Growing up in a family of six siblings, jazz vocalist Kate Kortum is accustomed to sharing. One day, when Kortum was a teen, it paid off. The “messy” co-use of the family desktop computer led her to accidentally discover her career.
“My older brother, he went to the same high school that I went to, and he was in a music appreciation class and downloaded Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and [an] iconic recording of Ella singing, and it got put on my iTunes,” Kortum said.
Kortum, who will perform in the Pacific Northwest in November and January, stumbled upon Ella Fitzgerald’s version of “How High the Moon“ recorded live in Berlin. Though she’d already been singing pop music and playing jazz saxophone and flute in the school band, this was the moment Kortum “fell in love” with jazz.
Kortum went on to attend University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, and recently graduated with her masters in jazz from The Juilliard School. Last year, 25-year-old Kortum won the prestigious Sarah Vaughn International Jazz Vocalist Competition.
“It's been really nice to have an organization like that that stands behind your name, so that's been a really, really powerful thing for me,” she said.
Kortum, who is the only musician in her large family, attended Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas. HSPVA is known for alumni who’ve made their marks on jazz, including pianists Robert Glasper, Jason Moran and Paul Cornish, and drummer Kendrick Scott.
While a student, Kortum connected with the school’s jazz director at the time, Warren Sneed, who encouraged her to sing with the school’s jazz ensembles.
“If you showed interest and initiative, he helped feed that and give you opportunities,” she said.
At University of Miami, as a “terrified 17 year-old,” Kortum found her sea legs under the tutelage of vocalist Charlie Christensen. In 2023, she moved to New York City to attend Julliard and study with award-winning vocalist Charenée Wade.
“She was great at really pulling the love of singing out of me, and also just the love of expression and storytelling,” Kortum said.
Amidst her schooling, Kortum also released three records, all of which explore women’s portrayal in the jazz canon through original compositions and arrangements of standards. Her fascination with the topic stems from her own experiences as a woman and singer in jazz academia.
“There were a lot of situations where I felt like my work was illegitimate, and it wasn't as good as modern modern music or fusion or odd metered things or instrumental nonsense, whatnot. Whatever was happening, that was great, but it just wasn't what I was doing, and I was made to feel less than,” she said.
Her debut record, Good Woman, played with the male-defined ideas of womanly virtue. Her sophomore record, Wild Woman, took that idea a step further.
“I wanted to add a punctuation mark of, ‘oh, and here's all these songs that explore emotions that aren't traditionally allowed for women to feel or or express so publicly or aggressively,’” she said.
Both records prominently feature Kortum’s impressive vocal improvisations, which she’s honed through study of the greats and “figuring out a way to synthesize it all into ‘one Kate thing.”
“Ella was definitely like my earliest inspiration for scatting, but you know it went on to be Anita [O’Day], and then it went on to be Carmen [McCrae], and now I'm listening to a lot of Betty [Carter], but also Sarah [Vaughn], and all have these ridiculously individual styles,” she said.
Since relocating to New York City, Kortum’s career has really hit its stride, and social media is partly responsible for that. Kortum regularly posts videos of her singing to Instagram and TikTok, with hundreds of thousands of followers on each platform.
In general, Kortum thinks social media is helping the niche artform of jazz come “more to the forefront” in 2026.
“You can find these like corners of the internet where people have a lot of followers but you've never heard of them before, and it's because people from all corners of the world were able to find this thing that they do and latch onto it. They would have never known about it had it not been for social media and whatever algorithms are happening,” Kortum said.
Kortum also thinks the way that jazz is seeping into popular music is a sign of the style’s renaissance. She points to artists like Laufey, who often performs jazz standards for arena crowds, and Sienna Spiro, who wears Frank Sinatra-adorned dresses and frequently sings “My Way.”
“That wasn't happening 15 years ago. I think there's something to notice there,” she said. “And there are so many more young jazz artists that are going mainstream.”
As for her own career, going mainstream isn’t something Kortum focuses on. Not unless she can do it on her own terms.
“My goal is to make the music that I love, and I think whatever happens from that, I mean, I would love to share my music with as many people as will deeply listen and enjoy and be satisfied by it,” Kortum said.
Kate Kortum performs Nov. 13-15 on Bainbridge Island, in Tacoma, and Camano Island as part of the JazzVox concert series. All shows are sold out. Kortum performs Jan. 22-23 in Kent and Bremerton for a Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents series.
