Parisian Wins the Top Monk Jazz Prize : Competition: Sara Lazarus gets $10,000 for finishing first. Age restrictions made this year’s contest the most daunting in the event’s history.

It’s easy to know when a jazz vocalist connects with the audience. It’s a lot harder to know why. A singer can get all the notes right, apply perfect pitch to each phrase--even stay on the beat with impeccable precision--and still leave the audience as cold as a midwinter morning in Minnesota.

For that reason, among others, this year’s vocal edition of the two-day Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz’s competition, which concluded Monday night with a sold-out concert at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, may have been the most daunting challenge in the competition’s eight-year history.

Even Monk Institute officials acknowledged that the 33-and-under age restriction used in previous Monk competitions for pianists, saxophonists, trumpeters and drummers proved dicey for singers. Whatever the respective merits of the contestants, it’s hard to imagine an artist in his or her 20s or 30s singing the rueful, sophisticated lyrics of classic American pop with adequate knowledge and conviction.

All one had to do was look at the contest’s judges--Dianne Reeves, Abbey Lincoln, Jimmy Scott, Shirley Horn, Jon Hendricks and Cleo Laine--to know how much artistry in jazz singing comes from simply committing the act of living.

Age and experience may have been critical factors in helping Sara Lazarus, a 32-year-old from Paris, win the $10,000 first prize. Monday night at the Kennedy Center, she navigated “Sophisticated Lady” and “My Shining Hour” with a confident and unaccented balance of warmth, imagination and intelligence.

Backed by a trio of pianist Norman Simmons, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Grady Tate, Lazarus did nothing gratuitous or showoffy, even when scat-singing several bars of “My Shining Hour.” She didn’t do anything risky or especially galvanizing, either. Still, she easily won over the crowd and the judges--a convergence of opinion rare in previous Monk finals.

If stage presence were the only consideration, Lisa Henry would have had a clear shot at the top prize. As it was, the 26-year-old social worker from Kansas City, Mo., received the $5,000 second prize. She also won a six-week concert tour of African countries sponsored by the United States Information Agency.

Like Lazarus, Henry performed “Sophisticated Lady”; while her version may have had a few rough patches, it dared more in narrative design. Her delivery of the words, “Smoking, drinking . . .” bit a little deeper than Lazarus’. But where the Parisian’s interpretation gained strength in its second performance, Henry’s lost just a little of its edge from the semifinals.

The $3,000 third prize went to Carolyn Leonhart, 23, who had the best-known name among the semifinalists. (She’s the daughter of veteran bassist Jay Leonhart.) “Nobody Else but Me” and “Daydream” were more daring song choices than those of Lazarus and Henry, and she had a steely presence to back up such bravado. But, like a promising young pitcher with an arm that’s both live and wild, Leonhart needs to learn greater control and more focused delivery.

Lazarus, Henry and Leonhart were the survivors of a grueling process that began with about 200 entrants sending tapes to the Monk Institute. Eleven of those singers got the chance to show what they could do at Sunday’s semifinals.

From this group, it was possible to draw on the strengths of each singer to form various composites of the Compleat Jazz Vocalist. If, for instance, one merged Leonhart’s breezy inventiveness with the finely honed austerity of semifinalist Autumn White or the engaging vitality of Maria de Angelis, one would have a star of no little magnitude.

One also imagined the glories that could come if the white-light tenor of Pete McGuinness were somehow fused with the rugged, ballistic riffing of Neville Peter. Similar intriguing mixes could also be imagined with Yuko Hata and Caterina Zapponi.

Unlike previous Monk competitions, which sent winners like Joshua Redman, Ryan Kisor, Marcus Roberts and Jacky Terrasson on to immediate glory, lightning success was difficult to imagine for any of these singers. Thinking about their prospects made one wonder, once again, what exactly defines a great jazz vocalist.

“I’m not really sure what’s going to happen now,” Lazarus said after the concert. “There’s still a lot I have to learn, but one of the great things about jazz is that you have time to learn. The more you live, the better you give.”

The very nature of jazz singing is already in a state of transition. Recent albums by Reeves, Cassandra Wilson and other 35-and-older vocalists prove that singers don’t have to lean on the classic pop repertoire to earn respect and popularity in jazz.