JazzLib News

French Singer Malou Oheix Wins Herbie Hancock Institute Jazz Vocals Competition in Paris

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 17:11:36 GMT

Malou Oheix, a 27-year-old singer from France, has won the 2026 Herbie Hancock Institute International Jazz Vocals Competition. The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz announced the results after the finals on Sunday, Oct. 11, at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. It was the first time in the competition's nearly four-decade history that it was held outside the United States, the institute said.

Oheix, who is from Nantes according to the institute's list of semifinalists, received the $50,000 first-place scholarship. Georgia Heers, from Greenville, South Carolina, placed second, and Lucy-Anne Daniels, from Leeds in the United Kingdom, placed third. The competition's rules set the second prize at $25,000 and the third at $10,000. The contest was open to musicians aged 30 and under.

According to the institute, a jury of Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roberta Gambarini, Angélique Kidjo, Gretchen Parlato and Gregory Porter chose the three finalists on Saturday from 11 semifinalists. Six of the 11 came from outside the U.S., which the institute called the most internationally diverse group of semifinalists since the competition began in 1987.

In the final, Oheix sang "I'm Glad There Is You" and Michael Brecker's "Madame Toulouse." Heers performed "Moon Don't Come Out Tonight" and "Thou Swell," and Daniels sang an Afro-Cuban arrangement of "Nature Boy" and "Old Devil Moon," according to the institute's results announcement. The finalists were accompanied by pianist Carmen Staaf, bassist Ben Williams and drummer Kendrick Scott.

The competition has a track record of spotting vocal talent. The institute lists Jazzmeia Horn, Jane Monheit, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Gretchen Parlato and Veronica Swift among its past vocal winners. Saxophonists Joshua Redman and Melissa Aldana and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire are among the instrumentalists it helped launch.

The finals were followed by a gala hosted by actor Jeremy Irons. Herbie Hancock presented trumpeter Arturo Sandoval with the institute's Maria Fisher Founder's Award, and Sandoval performed Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" with bassist John Patitucci and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. Conductor Gustavo Dudamel led a tribute to the late architect Frank Gehry, a longtime board member of the institute who designed the Fondation Louis Vuitton building. The tribute ended with the premiere of The Ever-Changing World, a two-movement piece by pianist Danilo Pérez commissioned by the institute in Gehry's honor.

Hancock and Akinmusire, the institute's 2007 trumpet competition winner, played "So What" to mark the centennials of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and Gregory Porter closed the evening with "April in Paris," the institute said. The weekend was streamed on FLV Play, medici.tv and YouTube.

Dieter Glawischnig, Who Led Hamburg's NDR Bigband for 28 Years, Dies at 88

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 13:10:53 GMT

Dieter Glawischnig, the Austrian pianist, composer and conductor who led the NDR Bigband in Hamburg from 1980 to 2008, has died at 88. Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), the German public broadcaster that runs the band, announced on Oct. 14 that he died on Oct. 1. The Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung wrote that he "suddenly did not wake up," in JazzLib's translation.

"Under his leadership, the NDR Bigband became one of the leading jazz ensembles in Europe," NDR director general Hendrik Lünenborg said in the broadcaster's statement, in JazzLib's translation. He called Glawischnig "an extraordinary musician, teacher and pioneer."

Glawischnig was born in Graz, Austria, on March 7, 1938. According to NDR, he studied philosophy, musicology and art history, earned diplomas as a pianist and conductor, and in 1965 co-founded in Graz what NDR describes as Europe's first jazz institute, heading its jazz department. In 1970 he spent a sabbatical semester at Berklee in Boston, where he took Herb Pomeroy's arranging course. He later called Pomeroy his "only teacher."

