Pianist Jahari Stampley has won this year’s Herbie Hancock Institute Of Jazz International Competition, taking its $50,000 first prize.
"It's just overwhelming and also just amazing", he tells NPR. "I just have a respect for everybody that participated in the competition. These are all people I've always looked up to and loved when I was growing up”.
This was the first time the international jazz competition had been held since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Connor Rohrer took the $25,000 second prize, and Paul Cornish got $10,000 for being in third place. In total, the competition awards $150,000 of prizes and scholarships.
Other awards handed out at the ceremony in New York included the Maria Fisher Founder’s Award to vocalist Dianne Reeves, who has been involved in the Herbie Hancock Institute Of Jazz for nearly three decades, and the Herbie Hancock Humanitarian Award, which went to architect Frank Gehry.