Articles by Sanford Josephson

Rising Stars

Introducing Saxophonist Jacob Chung

by Sanford Josephson
September 1, 2026

Growing up in Toronto, Jacob Chung was introduced to jazz by his grandfather. “He had a record player," Chung recalled, “and he had Dave Brubeck's Time Out album. He also liked Duke Ellington and Ben Webster." Chung was playing classical piano when he entered middle school, “and they started giving you wind instruments. I was into baseball, and I had a few concussions and tore the meniscus in my knee, so I had to quit sports for a ...

Rising Stars

Introducing Saxophonist Jay Thatte

by Sanford Josephson
August 1, 2026

Jay Thatte has been playing music since he was seven years old, starting out on classical piano. In the sixth grade at Newark Academy, a coeducational private day school in Livingston, NJ, where he lives, he was exposed to jazz by Julius Tolentino, the Director of Bands. “He introduced me to clarinet and saxophone," Thatte recalled. “I've been taking lessons from him since then. I didn't go to Newark Academy for music, but it was like a stroke of luck. ...

Rising Stars

Introducing Vocalist Ava Preston

by Sanford Josephson
June 2, 2026

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. ...

Rising Stars

Introducing Saxophonist Paloma Ximena

by Sanford Josephson
May 1, 2026

In May 2022, Rio Americano High School in Sacramento, CA, was a finalist in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington competition, and sophomore Paloma Ximena won two solo awards: Outstanding Clarinetist and Outstanding Alto Saxophonist. “That was really the start of my career," she said. “That was the moment when I really decided to pursue music." During the fall of 2021, Ximena was playing competitive soccer as a goalie and “trying to go to college for soccer. But ...

Rising Stars

Introducing Saxophonist Kristin Field

by Sanford Josephson
March 1, 2026

"The first time I saw her play I was sure, at some point, she would be a lead alto saxophonist." That was the initial reaction of North Hunterdon (NJ) High School Jazz Ensemble Director Perry Andrews when he saw Kristin Field's freshman year audition in the fall of 2019. A Jazz Studies major at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts, the 21-year-old Field also remembers that audition. Andrews, she said, “was a voice I could trust. ...

Rising Stars

Introducing Saxophonist Langston Hughes II

by Sanford Josephson
February 1, 2026

In the April 2024 issue of Jersey Jazz, drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. told me he had recently taken four young musicians with him for a tour in Tokyo. One of them was saxophonist Langston Hughes II, then studying for his master's degree at Juilliard. Hughes, said Owens, is “burning up the scene." The 24-year-old Hughes vividly remembers that experience. “It was my first trip out of the country. The culture and the respect they have for jazz in ...

Rising Stars

Introducing Vocalist Kate Kortum

by Sanford Josephson
January 1, 2026

Growing up in Houston, Texas, Kate Kortum shared a computer with her five siblings. “Somehow, the Ella Fitzgerald recording of 'How High the Moon' from her Live in Berlin album ended up on the computer," she recalled. “I had no idea you could sing like that. I heard that and became obsessed." Despite her fixation on Fitzgerald, Kortum didn't start singing right away at Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Instead, she joined the jazz ...

Rising Stars

Introducing Trombonist/Vocalist Hailey Brinnel

by Sanford Josephson
December 1, 2025

After being discharged from the Army in 1945, Pete Rugolo became the primary arranger for the Stan Kenton Band and is credited with keeping that band alive in an era when big band music was beginning to fade. In 1955, Rugolo created an album combining the vocal group, The Four Freshmen, with an all-star trombone quintet selected from various Kenton ensembles. Four Freshmen and Five Trombones (Capitol Records) was “the first trombone record I remember really loving," said ...

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Introducing the NJ All-State Jazz Ensemble and Choir

by Sanford Josephson
November 5, 2025

"If they hire me," said Dr. David Demsey, “they know they're getting some Thad Jones." Demsey, who recently retired after 33 years as Coordinator of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University, is directing this year's New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA)/New Jersey Association for Jazz Education (NJAJE) All-State Jazz Ensemble. This is the third time Demsey has directed the ensemble, and he emphasized that, “This is not a program of arrangements that would be written for high school ...

Rising Stars

Introducing Trumpeter Nathaniel Williford

by Sanford Josephson
October 6, 2025

Nathaniel Williford's jazz education began when he entered the sixth grade at Osceola County School for the Arts in Kissimmee, FL. “The magic started happening at our instrument trial day," he recalled, “selecting what we'd play in the band program. The trombone was what stood out to me. I could make some basic sounds on the trombone." Things began to change, however, when he heard Osceola's top high school jazz band play. “I heard the lead trumpet sitting ...