DownBeat’s Male Vocalist of the Year for 2012

Once again, Kurt Elling has been named Male Vocalist of the Year in both the DownBeat Critics Poll and in its Readers Poll. It's a clean sweep!
The 77th Annual Readers Poll results were just announced and will be featured in the December 2012 issue of DownBeat.

Critics Poll results were announced earlier.

“This is the most comprehensive Readers Poll in our history,” said Frank Alkyer, DownBeat publisher. “In an election year, everybody wants to get out the vote, including DownBeat. We had 17,242 jazz fans cast ballots, which is more than double the voters we had last year.”

This is the seventh year Kurt has topped the DownBeat Readers Poll, winning in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011, and now 2012.

He's won the top spot in the Critics Poll thirteen years in a row, ever since 2000.

As always, congratulations to all the winners — and especially to Kurt!