NDR editor Wolfgang Kunert first brought him to Hamburg in 1973, and in 1980 Glawischnig became the band's chief conductor. NDR's tribute describes a gradual transformation. Well into the 1980s, the ensemble, which grew out of the broadcaster's radio dance and light-music orchestra, still recorded jazz-tinged pop for daily programming and played television shows. Glawischnig and Kunert filled open chairs with strong soloists, widened the repertoire and steered the band toward modern jazz. Under his direction it worked with Joe Pass, Chet Baker, Al Jarreau, McCoy Tyner, Abdullah Ibrahim, Maria João and Nils Wogram, and toured to Beijing, Shanghai, Mexico City, Chicago and New York, according to NDR.

He also shaped jazz education in Germany. Hamburg's University of Music and Theatre (HfMT) said he was appointed professor of jazz in 1982 and in 1985 founded its jazz degree program, one of the first in the country, with then-president Hermann Rauhe. His model required jazz students to take classical lessons and classical students to learn improvisation, an approach the school says still defines the program. He retired from teaching in 2003.

As a performer, Glawischnig led the trio Neighbours, which the HfMT says made its mark in European free jazz from the 1970s, as well as the group Cercle. For the NDR Bigband he set texts by the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl, in the programs Laut und Luise and Aus der Kürze des Lebens, and wrote Als die Synagogen brannten (When the Synagogues Burned), a work remembering the November pogroms of 1938.

After leaving the band in 2008, he returned to Graz with his wife, Tamara. NDR said he kept doing what he had always done, "only with more time: playing and reading." His son is the bassist Hans Glawischnig.

New York Voices Open Rochester Jazz Festival's New Year-Round Series on Their Farewell Tour

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 17:09:07 GMT

The Rochester International Jazz Festival has started presenting concerts outside its June festival week. Its new RIJF Innovation Jazz Series opened on Thursday, Oct. 15, at The Theater at Innovation Square in downtown Rochester, New York, with a performance by the vocal quartet New York Voices, local station 13WHAM reported.

"We've had this festival going on for 23 years," Marc Iacona, the festival's executive producer, told 13WHAM. "The community loves it. We're told every time, 'Can you make it longer or can you have some things going on during the year?' And this is the year we finally made decision."

The series, presented by M&T Bank, consists of seven Thursday concerts at the theater at 131 Chestnut Street, according to the festival's website. After New York Voices, the schedule lists Mike LeDonne's Groover Quartet on Nov. 5; Connected, led by bassist Richie Goods and vibraphonist Chien Chien Lu, on Jan. 14, 2027; the John Pizzarelli Trio on Feb. 11; trumpeter and singer Bria Skonberg on March 18; The Sergio Mendes Band, led by Gracinha Leporace, on April 8; and drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. with Generation Y on May 6. Shows start at 7:30 p.m. Individual tickets cost $47.63 and a full series pass $182.43, fees included. The festival says each concert will be followed by a free late-night jam session at Vanni's Jazz Lounge at the Inn on Broadway.

The opening night fell on New York Voices' farewell tour. The festival's ticketing page billed the concert as part of the group's farewell tour, and the quartet's own biography calls it the Grand Finale Tour, running across the U.S. and Europe and culminating in a farewell gala concert in New York City in January 2027.

The group consists of soprano Kim Nazarian, alto Lauren Kinhan, baritone Peter Eldridge and tenor, saxophonist and music director Darmon Meader. It formed in the mid-1980s at Ithaca College, in upstate New York. According to its biography, it has released 11 albums, including the big band tribute Sing! Sing! Sing! and New York Voices Sing the Songs of Paul Simon, and has performed with the Count Basie Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and with big bands and orchestras in Europe and North America. The members have also taught for years, including at the group's own Vocal Jazz Camp.

The same biography lists four recordings planned for release in 2026: a collaboration with Brazilian singer-songwriter Ivan Lins and the Danish Radio Big Band, a recording with the Taipei Jazz Orchestra, a live album of Brazilian music called Sonho Meu, and a final studio album of standards, originals and pop reinventions. Release dates for those projects were not listed. The group says its members will continue as solo artists and educators after the final bow.

