{"id":1974565,"date":"2025-08-22T15:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1974565"},"modified":"2025-08-22T15:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:10:08","slug":"jazztok-is-on-the-rise-so-is-stella-cole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/jazztok-is-on-the-rise-so-is-stella-cole\/","title":{"rendered":"JazzTok Is on the Rise. So Is Stella Cole."},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

“Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links.”<\/i><\/p>\n

Stella Cole never expected this life. She craved it, of course, touring the country and singing jazz standards to audiences, but it never felt possible. Who would want to listen to her sing songs from movies from the 1940s? Did anyone still listen to jazz? How could she make her mark? To Cole, it seemed as if jazz grew further and further from the mainstream. But then, TikTok, or more specifically JazzTok, became a big deal.<\/p>\n

Cole, originally from Springfield, Illinois, is just 26 years old. Since she posted her first cover video in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has become a JazzTok juggernaut<\/a>, much like her peers Laufey<\/a> and Samara Joy<\/a>. After initially posting Judy Garland-esque covers with YouTube backing tracks, Cole is now signed to Decca, the same label Dorothy herself was once singed to.<\/p>\n

Prior to her climb (she started going viral after only about a month of posting 2021) Cole had completely given up singing. Studying in Northwestern University\u2019s musical theater program, Cole felt as if she didn\u2019t quite fit. \u201cMy voice was different than other people\u2019s, and I couldn\u2019t do the pop singing, high-belting thing. That wasn\u2019t me,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was very inauthentic to me, what was \u2018cool at school.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to the pandemic, and a quick hiatus from university because \u201cthe Zoom theater class is not for me,\u201d Cole spent time rediscovering many of her comfort movies like Singin\u2019 in the Rain, The Sound of Music, and The Wizard of Oz. After some light encouragement from her father, she began posting covers of songs from those films. \u201cAt first I was like, \u2018No, that would be humiliating. That\u2019s so embarrassing.\u2019 But TikTok was new, and people didn\u2019t have TikTok yet,\u201d Cole says. \u201cAfter about a month of posting every day, the first videos got a couple hundred-thousand views. Then, it started on its path to becoming what it\u2019s become now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cnow\u201d she\u2019s referring to is her second album, It\u2019s Magic, out today, and a global tour. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of pressure in the music industry these days that if you make an album, every song on it should sound kind of different,\u201d she says. But that wasn\u2019t the case with some of her favorite records by Nat King Cole or Ella Fitzgerald. \u201cWhen they did an album with strings, it sounds like a cohesive piece. You can listen to 45 minutes of it and be taken away,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s how I wanted [my album] to feel. It does feel magical, to me at least.\u201d<\/p>\n

Below, Cole discusses her rise, vocal health, and JazzTok.<\/p>\n

Did you feel any discouragement when you first started posting to TikTok, and did you care if people were watching you at the beginning?<\/h3>\n

There was no discouragement at the beginning because there were no expectations. It honestly felt like this little game to play on my phone, and my dad was super into it as well. We were just like, \u201cWe\u2019re bored. We have nothing to do.\u201d My dad and I would be so excited when I got 50 views, and then we were so excited when I got 300 views. That was huge. Every little success felt very mind-blowing at the time because of the place of low confidence I was coming from. I started playing it like it was a game with the algorithm and everything and being like, \u201cIf I post every day, I bet I could get 10,000 followers.\u201d But I never imagined the kind of success I ended up having on social media.<\/p>\n

You started singing with karaoke-style tracks on YouTube. Now you sing with a band. What was that adjustment like?<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ll never forget the first time I played with a jazz band, because I didn\u2019t study jazz in school. I had never known any jazz. I had never seen much jazz. I did not know what I was doing when I showed up to New York and I was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to get on the jazz scene.\u201d What I did first when I got to the city was working a job walking dogs to make money and pay my rent. I would see all these restaurants with signs being like, \u201cJazz Brunch on Sunday,\u201d and I was like, \u201cSomebody\u2019s got to sing at that Jazz Brunch. Couldn\u2019t it be me?\u201d I started DMing and emailing every restaurant, bar, hotels. If they had a piano in the lobby, I was like, \u201cSo do you ever play that piano?\u201d And they\u2019re like, \u201cWho are you?\u201d I just was like, \u201cLet me sing. Someone let me sing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first person to answer my DM was this restaurant called Giovanni\u2019s Brooklyn Eats<\/a>. Giovanni has jazz musicians come every weekend. He DMed me back that day and was like, \u201cYeah, come sing a song with the band tonight. We\u2019ll see.\u201d I showed up and played with this jazz trio, and I\u2019m sure I sounded a little bit awful because I had no idea what I was doing, but Giovanni thought I sounded like Judy Garland. I ended up going there three times a month for the next six months or something. That was my very first gig. It was definitely a transition, but I\u2019m so glad that I had gigs like that, a restaurant or a bar, where everyone\u2019s so loud they couldn\u2019t even hear me at all. I had to mess up a lot of times with a jazz band and not understand how a jazz solo works. I was out at jazz clubs till 4 A.M. in the morning every night, just completely nocturnal, living this insane life, just soaking in everything.<\/p>\n

