Carrie Jackson is a native Newarker who began her musical career at age 6 in the children's choir at Newark's Mount Calvary Baptist Church. A product of the Newark Public School system, she attended Peshine Avenue Elementary School, and Weequahic H.S. Jackson studied piano and voice with the legendary Howard "Duke" Anderson. Her vocal style evokes memories of the Great Ladies of Jazz: Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson, and Carmen McRae. Her critically acclaimed performances include a "Women in Jazz" salute at the Newark Jazz Festival, a featured role in the musical "Ain't Misbehavin'” at the Villagers Theater, New Brunswick, NJ, and as principal artist in 49th Street Jazz musical review and tribute to Eubie Blake, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Alberta Hunter.

As Zan Stewart wrote in the Star Ledger: "Carrie is an advocate of the Great American Popular Songbook,: a timeless wealth of material, and presents it with spirit and feeling; her renditions have a personal, not derivative, ring. Ms. Jackson delivers these in just the right volume and vigor to reach all listeners; she digs into her comely lower ranges, mixed with her own jazz smarts, and sings in a no-nonsense manner, and makes the numbers breathe. Carrie Jackson is a rich-voiced blues, ballads and jazz standards singer who knows how to put a song across!" Ms. Jackson will pay homage to one of Newark's greatest jazz legends—Sarah Vaughan.

Radam Schwartz is a jazz organist and pianist, recording artist, composer, arranger, educator, and is currently a student in the Rutgers Newark Jazz History and Research Program. He has been working with young jazz artists for years and will showcase some of them in a group he has assembled that includes himself on organ, James Gibbs (trumpet), Anthony Ware (alto sax), Julian Lee (alto sax), Rahsaan Pickett (guitar), and Michael Mohammed (drums).