On Saturday, October 18, 2025, there was live jazz on 12 corners in Manhattan — from Harlem to the financial district. The musicians were jazz studies majors from several colleges and universities including Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, William Paterson, Oberlin, SUNY Purchase, and The New School. The event was called Sidewalk Swing, and it was created by Ava Preston, a Juilliard graduate student.
Preston, the winner of this year’s Blues Alley Ella Fitzgerald Vocal Competition, explained how it happened. “It was a project for my jazz business class,” she said. “They told us to make an idea for a project and go and do it. A lot of people were doing tours, albums. I’m a big advocate for community engagement.
“What I did was get together my friends from different universities with a jazz program. They put together combos of their peers. There were a couple of duos. There was even a one horn, one drum combo. They were all playing on a street corner from 12 to 4 p.m. It was like a big jazz takeover of Manhattan, and the mission was bringing jazz and joy to every corner, spreading the love of the music and connecting directly with the community. I’m trying to do it again this year.” (See link below to a feature on News4NewYork).
One of the students who participated in the Sidewalk Swing — baritone saxophonist Evan Gongora, a William Paterson student from East Hanover, NJ — described being in the event as “an incredibly special experience. My band and I had a great time bringing joy to the people of NoHo and contributing to the citywide jazz takeover. One of my favorite memories was seeing a young kid come over to our drummer, Maria Kolesnik, after one of our tunes because he was amazed by how beautifully she was playing. Maria let him sit down and play a bit, and you could see how much joy the experience brought him.
“That is what Ava does through her projects and music. She creates community and brings happiness to the people around her. Ava is truly inspirational, both for her musicianship and her passion to see jazz culture flourish.”
Originally from Cleveland, the 21-year-old Preston received her Master of Music degree from Juilliard last month. When she was four or five years old, she heard a recording by Diana Krall, “and I was really enamored with her voice. From there, I started listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Then I moved onto Bird, Coltrane, Clifford Brown — all the great instrumentalists.”
The attraction of jazz, Preston said, was “all the improvisatory elements. I love improvising. I love scatting. I love how Ella makes the melody her own. She gets inspiration from the original melody and then develops it and makes it her own. Jazz has a way of just being so creatively fulfilling, embracing one’s individuality.”
Preston began taking jazz-oriented vocal lessons when she was seven years old. An early mentor was pianist/educator Theron Brown. “He took me to jam sessions in Akron and Cleveland and started mentoring me in all aspects of jazz.”
In sixth grade, Preston began participating in an after-school program called the Tri-C Fest Jazz Academy, directed by trumpeter Dominick Farinacci. Tri-C also runs a College Credit Plus program that allows eligible students in grades 7-12 to earn high school and college credits by taking college courses. “I got my Associate Degree (from Cuyahoga Community College) when I was a sophomore in high school,” Preston explained. “Then I received my Bachelors Degree with a Focus on Jazz from Kent State a year out of high school.”
The theme of this year’s Ella Fitzgerald competition was “Ella Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook.” The finalists were asked to pick three songs from the Verve and Pablo recording catalogs. Preston selected “I’ve Got a Crush on You”, “How Long Has This Been Going On?” and “But Not for Me.” She was familiar with all three tunes. “I’d sung them before, but when I heard them again, I heard different arrangements in my head that I wanted to do with them,” she said.
For winning the Fitzgerald competition, Preston will receive an honorarium of $2,500. Second-place winner, Kyra Cioffi of Rutherford, NJ, will receive $1,000; and third place winners — Gabriela Allemana of Chicago, Lily Alger of Oak Park, IL, and Emily Davies of Buffalo will each receive $500. (Cioffi is a two-time winner of New Jersey Jazz Society scholarships).
In 2024, Preston was voted Best Female Vocalist at the Cleveland Music Awards, was a YoungArts finalist, was selected as vocalist for the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and was a 12-time DownBeat Student Music Award Winner (six times for Vocal Jazz Soloist and six times for Blues/Pop/Rock Soloist).
She plans to stay in New York, writing music and arrangements and performing around the city. “Music has always been such a universal language to me, such a source of hope and light in a world that can have many challenges. I love jazz, and I want to keep doing this for the rest of my life.”
PHOTO BY JOSEPH CALHOUN