Wash Heights 23-Year-Old Wins International Jazz Vocal Competition

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY - Move over, Fitzgerald and Calloway: New York City just found its newest jazz vocal virtuoso.

Hailing from Washington Heights by way of St. Cloud, Florida, 23-year-old Tyreek McDole was named the winner of the annual Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, marking only the second male vocalist win in the contest’s 12-year history.

As part of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s TD James Moody Jazz Festival, the top finalists for the contest were presented on Nov. 19 on the NJPAC stage in Newark before a live audience. The finalists were
selected as part of 280+ submissions representing 37 countries.

The top picks competed in front of a distinguished panel of judges (three-time Grammy Award-winning producer and A&R consultant Al Pryor, vocalists Patti Austin, Jane Monheit, and Lizz Wright and multi-Grammy-winning bassist Christian McBride).

McDole emerged as the winner with his renditions of “September in the Rain” and two blues songs: “Lush Life” and “Every Day I Have the Blues.” His performance earned him a $5,000 cash award.

The second place award and $1,500 prize went to Darynn Dean, a native of Los Angeles who earned a master’s degree in music from the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz at UCLA; The third place prize of $500 was awarded to New Yorker Ekep Nkwelle, a singer and songwriter who studied both Classical Voice and Jazz Performance at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts High School in Washington, D.C.

Performers were judged on vocal quality, musicality, technique, performance, individuality, artistic interpretation and ability to swing.

Congratulations to all the winners!