Alexis Cole, a vocalist based in New York, has earned recognition for her refined jazz approach and a voice marked by warmth and resonance that fits classic standards and swing repertoire particularly well. Attention first came her way during the late 1990s, leading to performances alongside Fred Hersch, Bucky Pizzarelli, Don Braden and Matt Wilson, Eric Alexander, the Boston Pops, the Detroit Symphony, and Kool & the Gang. In addition to her service in the Army as vocalist with West Point’s Jazz Knights Big Band, she has instructed students across multiple continents, including an affiliate of the Berklee College of Music in Ecuador and faculty posts in the jazz voice programs at SUNY Purchase, William Paterson University, and Western Connecticut State. She established the online educational platform JazzVoice.com, the Virginia Beach Vocal Jazz Summit, and the music career site MusicAuditions.com. Among her well-received standards collections are the 2005 release Nearer the Sun, 2010’s Someday My Prince Will Come, and 2014’s A Kiss in the Dark. She has also turned her attention to the catalog of Paul Simon on 2015’s Dazzling Blue while investigating big-band textures on 2022’s Sky Blossom: Songs from My Tour of Duty and 2024’s Jazz Republic: Taiwan, The United States, and the Freedom of Swing.
Born in Queens, New York in 1976, Cole entered a household with deep musical roots. On her mother’s side, her grandmother, a pianist and singer of jazz standards, first introduced her to “Pennies from Heaven” and additional American popular songs. Her mother backed Cole’s schooling and professional groundwork, while her father, likewise a pianist, singer, and composer, supplied her earliest piano instruction. After the family relocated from New York to Florida, she participated in all-county, all-state, and high school choirs, studied at the New World School of the Arts, and graduated in 1994. Initial professional work arrived during her teenage years at a South Beach hotel. She began at the University of Miami’s jazz studies program before returning to the New York region, where she completed her Bachelor of Music in 1998 at William Paterson University in New Jersey.
In 1999 she both attended the Jazz India Vocal Institute in Mumbai, where she studied Indian classical singing, and issued her independent debut Very Early, supported by pianist Harry Pickens. Throughout 2001 she performed with her quartet aboard a cruise ship and later busked across Europe each year into the mid-2010s. Cole reemerged in 2004 with her second solo album, Nearer the Sun, featuring pianist Ben Stivers. She earned her M.M. from Queens College in 2006, gave private lessons at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, resided in Ecuador while teaching at the Berklee-affiliated University of San Francisco in Quito, joined the Art of Jazz program in Toronto, and served as music director at the Jan Hus Presbyterian Church in New York City from 2004 to 2006. Her third full-length recording, Zingaro, arrived in 2007 and marked a shift away from piano-centered accompaniment toward bassist Jeff Eckels and guitarist Ron Affif. During the same period she held the post of resident pianist and vocalist at the Tableaux Lounge in Tokyo’s Daikanyama design district. Three years afterward she issued her first holiday collection, The Greatest Gift.
From 2009 to 2015 Cole served in the U.S. Army as vocalist with West Point’s Jazz Knights Big Band. While fulfilling military responsibilities she continued recording, delivering an album of Disney love songs on 2010’s Someday My Prince Will Come, honoring the late baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams on 2012’s I Carry Your Heart, and conveying sultry romanticism on 2013’s Close Your Eyes. Chesky Records presented A Kiss in the Dark in 2014, placing Cole with guitarist Saul Rubin, saxophonist/clarinetist Dan Block, bassist Pat O’Leary, and drummer Phil Stewart. A collaboration with guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli titled A Beautiful Friendship appeared in 2015, and the following year she achieved her Billboard jazz chart debut with Dazzling Blue, a tribute to Paul Simon.
After her discharge from the Army, Cole maintained her teaching commitments as Jazz Voice Professor at both the State University of New York at Purchase and her alma mater, William Paterson University. She returned to New York City in 2019, performing nightly at Bemelmans Bar while also touring Vancouver, Tokyo, and various U.S. cities. During the COVID-19 pandemic she resided in Seoul and Hawaii, inaugurated the first Virginia Beach Vocal Jazz Summit with Zeiders American Dream Theater in 2021—an annual event that subsequently hosted Samara Joy, Kurt Elling, Catherine Russell, and Jane Monheit—and, drawing on her military performing background, released the big-band album Sky Blossom: Songs from My Tour of Duty. A 2022 engagement in Taiwan with the Taipei Jazz Orchestra, conducted by Gene Aitken, later surfaced on Jazz Republic: Taiwan, The United States, and the Freedom of Swing.
Cole has continued touring the U.S. and Europe with pianist Monika Herzig’s Joni Mitchell Project, Both Sides of Joni, while launching MusicAuditions.com to link early-career artists with music employment opportunities. Having resettled in the West Village in 2024, she maintains an active schedule of performances worldwide.
