Rising Stars
Courtesy of the New Jersey Jazz Society and Jersey Jazz Magazine, Rising Stars is a monthly column that shines the light on emerging jazz artists.
Introducing Saxophonist Paloma Ximena
by Sanford Josephson
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 ...
Continue ReadingIntroducing Saxophonist Kristin Field
by Sanford Josephson
"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. ...
Continue ReadingIntroducing Saxophonist Langston Hughes II
by Sanford Josephson
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 ...
Continue ReadingIntroducing Vocalist Kate Kortum
by Sanford Josephson
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 ...
Continue ReadingIntroducing Trombonist/Vocalist Hailey Brinnel
by Sanford Josephson
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 ...
Continue ReadingIntroducing the NJ All-State Jazz Ensemble and Choir
by Sanford Josephson
"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 ...
Continue ReadingIntroducing Trumpeter Nathaniel Williford
by Sanford Josephson
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 ...
Continue ReadingIntroducing Guitarist Ely Perlman
by Sanford Josephson
After graduating from Israel's Thelma Yellin High School for the Performing Arts about four years ago, guitarist Ely Perlman came to the United States to attend Boston's Berklee College of Music. The summer before school started, he went to the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Academy, a music education program in Aspen, CO, directed by bassist Christian McBride. “It was June 2021," the 26-year-old Perlman recalled, “during the last period of Covid. Christian was just forming his band, Ursa Major. ...
Continue ReadingLeonieke Scheuble in Japan
by Sanford Josephson
As someone whose passion for jazz developed when I lived in Japan in the mid-1960s, I was fascinated to learn that keyboardist Leonieke Scheuble was spending nine weeks there to perform in the USA Pavilion at the Osaka Expo 2025. She led a band called Leonieke and the NY Groove which included her father, Nick, on drums, guitarist Ilan Eisenzweig, and saxophonist/flutist John Michalak. “I played Hammond organ the whole time," she told me. “The organ was graciously provided by ...
Continue ReadingMeet Alto Saxophonist Erena Terakubo
by Sanford Josephson
For many years, trumpeter/educator Tiger Okoshi has been directing the Hokkaido Grove Jazz Camp during summers in Sapporo, Japan. At one of his first camps, he met a 12-year-old alto saxophonist named Erena Terakubo."She was shining, and she knew it," he recalled. “She was determined, driven, and already sounded like a young Charlie Parker." When Terakubo was 15, Okoshi, a professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, awarded her a full scholarship to Berklee's five-week summer ...
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