Jay Thatte, a 16-year-old Livingston saxophonist, earned a top prize in the 2026 Gerry Mulligan Jazz Challenge, taking home a Selmer saxophone valued at approximately $10,000.

Thatte, a junior at Newark Academy, was named one of five top winners in the national competition. Winners were announced April 6 in honor of Mulligan's birthday and Jazz Appreciation Month, according to DownBeat, with the Gerry & Franca Mulligan Foundation posting the full results on April 10. His winning entry was a solo performance video of Mulligan's composition "Outback of the Barn," played on tenor saxophone.

The competition drew entries from high school musicians across the country. A panel of professional musicians judged submissions on sound, technique, intonation and presentation.

Newark Academy band director Julius Tolentino, a professional saxophonist who teaches Thatte, celebrated the win in a May 15 Instagram post: "Our lead tenor player, Jay Thatte won the Gerry Mulligan Challenge which comes with a brand new Selmer Saxophone ($10,000 horn!)"

Thatte began playing music at age 6 and discovered jazz when he entered sixth grade at Newark Academy. In the five years since, he has risen through the school's music program to become its lead tenor player.

The wins keep coming. Thatte was also selected for the 2026 Next Generation Jazz Orchestra at the Monterey Jazz Festival, a prestigious national ensemble of high school musicians directed by Grammy-nominated pianist Gerald Clayton. The orchestra is scheduled to perform at the 69th annual Monterey Jazz Festival, Friday, Sept. 25 through Sunday, Sept. 27 in Monterey, California.

All About Jazz profiled Thatte in its "Rising Stars" section on Aug. 1, a feature reserved for emerging jazz talent.

The Gerry Mulligan Jazz Challenge honors the legacy of Gerry Mulligan (1927–1996), the composer and baritone saxophonist who popularized the instrument as a solo voice in jazz. The Foundation runs the annual competition and provided free lead sheets, charts and an educational video to participating teachers. Last year's winner, Sam Chung, went on to study at Boyer College of Music at Temple University.

The four other top winners in the 2026 challenge were Tristan Connolly of Fairfield, Connecticut; Robert Jefferson of Burlington, North Carolina; Jenna Marx of Westlake Village, California; and Kalman Levitin of Chevy Chase, Maryland.