United States Jazz Hero
For 30 years, Kevin Struthers did something remarkable — he made the extraordinary look routine. As director of jazz programming at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., he shaped one of the nation’s most vital stages for America’s most vital art form, all while commuting 75 miles each way from his home in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, with what colleagues describe as seemingly endless energy and good spirits.
The list of what Struthers built is staggering. He produced NEA Jazz Masters Tribute Concerts and brought iconic radio programs to life on the Kennedy Center stage — Jazz Night in America, JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater, Billy Taylor’s Jazz at the Kennedy Center, NPR’s A Jazz Piano Christmas, Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, and Toast of the Nation. He helped create the innovative Jason + series, pairing jazz pianist and artistic director Jason Moran with artists across genres. And year after year, he shepherded the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program, nurturing the next generation of jazz leaders.
Struthers worked alongside the legendary pianist Dr. Billy Taylor — the first “A Team” member or “Jazz Hero” ever designated by the JJA f– or more than a decade, and when Moran succeeded Taylor in 2011, he carried that partnership forward with equal devotion. “When we began working together, I knew I had a partner who believed in the mission,” Moran has said. Moran credits Struthers with bringing attentive, steadying care to hundreds of performances shared with both Taylor and himself — a quiet constancy that kept the music and the mission aligned.
Struthers’s own description of the job is characteristically modest: Take the artistic director’s vision, run it through the lens of the institutional mission, and make it happen. Hall availability, budget, the market — he absorbed it all so the music could breathe. Hundreds of performances. Countless artists. One tireless champion. Kevin Struthers didn’t just work in jazz — he helped jazz thrive, turning the nation’s capital into an international stage.
—John Edward Hasse, 2025 D.C. Jazz Hero
