For the 4th year in a row, singers from around the world will gather online to compete for the coveted Sassy Award, tops honors in the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, a twenty-first century version of the amateur night at the Apollo Theater that helped launch the career of an aspiring teenager from Newark, Sarah “Sassy” Vaughan, more than seventy years ago.
The Sarah Vaughan Competition is the only international jazz vocal competition of its kind and provides a platform for one outstanding jazz singer to launch a career within the music business. The first three years of the competition saw nearly 1,500 total song submissions, which music fans from around the globe shared, listened, voted, commented on, and liked nearly one million times online. Furthermore, the competition received over 2 million hits during last year’s competition, making it the world’s most visible jazz vocal competition.
Starting April 17th, female vocalists can submit applications online at www.sarahvaughancompetition.com. Five finalists will be chosen to perform in NJPAC’s Victoria Theater on November 15th before a panel of judges that includes American jazz bassist and 4-time Grammy-award winner, Christian McBride along with additional celebrity judges, to be named at a later date.
The competition is open to solo female vocalists of all nationalities who are not signed to a major record label. Singers must submit audio clips online through an interactive platform powered by Indaba Music, by September 1st. The public can vote online to help select the finalists who will be announced on October 8th. Singers will be judged on vocal quality, musicality, technique, performance, individuality, artistic interpretation and ability to swing; winners will receive cash prizes of up to $5,000.
This year’s winners will join a legacy of talented, breakout female artists. Previous winners include Ashleigh Smith from Lewisville, Texas who won the 3rd Annual Sarah Vaughan Competition. Smith, who creator and producer of the Sarah Vaughan Vocal competition, Larry Rosen, has called ‘a huge talent with a dynamite voice,’ was actually the first runner-up in the first Sarah Vaughan Competition in 2012.
Sarah Vaughan, the competition’s namesake, was born in Newark in 1924 and known as “Sassy” throughout her life for her vibrant personality. After winning the top prize of $10 at the Apollo Theater’s amateur night at age eighteen in 1942, she went on to become one of the most popular singers in jazz, and recorded with Count Basie, Miles Davis and countless others.
Musicians remember Vaughan as “The Divine One” for her exceptional musical gifts, and in 1989 she was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, the nation’s top honor for a jazz musician.
Vaughan was a graduate of Newark Arts High School. NJPAC and the TD James Moody Democracy of Jazz Festival contribute to Arts High in Vaughan’s name to support the development of an enhanced jazz vocal training program.