The festival's 24th edition is scheduled for June 18 to 26, 2027.

KAIST's AI Pianist Trades Solos With Jazz Musicians at Korea's Jarasum Jazz Festival

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 13:14:46 GMT

Artificial intelligence systems built at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) shared the stage with human musicians at South Korea's 23rd Jarasum Jazz Festival, the university announced on Friday, Oct. 16. According to The Korea Times, which reported the announcement, 12 jazz artists performed 26 pieces with the AI across 12 performances at the festival in Gapyeong County, Gyeonggi Province, which ran Oct. 9 to 11.

The team, led by Professor Nam Ju-han of KAIST's Graduate School of Culture Technology, presented two systems. The first, an AI pianist named Scott, compares a musician's live playing with the sheet music in real time to keep track of where the piece is. The Herald Business reported that this lets Scott pick up a performance according to the actual flow of the music, even when a player slows down or shifts the timing, rather than following a preset schedule. In some sets, Scott generated new solo passages that reflected the melody and rhythm of the musician who had just played. The Herald Business said Scott played on nine pieces.

Scott's output was sent to a Yamaha Disklavier, an acoustic reproducing piano, which played the music with real key and pedal movements. On stage, an augmented reality character representing the pianist was overlaid on live camera footage, driven by technology that simulates a pianist's hand movements, The Korea Times reported.

The second system, an AI accompanist called DeepPocket, listens to a human performer and generates bass and drum parts in real time, adjusting to the notes, rhythm and tempo it hears. According to The Herald Business, it played eight pieces alongside a jazz pianist without any prepared backing tracks. The Korea Times reported that it improvised with pianists and guitarists without prior preparation.

The program ran under the name Jazz AI Lounge. A preview published by SpecialTimes Global described it as a joint project of the festival, KAIST's Music and Audio Computing Lab (MACLab) and Studio Meta K, supported by the Korea Creative Content Agency. Maeil Business Newspaper reported that pianists Heo Dae-wook and Kwak Jung-min, as well as vocalist Moon Mi-hyang with bassist Kim Dae-ho, performed with the AI pianist system.

The project builds on earlier work by the same team, which in 2023 used AI to adjust the timing of piano accompaniment during a performance by soprano Sumi Jo, according to both reports. The Herald Business said the team sees possible uses as a practice partner for musicians playing alone and in personalized music education.

"The performances demonstrated that AI can listen to human musicians and create music alongside them by responding to the flow of their performances, marking a significant advance from simply playing predefined music," Nam said, as quoted in English by The Korea Times. He added that the team will continue research toward AI as "a musical partner that can exchange creative inspiration with human musicians, rather than simply serving as a tool."

The accounts above are based on KAIST's announcement and Korean press coverage. JazzLib has not reviewed recordings of the sets.

Sam Noto, Trumpeter Who Played With Stan Kenton and Count Basie, Dies at 96

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 11:37:48 GMT

Sam Noto, the jazz trumpeter from Buffalo, New York, who played in the bands of Stan Kenton, Count Basie and Woody Herman, died on Oct. 16, 2026. He was 96. His death was announced in an obituary published by Lombardo Funeral Home in Amherst, New York, which did not give a cause of death and said services will be private.

Born Salvatore Michael Noto on April 17, 1930, he is described in the obituary as "a world-renowned Jazz Musician" who played for many years with "the bands Stan Kenton Orchestra/Count Basie and Woody Herman and countless others," and who also released solo albums in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. The family notice adds that he was a U.S. Army veteran. It names his late wife, Arleen Christian-Noto, and lists four children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren among his survivors.

