Jazz/Contemporary Voice
About Me
Jade Maze is an award-winning author, singer, composer, and educator based in Chicago. Her early life was challenging, having been a runaway and high school dropout at age fifteen. Things started looking up when she moved to Minneapolis in the mid-80s and toured internationally with the Minneapolis Jazz Machine. Maze spent the next decade on the East and West coasts singing original soul-rock and jazz. She discovered a love for classical music in college and received an MM in classical vocal performance from Northwestern University (2008). Upon moving to Chicago, she recorded her highly acclaimed CD My Favorite Color is Blue featuring members of the Otis Rush band. Ms. Maze received the 2016 Clementine Skinner Award for her contributions as a singer/educator to Chicago’s diverse music culture.
Professor Maze balances out the sonorous act of singing with the quietude writing affords. Her debut memoir, Walk Until Sunrise, which is a visceral recount of her runaway experience, won the Golden Aster Book World Literary Prize in Rome (2018). The follow-up memoir, Mercy’s View: Blackout, published in 2025 details her reckless reentry into society. It won the 2025 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award, Best Book: Autbiography. To counter the intensity of memoir writing, Ms. Maze delights in writing short stories. Her short story collection, Music Notes: Tales from an American Singer, offers up witty, intimate stories where at least one singer is found in every tale.
Jade is committed to continual authentic expression through song and prose and is always in the act of creating through recording and publishing her works.
If you are looking to find and hone your authentic voice, this is the teacher for you!
Recent awards include:
Mercy’s View: Blackout (2025)
2025 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award, Best Book: Autobiography
2025 San Francisco Book Festival Award, Honorable Mention: Memoir
2024 Eyelands Book Awards, Greece, Finalist: Unpublished Manuscript
Music Notes: Tales from an American Singer (2022)
2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist, Short Story Collections
2022 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award: Best Book, Short Stories
2022 Royal Dragonfly Book Awards Honorable Mention (Collection of Short Stories)
​​​​​​​2022 SPR Awards Finalist
2022 Eyelands Book Awards Finalist (Short Story Collection), Greece
2022 American Fiction Awards, Award-Winning Finalist (Fiction-Short Story)
2022 Wishing Shelf Book Awards, Finalist, Adult Fiction
Walk Until Sunrise (2018)
2019 Screencraft Cinematic Book Awards Quarter-finalist,
2019 Eyelands Book Awards Finalist, Greece,
2018 1st Place, Golden Aster Book World Literary Prize, Rome,
2018 Royal Dragonfly Book Award Winner, USA: 2nd Place, New Author (non-fiction), Honorable Mention (biography/memoir)
2018 Red Ribbon Winner, Wishing Shelf Awards, UK
2018 Booklife Prize Semifinalist
Jade's official website:
- Jazz and Contemporary Vocals