(upbeat music) - To kick off Jazz Appreciation Month 2023 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, you, Kenny Garrett, and Louis Hayes will be featured in concert to receive your NEA Jazz Master Awards.

This is a banner day for jazz in general and for Detroit jazz specifically.

- I'm over the moon, as the old people would say.

(laughs) I'm still in disbelief, you know?

You know, I'm so honored.

And the fact that it's three Detroiters, I couldn't be more proud of my city.

It's amazing on one hand that the three of us are from Detroit, but it's not amazing.

You know, it's just the city.

Detroit is extremely unique and special.

- It sure is.

But see, the thing is, is that this is not your first rodeo.

This is not your first major award.

I mean, you are a MacArthur genius grantee.

So what is the difference between, say, the NEA Jazz Master Award and some of the many other awards and accolades, all deserved, I might add, that have come your way?

- You know, every award is very special.

They're like green lights, if you will, I call them, to say you're on the right path.

And everyone has their own path, their own journey.

And so sometimes it feels like when you're out here doing music, being self-employed, sometimes it's like, "What am I doing?"

And I think that's probably everyone.

At certain points in our lives, we question what we're doing.

But any award that I've received, I feel like it's a green light.

Like, yes, keep going.

You're on the right track.

And of course, winning the MacArthur was probably, that was so huge for me in my life.

And then being a Doris Duke artist as well after that.

And then on top of it, this.

I'm blown away.

(upbeat music) I know that the music comes through me, not from me.

And just having life experiences and allowing those experiences to help guide me and to guide my music.

And I've had some opportunities that I never even thought about early on in my career or in my life.

There's so many ways in which to use music.

And the longer I live, you know, I can serve.

I love playing for audiences and touring, but I can also play for people in nursing homes, hospitals.

I do hospice work and end of life work.

And so all of that feeds my soul and helps, and yeah, it just helps me to stay humble.

- Other aspect of Regina Carter that's just super important is the variety in your recordings, 'cause I go back all the way to the straight-ahead days.

But then when you started out and you were doing your own sessions, you decided, or I don't know if you decided it, but someone decided that there should be variety in the presentations.

- Well, you know, it's interesting.

I recorded with Atlantic two solo records, and those records were considered smooth jazz, whatever that means.

And when I signed with Verb, they wanted more of a straight-ahead.

And I remember turning in my first record, and the A&R, the artist and repertoire, person assigned to me said, "Well, your music is all over the place.

People won't know how to categorize you or what."

And I said, "I'm not gonna pick one thing.

I love all of this music.

It's just music."

And growing up in Detroit and listening to the radio stations, we heard such a wide variety of music under that umbrella of jazz on the stations.

It was a small town.

And then, of course, you drive anywhere in the city, you might hear, if you go to Greektown, you'd hear some Greek classical music.

Or Mexican Village, you'd hear authentic Mexican folk music, mariachi you might hear.

There was the Chaldean section of town.

So there was all of this music from all these different ethnic groups that were living in and around Detroit.

So all of those sounds were in my head.

And when the A&R guy said, "Well, you have to pick one," I said, "I can't."

You know, all these sounds are there, so I need to be able to express music.

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