In August 2001, the National Endowment for the Arts’ A.B. Spellman and playwright Murray Horowitz were discussing the 1962 Capitol album, Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley on their National Public Radio program, Standard Jazz Library.
“If you have questions about how a vocalist functions in a jazz ensemble, this album could answer all of them,” Spellman said. Horowitz added: “Julian Cannonball Adderley and the young singer from Ohio — Nancy Wilson — showed how effectively a vocalist could function as part of the jazz band.”
Princeton graduate, Allison Jiang, this year’s recipient of the New Jersey Jazz Society’s $1,000 Vocal Performance scholarship, was inspired by that album and ‘functioned’ very effectively, singing one of its songs — Frank Loesser’s “Never Will I Marry” — at NJJS’ October 4th Jersey Jazz LIVE concert honoring the 2026 NJJS scholarship winners. Jiang, from Shanghai, China, also sang Tommy Wolfe and Fran Landesman’s “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most,” so closely associated with Ella Fitzgerald.
The award-winning students appeared on stage with a group of seasoned jazz professionals: tenor saxophonist/flutist/leader Don Braden, trumpeter Ted Chubb, pianist Caili O’Doherty, bassist Mary Ann McSweeney, and drummer Karl Latham.
All of the young scholarship recipients seemed particularly tuned into the history of jazz, its legendary composers, and its relationship to the American Songbook.
The $1,000 Instrumental Performance winner, Princeton sophomore Jasper Zimmerman, from Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, dazzled the crowd at the Madison (NJ) Community Arts Center with his renditions of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Inútil Paisagem” (“Useless Landscape”) and Dave Brubeck’s “In Your Own Sweet Way.” The $1,000 Composition winner Nicolas Thorpe, a sophomore at Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts, treated the audience to a video performance of his original musical piece, “Jakarta,” performed by Rutgers’ Charles Mingus Big Band, directed by Abraham Burton (For more on Burton, see page 32 of the October issue of Jersey Jazz Magazine).
Thorpe, from West Orange, NJ, returned later in the concert to sit down at the piano and interact with the professional band on Charlie Parker’s “My Little Suede Shoes.” He attributed the arrangement to pianist Emmet Cohen, well-known for his performance of it on one of the Live at Emmet’s Place video streams with clarinetist Anat Cohen (no relation).
Charlie Parker was also on the mind of $500 Composition winner Simon Bahadoran, a William Paterson junior from Nice, France, who played Bird’s “Steeplechase” and his own scholarship-winning piece, “East Village Roses”. Guitarist Sally Shupe, $500 Instrumental Performance recipient, from Maplewood, NJ, and a William Paterson junior, paid tribute to jazz giant Benny Golson, by playing his “Stablemates” and to a giant of the musical theater, Cole Porter, with her jazz interpretation of “Love For Sale.”
The $500 Vocal Performance winner, WPU graduate, Kyra Cioffi, could not attend, but, after finishing second in the Blues Alley Ella Fitzgerald competition, she will be singing at the Washington, DC, jazz club in March 2027.
Judges of the competition were: Braden, Chubb, vocalist/pianist Champian Fulton and Jason Olaine, Vice President of Programming, Jazz at Lincoln Center. Braden and Chubb are also NJJS Advisors. NJJS would like to thank Nan Hughes Poole and NJJS Board members, Cynthia Feketie, Mike Katz, and Jackie Wetcher for their generous support of this initiative.-SANFORD JOSEPHSON
(Photo above, by Tom Salvas: From left, Allison Jiang, Mary Ann McSweeney, Sally Shupe)
(Photos below, by me, from left: Jasper Zimmerman, Nicholas Thorpe, and Simon Bahadoran)
