Alyssa Allgood

Named a “Rising Star Female Vocalist” in the 2024 and 2025 Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll and voted “Best Individual Jazz Musician” in the 2024 Chicago Reader Poll, Alyssa Allgood has captured attention for her dynamic vocal command, sophisticated songwriting, and captivating performances. Showcasing modern sensibilities, Allgood is a fearless vocalist known for her confident musical interaction, fierce improvisation, and vulnerable expression. Downbeat Magazine has praised her “boldness, swagger, and surefooted musicianship” while the New York City Jazz Record has recognized her “force, clarity and jazz integrity.”

A charismatic and engaging performer, Allgood regularly headlines the acclaimed Jazz Showcase, Green Mill and Winter’s Jazz Club in her Chicago homebase. She tours frequently, having appeared at such esteemed venues as Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club, Birdland, Mezzrow in New York, Blues Alley in DC, Blue Llama in Ann Arbor, Jazz, TX in San Antonio, Rudy’s Jazz Room in Nashville, The Century Room in Tucson and many others. 

As a recording artist, Allgood has released four albums as a leader. Her 2024 release, From Here, is a powerful collection of original music recorded with internationally renowned musicians Geoffrey Keezer, John Patitucci, Kendrick Scott and Greg Ward. Two songs from the album were selected as finalists in the 2023 John Lennon Songwriting Contest and the 2023 International Songwriting Competition. 

Her previous albums What Tomorrow Brings (2021), Exactly Like You (2018) and Out of the Blue (2016) garnered Allgood praise for her lyrical expression, instrumental approach and accomplished scat and vocalese singing. 

Allgood was a semifinalist in the 2015 Shure Montreux Jazz Voice Competition, where jazz icon Al Jarreau led the jury, before winning the Inaugural Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Voice Competition (2017) and the David Baker Memorial Scholarship offered through the Jazz Education Network (2022). Closer to home, she was a 2016 Jazz Improvisation Fellow of the Luminarts Cultural Foundation in Chicago and was named Best Jazz Entertainer in the Chicago Music Awards (2019).

Allgood teaches in the Jazz Department at Loyola University. She is a highly sought-after clinician, ensemble director and adjudicator who uses her experience on the bandstand to empower students and nurture their artistic journey. Allgood holds a Master of Music in Jazz Studies from DePaul University, where she served as a graduate assistant. Her teaching work has appeared at the Jazz Education Network Conference, the University of North Texas’s Jazz Lecture Series, the Illinois Music Educators Association, the Iowa Choral Directors Association, Anchor Music’s Vocal Jazz Academy, jazzvoice.com, the University of Chicago and many other prestigious institutions.

Awards

2025 - Chamber Music America Performance Plus Grant

2025 - DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll “Rising Star Female Vocalist”

2025 - Jazz Education Network Commissions Program

2024 - DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll “Rising Star Female Vocalist"

2024 - Chicago Reader Poll “Best Individual Jazz Musician”

2023 - International Songwriting Competiton Finalist

2023 - John Lennon Songwriting Contest Finalist

2022 - David Baker Memorial Scholarship Jazz Education Network

2022 - International Songwriting Competition Semifinalist

2020- Project grants from Illinois Arts Council and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs

2019 -Chicago Music Awards Best Jazz Entertainer

2017 - Inagural Ella Fitzgerald Competition Winner

2016 - Luminarts Cultural Foundation Jazz Improvisation Fellow

2015 - Montreux Jazz Voice Competition Semifinalist

Tags