Article Contributed by Mike
Published on January 21, 2026
Flying High: Still Soaring is the second installment in the Jazz at the Ballroom/ Songbook Ink partnership ongoing Flying High series, conceived and produced by Suzanne Waldowski, founder of the Songbook Ink jazz label and Executive Director of the Jazz at the Ballroom concert series. Created and produced in close collaboration with pianist, vocalist, and musical director Champian Fulton, the album features guest vocal appearances by a formidable line-up of modern band leaders and vocalists including Bria Skonberg, Tahira Clayton, Carmen Bradford, and Nicole Zuraitis, and instrumental contributions from bassist Buster Williams, alto saxophonist and clarinetist Klas Lindquist, bassist Neal Miner, and drummers Fukushi Tainaka and Charles Ruggiero. Coinciding with Women’s History Month, there will be six album release shows will be at Birdland from March 27-29 featuring Champian Fulton, Tahira Clayton and Laura Anglade.
Conceived as a long-term program rather than a one-off release, Flying High reflects Jazz at the Ballroom’s commitment to presenting jazz history through working musicians and live performance. Timed to Women’s History Month, Still Soaring builds on 2024’s Flying High, returning to the women singers who came of age inside the swing and big band era, artists whose voices helped define American popular song while their working lives were shaped by conditions few audiences ever saw. Often the only woman in a traveling ensemble, they channeled repertoire, personality, and authority across the country night after night, while enduring circumstances that demanded both resilience and resolve.
“Women were there from the beginning of this period,” says Fulton. “They were integral to the music and to the entire cultural fabric of the twentieth century. But they made enormous sacrifices to do their jobs.” Singers spent close to fifty weeks a year on the road, traveling by bus or train with all-male bands, navigating racism, sexism, and physical exhaustion while being expected to project glamour and command onstage.
“Conditions were harsh,” Fulton points out. “There were no bathrooms on the bus, no air conditioning. You’re traveling with 18 men, playing one-nighters, and you’re still expected to get up every night dressed to the nines, singing songs that were going to lift people up.”
For Waldowski, the historical weight became clearer the deeper she went. “These singers worked in an industry shaped by objectification and control,” she says. “There was such sexism. They were told what to wear, what to sing, and then got none of the recognition they deserved. This was one of the first times in the twentieth century that women decided to build careers in an industry that normally didn’t welcome them. To be accepted, they had to be both talented and tough.”
This legacy shapes Still Soaring at every level, from repertoire to personnel to sound. Fulton selected the material alongside Waldowski with a specific historical lens: the moment when many singers stepped out from behind large orchestras and began recording in smaller, more flexible settings.
“In the ’50s, a lot of these women made small-group sessions that were off the cuff,” Fulton explains. “They weren’t hyper-arranged. You could hear that they were singing songs they loved with musicians they loved. That looseness — that sense of trust — was something I really wanted here.”
The core ensemble reflects that intention. Miner, Tainaka, and Ruggiero return from the first Flying High volume, joined this time by Buster Williams, whose bass work undergirds some of the most important vocal records of the postwar era.
“I kept listening to my favorite records,” Fulton says, “and Buster was on all of them — Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson, Shirley Horn. Bringing him into this project felt authentic, like pulling a thread through generations of great vocalists and tying it to the present.”
Klas Lindquist, appearing on alto saxophone and clarinet, adds another historical layer. His presence nods to the horn-forward small-group sessions many singers made after the big band era, when instrumentalists and vocalists shared space more fluidly, without hierarchy.
The album’s repertoire draws entirely from the Great American Songbook and swing-era canon, with each selection framed around the singer carrying it forward.
The set opens with “S’posin’,” the 1926 Andy Razaf–Paul Denniker standard, delivered by Juno-awarded and 10 time Downbeat Rising Star, trumpeter/vocalist Bria Skonberg with rhythmic ease and conversational swing. Skonberg also appears on “It’s Been a Long, Long Time,” the Jule Styne–Sammy Cahn ballad made famous by Kitty Kallen with the Harry James Orchestra, a song whose postwar associations still linger in its melodic architecture.
Tahira Clayton, an ambassador of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and leader of their three house bands, takes on two contrasting facets of the era. On “Good Morning Heartache,” written by Irene Higginbotham and closely associated with Billie Holiday, she inhabits the song’s interior gravity. She then turns to “Swing! Brother, Swing!,” the Fletcher Henderson and Elmer Schoebel anthem built for propulsion, reminding listeners that swing-era singers were required to cut through volume, motion, and spectacle with clarity and force.
Grammy-winner and five-time Grammy-nominee Carmen Bradford’s appearance carries particular resonance. Discovered and hired by William “Count” Basie when she was just 22, she went on to be the featured vocalist with the legendary Count Basie Orchestra for nine years. In 2026, she won the Grammy Award for “Basie Swings the Blues – the Count Basie Orchestra. With her bona fides, Bradford stands as a direct inheritor of the tradition this project examines. Her performance on “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” places lived experience alongside repertoire, collapsing decades of history into the present tense. “Lullaby of the Leaves,” another Bradford feature, nods to Bernice Petkere’s role as one of Tin Pan Alley’s most successful composers, a reminder of how many women shaped the repertoire itself.
Fulton herself, who regularly ranks high in both the Jazz Journalist Awards and Downbeat’s Rising Star Critics Poll, appears as a vocalist on two selections that foreground women’s authorship. “Just for a Thrill,” written by Lil Hardin Armstrong, centers on a composer whose contributions have too often been framed only in relation to others. “Do It Again,” introduced in 1922 by Belle Baker, reflects the porous boundary between vaudeville, jazz, and popular song that early women navigated as working artists. “If Dreams Come True,” presented as a duo with Fulton and Lindquist, emerged organically during the sessions and remains intentionally spare. Fueled by Fulton’s virtuosic piano work, a moment of shared space that reflects how these songs once circulated outside rigid formats.
The album closes with “Sentimental Journey,” sung by 2025 Grammy-awarded Nicole Zuraitis. A bandleader and composer with a long-standing commitment to women-led collaboration, Zuraitis joined the project without hesitation. “When Champian called me, I didn’t even ask what song it was,” she says. “I just said, ‘I’m in.’” Reflecting on the environment the project creates, she adds, “The faster I built real friendship and camaraderie with women in this industry, the safer I felt — and the more sustainable this life became.”
Beyond the studio, Flying High: Still Soaring continues onstage through Jazz at the Ballroom’s presenting work, including a 2026 return to Birdland on March 27,28 and 29, following 2025 sold-out residencies tied to the first Flying High release. Whether in the studio or on the stage, it’s a welcome reminder that strong, smart, innovative women helped this music take wing.
Track Listing
1. S’posin’ (feat. Bria Skonberg)
2. Good Morning Heartache (feat. Tahira Clayton)
3. What a Little Moonlight Can Do (feat. Carmen Bradford)
4. Just for a Thrill (feat. Champian Fulton)
5. Swing! Brother, Swing! (feat. Tahira Clayton)
6. It’s Been a Long, Long Time (feat. Bria Skonberg)
7. Lullaby of the Leaves (feat. Carmen Bradford)
8. If Dreams Come True (feat. Klas Lindquist)
9. Do It Again (feat. Champian Fulton)
10. Sentimental Journey (feat. Nicole Zuraitis)
March 27, 28, 29 | Birdland | NYC NY
March 14 | Scripps Colleges | Claremont,, CA
March 15 | Presidio Theatre | San Francisco, CA
