Dr. Maya Cunningham, is a rising star jazz vocalist and artist-scholar in the tradition of Abbey Lincoln, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, and Lorez Alexandria. Cunningham is a master storyteller through song, a fluid and creative improvisor and has a shimmering four octave range. Her approach draws on the emotional power of the Holiday, lineage and the improvisational spontaneity of Vaughan. She recently was a featured vocalist at the January 2025 New York City Winter JazzFest with jazz master Charles Tolliver on his Strata East Rising Concert with Cecil McBee, George Cables, Billy Hart, Billy Harper, Christian McBride, Keyon Harrold, Camille Thurman, Endea Owens, Josh Evans and Jon Batiste. She also performed Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite with an all star band, including Ali Jackson, Rodney Whitaker and Stephon Harris at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Maya Cunningham is also an ethnomusicologist, a Black music scholar and a cultural activist. She is a Fulbright scholar, a Ford Foundation Fellow and received a Ph.D. in Afro-American Studies and Ethnomusicology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Vocalist
