Cole Davis Selected as 2017 Winner of BMI Future Jazz Master Scholarship

The BMI Foundation has announced that Cole Davis is the winner of this year’s BMI Future Jazz Master Scholarship. The $5,000 award was presented to Davis at BMI’s annual dinner and celebration of NEA Jazz Master Fellows at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, April 2. Davis, a bass player and jazz studies major at Manhattan School of Music, was chosen as the recipient by a panel of NEA Jazz Masters and flown to D.C. where he attended the dinner alongside award-winning and influential jazz musicians and composers, including one of his idols, newly crowned Jazz Master, Dave Holland.

The BMI Future Jazz Master Scholarship is an annual competition for rising jazz stars pursuing an academic degree in jazz studies. The award was established by BMI in 2015, in honor of the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, a lifetime achievement recognition program widely considered to be the highest honor in jazz music. The scholarship is awarded by a panel of NEA Jazz Master judges based on evidence of talent and potential as a jazz performer and composer.

Congratulations, Cole!