An artist biography that JazzInfo credits to AllMusic calls Noto "a great bop soloist" who became briefly prominent in the U.S. through his late-1970s recordings for the Xanadu label. The biography says he spent much of 1969 to 1975 working in Las Vegas, where he became associated with trumpeter Red Rodney, who used him on a 1974 recording. In 1975 he moved to Toronto, where he worked in the studios and with Rob McConnell's Boss Brass into the early 1980s. The Canadian Encyclopedia lists Noto among the featured jazz soloists of the Boss Brass, the Canadian big band known for McConnell's brass-heavy arrangements.

The mid-1970s also brought Noto his own records. Michael Fitzgerald's leader discography at jazzdiscography.com documents four albums for the Xanadu label. Entrance! was recorded on March 2, 1975, in Los Angeles with pianist Barry Harris, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Lenny McBrowne. Act One followed, recorded in New York on Dec. 1, 1975, with tenor saxophonist Joe Romano, Harris, bassist Sam Jones and drummer Billy Higgins. Notes to You (1977) added baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber and pianist Jimmy Rowles, and Noto-Riety, recorded in Los Angeles in October 1978 with flutist Sam Most, was issued in 1980. Most of the material on those sessions was Noto's own writing, according to the discography.

The same source lists later Toronto recordings: the album 2-4-5, recorded in 1986 and 1987 with musicians including pianist Gary Williamson, bassist Steve Wallace and drummer Bob McLaren and released by Unisson in 1988, and Now Hear This, a 1999 release on Supermono. It also notes two privately issued CDs of 1966 club dates at the Renaissance in Buffalo, featuring Noto with Joe Romano.

Jimmy Heath's Final Big Band Recording, Unreleased Since 2018, Set for Centennial Release

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 14:02:21 GMT

The Newest One, the final recording by saxophonist, composer and bandleader Jimmy Heath, will be released on Nov. 20, 2026, by BCM+D Records, the label launched by Temple University's Boyer College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia. The label announced the release on Oct. 6, tying it to the 100th anniversary of Heath's birth, on Oct. 25, 1926.

According to the announcement, the album was recorded with the Jimmy Heath Big Band at Sear Sound in New York in late 2018, when Heath was 92, and remained unreleased when he died in January 2020. Bass trombonist Douglas Purviance, alto saxophonist Antonio Hart and the Heath family worked to bring the recording to listeners, the label says, in keeping with the bandleader's wishes.

"It warms my heart that people are finally going to be able to hear this music," Purviance said in the label's announcement. Hart called Heath "one of the greatest composers and arrangers in the history of jazz."

The program spans Heath's career, from early compositions to some of his newest, the label says. The album opens with "For Minors Only," which Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers first recorded in 1957, followed by "Longravity," a term Heath credited to Sun Ra Arkestra saxophonist Pat Patrick. "Mona's Mood," dedicated to Heath's wife, Mona Brown Heath, features Heath as the only soloist, on soprano saxophone. According to the label, Mona Brown Heath died as the finishing touches were being put on the recording.

Vocalist Roberta Gambarini sings two songs she first recorded with the Heath Brothers on her 2015 album Connecting Spirits: "Life in the City" and "Without Song." The track list also includes "Changes," the title track, "New Picture" and the closer, "Silver Threads," which the label says ends with brief statements from members of the band, including Jeb Patton and David Wong.

The announcement traces Heath's history as a big band leader back to late 1946. The label says that his first band rehearsed in his mother's living room and included future giants such as John Coltrane and Benny Golson, citing Heath's 2010 memoir, I Walked With Giants. By the 2010s, it says, his large ensemble included alumni of Dizzy Gillespie's big band and members of the Heath Brothers band.

Purviance and Hart continue to lead the Jimmy Heath Big Band. "The legacy goes on," Hart said in the announcement.

Separately, the UK radio program JazzTastic (Humber Wave Radio and Vixen 101) announced that its Oct. 13 broadcast would include previously unreleased recordings by Heath; the post did not specify which tracks.

