Two Jersey Musicians Win Best ‘Young Jazz Artist’ Awards

Tyler Bullock

Tyler Bullock

Esteban Castro

Esteban Castro

Jersey City’s Tyler Bullock and Hackensack’s Esteban Castro (an alum of Christian McBride’s Jazz House Kids school in Montclair) have won the Inaugural 2026 Larry J. Bell “Young Jazz Artist” Award from The Gilmore, “the premier institution in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing and awarding extraordinary piano artistry,” according to its website. The Michigan-based Gilmore has presented 16 piano festivals, commissioned over 40 new works for piano, and awarded over $3 million to young pianists. Larry J. Bell, a businessman who founded Bell’s Brewery in 1985, has donated $8.8 million since 2022 to the furtherance of these goals.

Tyler Bullock, who works with famed trumpeter Roy Hargrove, recently finished recording an album with The Gen Y Band—within the hallowed halls of the Rudy Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs—that topped the Jazz Radio Chart eight weeks straight. He will also be heard on the upcoming album by trumpeter Sean Jones. Already a veteran of the stages of Carnegie Hall, Wynton Marsalis’s “Jazz At Lincoln Center” series, the Newport Jazz Festival and The Cotton Club in Tokyo, last year he was selected to participate in the acclaimed Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.

Esteban Castro also came out of McBride’s Jazz House Kids. After receiving a full-tuition scholarship, he graduated Julliard with a Bachelor of Music degree just last year. He’s been one of a handful of new young piano players always in demand and, as a result, has been in the bands of trumpeters Peter Evans and Ambrose Akinmusire, drummer Joe Farnsworth and reggae bassist Russell Hall. In 2016, Castro, at 16, was the youngest winner in the history of the Montreux Jazz Piano Solo Competition.   

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Mike Greenblatt

MIKE GREENBLATT has been writing for Goldmine magazine and New Jersey's Aquarian Weekly for more than 35 years. His writing subjects fill the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He's interviewed Joe Cocker, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Carlos Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, and members of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. He was 18 when he attended Woodstock in 1969.

In addition to writing about music, Greenblatt has worked on publicity campaigns for The Animals, Pat Benatar, Johnny Winter, Tommy James and Richard Branson, among others. He is currently the editor of The Jersey Sound.

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