\"album<\/span><\/div>\n

It\u2019s Magic is out today. <\/span> Luke Rogers<\/span><\/p>\n

What was your parents\u2019 reaction when you decided you wanted to be a jazz singer in New York City?<\/h3>\n

The story is kind of strange, because it\u2019s the opposite to the usual story. I grew up wanting to be on Broadway and wanting to move to New York, and that was always my dream. I was very scared of failing at that dream because I wanted it so badly. It kept me from actually seeing it as a reality. I always had this very deep confidence of, \u201cI know I can do it. I love it so much,\u201d but there was all this insecurity layered on top. I grew up in a small city in Illinois. I had never known anyone who had been a professional singer or anything. [My parents] were the ones like, \u201cNo, you need to go to school for theater. Go to school for what you love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Would you ever go back to musical theater?<\/h3>\n

I would love to. Broadway is still such a dream. The magic has not gone away at all for me. Every Broadway curtain call, I weep because I\u2019m just so happy for everyone up there who\u2019s made it. It makes me emotional to even think about. When I was in school, there was not so much jazzy stuff on Broadway. Maybe Hadestown was jazz-inspired, but now there\u2019s Maybe Happy Ending<\/a> where there\u2019s a Frank Sinatra character, and the Bobby Darin thing, [Just In Time] is happening. There is so much jazz on Broadway. I think the Broadway culture is shifting in a lot of ways, but perhaps towards more jazz influences, which is amazing.<\/p>\n

How did you create your It\u2019s Magic tracklist?<\/h3>\n

There are a lot of songs on here that I\u2019ve been obsessed with for a long time. \u201cTil There Was You\u201d I\u2019ve known since I was in the second grade. It\u2019s sort of all over the map\u2013songs that I love, and songs where I really relate to the lyrics. When we were deciding what should be on this album, I was having trouble, because I just released my first album last August. So first, I was thinking of darker songs like \u201cCry Me a River\u201d or \u201cThe Man That Got Away,\u201d these very cabaret, darker songs. It wasn\u2019t feeling right to me. I felt myself gravitating toward all of these love songs. I wanted it to feel like an album where you can just walk around anywhere and sort of be taken away to some other place.<\/p>\n

Is the Stella Cole on stage an extension of yourself, or do you view her almost as a character you\u2019re playing?<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s definitely a \u201cStella\u201d and a \u201cStella Cole.\u201d I had a lot of anxiety when I was first starting out. I went from playing in these restaurants to playing at Birdland and playing in all these big jazz clubs. I was definitely having a lot of imposter syndrome. It was a way to fight the nerves, to look in the mirror and be like, \u201cOkay. Now it\u2019s not me anymore. I\u2019m in the gown. The hair is done. The red lip is on. We\u2019re Stella Cole now. And she\u2019s so confident.\u201d It helps me to think of it as a character, but the more that I\u2019ve gotten comfortable on stage, I am very much myself. I\u2019m always thinking about my life so there can only be so much separation.<\/p>\n

Who are your inspirations and what you\u2019ve taken from them?<\/h3>\n

Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. They\u2019re not inspiring to me only in their singing, but also in the way that they act a song. Their whole body and brain and feelings are all in that song. They just are so in it. They\u2019re actresses too. Judy Garland could tap dance. Nat King Cole is another huge inspiration. He just is so calming. I can listen to him, and it just makes me take a deep breath without knowing. Frank Sinatra is another big one, and then I think Ella Fitzgerald, Gene Kelly, and Julie Andrews. All these people from musical theater. Jonathan Groff, even.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also been such a jazz revival in music with artists like you, Samara Joy, and Laufey. Why do you think this is?<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s the best. It\u2019s something I never imagined when I was growing up. I was the only person I knew who loved these songs. I didn\u2019t know there was such a community of people out there who love it. I think there\u2019s more of a community because people like Samara or Laufey are introducing millions of people to jazz standards. Once people hear it, they love it. Most of the people who originated this music, they’re dead now, so it’s hard for it to live on without people keeping it alive.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so much chaos in the world, and so many heartbreaking things happening every day and infuriating things. I think people are craving something slower and of a different time. I always clarify that\u2019s not to be confused with being like, \u201cOh, I miss the \u201840s.\u201d I think there\u2019s something about the art that was being created in the \u201840s, like jazz music and, specifically in these old movie musicals, the old Hollywood magic. The world was not magical back then. The world was really hard. They were creating this sort of escapist and magical art. I think people are craving that because of the chaos of today as well.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

You Might Also Like<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n