GRAMMY First-Round Voting Opens as Large-Ensemble Jazz Artists Make Their Case

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 14:02:20 GMT

First-round voting for the 2027 GRAMMY Awards opened on Monday, Oct. 12, and runs through Thursday, Oct. 22, according to the Recording Academy. This round determines the nominees in every category, including Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, which the Academy describes as recognizing "primarily recordings with a big band sound," generally by ensembles of nine or more members.

Nominations are scheduled to be announced on Nov. 16. Final-round voting runs from Dec. 10 through Jan. 7, and the ceremony takes place on Feb. 7, 2027. The Academy says only recordings released between Aug. 31, 2025, and Aug. 28, 2026, are eligible, and that the top five finalists in each genre category become nominees. Voting members are directed to vote only in their areas of expertise: on the standard ballot, up to 10 categories across three genre fields, plus the General Field categories.

As voting opened, several leaders of large jazz ensembles turned to social media to ask voters to consider their recordings.

Vibraphonist and composer Patricia Brennan posted on Oct. 14 that her album Of the Near and Far is submitted for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, with the track "Aquarius" entered for Best Jazz Performance and Best Instrumental Composition. In follow-up posts on Oct. 15, she wrote that the album is on the ballot in the large-ensemble category and that "Aquarius" is on the ballot in two categories. Of the Near and Far, released on Pyroclastic, was named Album of the Year in DownBeat's 2026 Critics Poll. DownBeat reported that the album substitutes strings for horns, combining a string quartet with an ensemble that includes guitarist Miles Okazaki, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and drummer John Hollenbeck.

Saxophonist Miguel Zenón posted on Oct. 15 that Expressions: Concerto for Alto Sax and Orchestra is submitted for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, with its fourth movement entered for Best Instrumental Composition. According to the Barcelona Art Orchestra, the concerto project was presented at L'Auditori in Barcelona during the 2025–26 season, recorded live, and released in summer 2026 on Miel Records.

Pianist Helen Sung wrote on Oct. 13 that she has submitted Oracles, her first big band album, in Best Large Jazz Ensemble, Best Jazz Performance, Best Instrumental Composition, Best Arrangement (Instrumental) and Best Liner Notes. The album's Bandcamp page lists a June 12, 2026 release date and a 17-piece band conducted by Alan Ferber. The page describes the album as a set of musical portraits of Sung's mentors from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, including Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Jimmy Heath and Wayne Shorter, and quotes liner notes by Wynton Marsalis.

Earlier in the month, on Oct. 6, South African saxophonist Karen Devroop posted that Unisa Big Band Live is submitted for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.

The Recording Academy does not publish first-round ballots, so the entries above are described as the artists presented them. The previous award, at the 2026 GRAMMYs, went to Christian McBride for Without Further Ado, Vol. 1, according to the Academy. This year's nominees will be known on Nov. 16.

SWR Big Band and Dieter Thomas Kuhn Give German Schlager Hits a Big Band Makeover

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 14:02:18 GMT

German singer Dieter Thomas Kuhn and the SWR Big Band released Gute Laune mit Posaune ("Good Mood With Trombone") on Oct. 9, 2026. The album sets 14 German-language schlager and pop classics in new big band arrangements. Phazz-a-delic New Format Recordings released it digitally, on CD and on vinyl, according to its distributor, Klangspot Recordings.

The track list includes "Quando, quando, quando," "Ich war noch niemals in New York," "Ich liebe das Leben," "Über den Wolken," and the Eagles' "Desperado," which became known to German audiences through Udo Lindenberg's version. Klangspot says the album includes five compositions by Udo Jürgens.

Rainer Tempel wrote the orchestral arrangements, and Philipp Feldtkeller, Kuhn's longtime collaborator, handled musical direction and concept, according to Klangspot. The distributor says Southwest German public broadcaster SWR describes the project as a reinterpretation of Kuhn's repertoire with large horn sections and a classic big band sound. A retailer listing for the CD says the album was recorded mainly at SWR's studios in Stuttgart, mixed at Jeo Park Studio in Hamburg and mastered in Vienna by Christoph Stickel.

