New Jazz & Blues News - 9/28/2021 wtju.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wtju.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Adam Feibel
Lucy Wijnands is this year’s winner of the Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition, the Blues Alley Jazz Society announced on Friday.
The singer from Kansas City, Mo., was one of five finalists who competed virtually in the fourth annual event on April 24 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Wijnands recently graduated from SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Music, where she was named the college’s Ella Fitzgerald Scholar and received both a President’s Award for Achievement and a Downbeat Student Music Award for outstanding jazz vocal soloist.
She has completed a five-month residency with the Birdland Big Band and has performed with acclaimed musicians such as Joe Lovano and Kenny Washington.
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It is hard to imagine New York City without jazz, which has been a central element of the city s cultural profile for a century. But the shutdown has hit NYC s performance venues hard. The East Side’s Jazz Standard closed for good in December, and music lovers fear that the essential midtown venue Birdland might be forced to follow this year unless a new campaign to rescue the club raises enough money to keep it going through the lean times ahead.
A GoFundMe campaign to save the nightclub was set up last week, and the response has been highly encouraging: The drive has already raised $200,000 toward its goal. Now a virtual concert will follow on Sunday, January 24, with a major lineup of stars eager to lend a hand. Birdland was the world s greatest jazz club in the 1950s, and it is the world s greatest jazz club today,” says the jazz and cabaret historian James Gavin. “The air vibrates with history, both bygone and in the making. Birdland defines the exciteme