Barretto beats the best.

• Author: Holston, Mark
• Position: Ray Barretto gets "Jazz Masters" award

Since then National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) established its "Jazz Masters" award in 1982, the three to seven honorees chosen every year since have been drawn from the extensive ranks of the jazz world's most illustrious practitioners. "They are significant figures who have been recognized and rewarded for their enormous and profound contributions to the jazz field," states Dana Gioia, chairman of the NEA. "Whether world renowned or less well known, these artists have shown themselves to be virtuosos in performing this intricate and complex music."

Among the first to be named were such legendary artists as trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, bandleader Count Basle, saxophonist Sonny Rollins, drummer Max Roach, composer and arranger Gil Evans, and vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vanghn. It wasn't until last year that an artist of Latin American lineage was singled out for the distinction. Havana, Cuba-born saxophonist, clarinetistc and composer Paquito D'Rivera became only the second foreign-born jazz figure--British pianist Marian McPartland is the other--to be named a "Jazz Master."

This year, another distinguished Latin American musician ascended to the "Jazz Masters" elite. At an award ceremony conducted at the annual January conference of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) in New York City, legendary conga drummer Ray Barretto, one of the first Latin percussionists to establish a name for himself in jazz, received the honor. Along with Barretto, singer Tony Bennett, keyboardist Chick Corea, clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, bassist and personal manager John Levy, and trombonist Bob Brookmeyer were named "Jazz Masters."

"When they called me to tell me, I was completely blown away," Barretto said. "I'm still in awe. It was the last thing I expected in my life, and, it's not something that's happening because it's the politically correct thing to do. There's a sense that there's merit to it."

Born to Puerto Rican parents in Brooklyn, New York, in 1929, Barretto was influenced at an early age by the music of the...