The release coincides with the SWR Big Band's anniversary year. According to Klangspot, the band marks 75 years in 2026: Erwin Lehn founded it in 1951 as the Südfunk-Tanzorchester, and it has used its current name since 1998. Over its history, Klangspot notes, the band worked with musicians including Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Sammy Nestico, and the historical name Südfunk-Tanzorchester also appears in the album's digital artist credits.

This is not Kuhn's first appearance with the band. Klangspot says he was among the singers featured on the SWR Big Band's 2021 release Außer Betrieb.

Kuhn built a distinctive concert culture around rediscovering well-known schlager songs; according to Klangspot, it began as an initially ironic schlager project among friends in Tübingen. The distributor adds that the album arrives at a particular point for Dieter Thomas Kuhn & Band, which has announced its last three concerts together for 2027. Two of the songs, "Über den Wolken" and "Eine neue Liebe ist wie ein neues Leben," also appeared on Kuhn's 1994 album Lieder meines Lebens.

Yazz Ahmed, Knats and Heidi Vogel Among Winners at 2026 Parliamentary Jazz Awards

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 14:01:47 GMT

Trumpeter Yazz Ahmed, vocalist Heidi Vogel and the band Knats were among the winners of the 2026 All-Party Parliamentary Jazz Awards. The winners were announced on Tuesday, Oct. 13, at a ceremony at World Heart Beat in London, UK Jazz News and Jazzwise reported.

The awards are organized by the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Group (APPJG) and supported by the Musicians' Union, the Royal Society of Musicians and UK Music. Jazzwise reported that the shortlists were compiled by a selection panel after an online public vote, with APPJG members choosing the final winners.

The 2026 winners, as published by UK Jazz News and Jazzwise:

Jazz Vocalist of the Year: Heidi Vogel

Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year: Yazz Ahmed

Jazz Album of the Year: Iain Ballamy, Riversphere Vol. 1

Jazz Ensemble of the Year: Knats

Jazz Newcomer of the Year: Olivia Cuttill

Jazz Venue of the Year: SoundCellar (Poole)

The Martin Hummel Endeavour Award: Donovan Haffner

Jazz Media Award: Richard Williams (The Blue Moment)

Musicians' Union Music Hubs and Schools Music Services Award: Hampshire Music Education Hub

Jazz Education Award: Jazz at Leeds Conservatoire

Services to Jazz Award: Jean Toussaint

The Musicians' Union Music Hubs and Schools Music Services Award was introduced this year, with assistance from Music Mark and SoundStorm, according to UK Jazz News.

"These awards are a great opportunity to celebrate the talents and energies of the great musicians, educators, promoters, record labels, jazz organisations, blogs, jazz magazines and journalists who help keep jazz flourishing," said Dame Chi Onwurah MP, chair of the APPJG, as quoted by Jazzwise.

Four special APPJG awards marked contributions to the UK scene that have continued for fifty years. They went to the 606 Club; musicians Alison Rayner and Deirdre Cartwright; Geoff Wright, for his work with Derby Jazz, EMJazz (East Midlands Jazz) and Jazz Services; and Birmingham Jazz, in recognition of its 50 years.

According to UK Jazz News, Chris Hodgkins served as MC for the evening. Speakers and presenters included representatives of Leeds Jazz, UK Music, World Heart Beat, the Royal Society of Musicians, the Musicians' Union, Music Mark, PPL and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, along with parliamentarians Neil Duncan-Jordan MP, Lord Mann and Chi Onwurah MP. The house band included pianist Andrea Vicari, bassist Alison Rayner, trumpeter Henry Lowther and drummer Wilf Cameron Marples, according to both publications.

Media award winner Richard Williams, who writes the music blog The Blue Moment, posted on X on Oct. 14 that he was "honoured" to be among this year's recipients. UK Music also congratulated the winners in a post on X.