award at the Aurora family Therapy Centre in Winnipeg, MB.

In 2018, she was profiled as one of “100 Women of Color” and a YWCA (CT) Women’s Leadership Award recipient. She was featured in People Magazine’s October 2019 issue as one of Ten Women Changing the World and also recognized by Chelsea Clinton and Hillary Clinton in their Book of Gutsy Women.

Nelba has testified and advocated at the state and federal levels on many different mental health initiatives, hosted TEDx talks, and is a nationally sought after speaker.  In the many years that have followed, stints in advocacy, public policy, community care, etc. have affirmed her core belief that in order to change the world we must take care of people. First- that grief  must be allowed in the room and is a normal response to loss. Second- that tools, language, skills, resources and acceptance should be available to all grievers.  And lastly, that the intersection of grief when tied to injustice (as with violence and other traumatic loss) must be addressed.

The success of any non-profit, large or small, especially those associated with the arts, often depends on the combined efforts, advice and financial support of its Board of Directors. The Jazz Gallery is fortunate that its Board is both diverse and unusually supportive. And no Director has been more supportive than Noel L. Silverman, Esq. Drawing on the experience he has gathered from over fifty years as a prominent entertainment lawyer, his expertise has guided TJG through various legal thickets and TJG has been litigation free for 30 years and counting. It is unclear if he attends so many concerts at TJG because he just loves the music or merely wants to contribute by way of admission fees or he just wants to keep watch over and listen once again to Paul Desmond’s grand piano, a priceless instrument he arranged to have donated to TJG all those years ago. No matter what the reason, all have made a difference and he will be honored with TJG’s Founders Award at The Honors Gala presented by The Jazz Gallery on April 28, 2025.

NOEL L. SILVERMAN, ESQ.
Founder’s Award
TJG Board Member & Entertainment Lawyer

Noel, a transactional attorney with offices in New York City, is currently in his sixth decade representing musicians and songwriters, authors, actors, film makers, dancers, sound and lighting designers, graphic artists, and the directors and producers who bring the results of the creativity ​of all of the foregoing to the public.  His work principally involves the formalization of interrelationships in the areas of entertainment and intellectual property..

He is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, Brown University (Phi Beta Kappa and a Francis Wayland Scholar) and the Harvard Law School, as well as a non-matriculant at the Julliard School of Music, where he studied jazz piano with John Mehegan.  He briefly had ideas about playing varsity football in college, but size and talent led him to WBRU, the Brown University radio station, where he hosted a once-a-week evening of jazz recordings.  (Arguably, both the football team and the radio station were pleased with the decision.)

Much as he loved jazz piano, it became clear to him that he was a more effective lawyer than he was a piano player, that he could communicate constructively with the creative and performing communities as well as the business and legal communities where they sometimes had problems talking with each other, and that his time might be well spent helping the two sides to facilitate their respective conversations.

One thing led to another, as it always does, and Noel ended up representing, though not all at once and in addition to others, Paul Desmond, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, Gil Evans, Jim Hall, Charles Mingus and Nat Adderly.  He even found himself, as things turned out, a member of the Board of Directors of The Jazz Gallery, a not-for-profit organization that showcases up-and-coming jazz talent as well as already-arrived jazz talent with ideas about expanding horizons.  He has served on and chaired the Entertainment Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association, and over the years been a member of its Copyright Law, Communications Law, Art Law, and Arts and Sports Law Committees.  He has been a member of the Copyright Society of the United States since the early 1960s and has served as a Trustee of that organization.

He has co-produced several Off-Broadway plays, written and conducted a number of musical evenings for young people, and directed several plays when the opportunities arose. 

Happily married, two splendid children, four grandchildren all of whom are worth keeping. Not everyone can play college football or jazz piano.