The judges and the fans have made their decision!

The winner of the Jazzconnect.com 2nd Annual Jazz Competition is New York based pianist George Colligan.

The competition began October 1, 2001 with the semi-final rounds. Jazz fans registered to vote on the Jazzconnect.com website and were able to listen and vote for each contestant on the Internet "stage" hearing the streaming tracks and voting by a scoring card.

This year's competition had 111 contestants from 13 countries. Over 18,000 fans from around the world voted in this event. Three finalists were chosen on January 17, 2002: Saxophonist Dave Pietro (New York), bassist Thomas Winther Anderson (Netherlands) and pianist George Colligan (New York). A quick final round of voting ended one week later with the winner.

The grand prize included round-trip airfare to Washington, DC, a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel, and a concert engagement at Blues Alley Jazz & Supper Club in Georgetown, DC that will be recorded live and pressed into a CD.

In addition to the voting done on-line by jazz fans, 5 professional musician judges were selected to cast their vote. Their decision and the voting done on-line by fans were split 50/50. The judges were saxophonist Marshall Keys, vocalist Ronnie Wells, pianist Dan La Maestra, drummer Lenny Robinson and guitarist Steve Abshire. To view their votes and their selection of honorable mentions, please go to Meet The Judges The winner, chosen from 3 finalists, was entirely selected by the voting of jazz fans on-line.

Welcome to the Archive!

Here you can listen and vote (for fun only) to all the contestants in this competition. There is over 12 hours of music on our competition stage to hear! (*Please note: if you actually vote for a contestant, next time you return to this archive, you won't be able to listen again to that contestant. We recommend listening only so you can visit again and here the music)