One of the interesting new things that came out at the recent press conference announcing the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival  that will run from June 11-19 was Xerox's announcement that it was building on the momentum of the festival to present a jazz music competition in the "American Idol" vein called Jazz Star: The Search for a New Sensation. The proceeds from the talent show will raise money for Biz Kid$ Rochester, a city youth program that includes a camp where kids, aged 10-18 build their own small businesses.

Xerox is looking for local jazz artists and groups upload an up to 50 second video of their performance of jazz on the RochesterJazzStar.com site.  Videos must be received by midnight April 30th. Once the video is up on the site people will be able to vote for their favorites. The top 10 artists/groups will be interviewed on CW-16, WHAM-DT.  Top five finalists will be selected by another round of voting and each of these five will perform at the Grand Finale performance on June 9th, two nights before the opening sax solos of the 2010 XRIJF. During this finale show in the Xerox Auditorium, the top 5 will be reduced to 3 and a winner will be selected before a live audience of 700. The winning artist/group will receive eight hours of professional studio time at a local professional recording studio to record a demo, a designed CD cover and the option for their song to be uploaded to Amazon.com and/or iTunes for one year. In addition to that, there's the $2,000 in cash to motivate the aspiring jazz artist/group.

While I'm not much for Idol or talent shows in general, this might be fun and interesting. Right now no videos are up yet, but the site notes that they are starting to receive submissions. So check back and vote early and vote often (I'm from Chicago, what do you expect? I guess you'll have to check the rules before you do that...).I'll keep you updated as things develop....