Pianists Eddie Palmieri (left) and McCoy Tyner, both NEA Jazz Masters, embrace. Photo: Michael G. Stewart/NEA

If you’ve ever stood courtside before an NBA game, you know the feeling. What grips you isn’t speed, strength, agility or shooting touch, but simply scale. It’s something—a feeling simultaneously humbling and inspiring—to be close to a team of towering figures.

The Jazz Masters assembled at Dizzy’s, the nightclub within Manhattan’s Jazz at Lincoln Center complex, were mostly sitting and mainly between between the ages of 70 and 90 on Monday night at the annual National Endowment for the Arts ceremony and concert in their honor, but I got that same feeling. Up close, together, these figures seem ever more towering. The full story, plus a slideshow of photos, is here.

Image: Michael G. Stewart/NEA (Others from the event can be viewed here)

Tags: Blu Notes, Eddie Palmieri, jazz, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Larry Blumenfeld, Lorraine Gordon, Lou Donaldson, McCoy Tyner, Mose Allison, National Endowment for the Arts, NEA Jazz Masters, Randy Weston