[Dixielandjazz] Successful school jazz program-not modern jazz

[Charles Suhor]

Hello, Listmates,

We've been writing about the fact that school-based programs lacking 
interest in early jazz--that there's little actual teaching of playing 
non-modern jazz, just treatment of it in jazz history programs. I 
mentioned that early jazz styles, like blues and country and Western 
and rock & roll, aren't in the curriculum because they aren't regarded 
by most educational leaders as high art but as folk or popular music.

The view is that these kinds of music are pursued by hobbyists and a 
few specialized professionals who learn the music via popular culture, 
outside of school contexts. Of course, that was also the view of big 
band and modern jazz until it was grudgingly and gradually brought into 
school programs in acknowledgment of its complexity and teachability in 
academic terms of chord-based improvisation, reading skill, and speed, 
range, and other technical aspects.

There is an interesting breakthrough in the teaching of the 
once-anathema blues music in Alabama schools. It has been going on for 
quite a while, apparently with good results and recognition. I know 
that several listmates have done good things in schools, and maybe this 
will give some ideas about grants and further "infiltration," if that's 
a good word for it. Visit the website of the highly successful Alabama 
Blues Project at http://www.alabamablues.org/state.htm

It seems  to me that the Ala. group had a good handle to get the thing 
funded, namely, the strong blues tradition in the state's history--a 
cultural foot-in-the-door. But notice this: the whole program is not 
curricular, but after-school. It's not accorded the value of credit 
courses, and apparently it's not in the colleges at all. Half empty, 
half full in a very small glass, but it's an interesting model that 
might be expanded there and applied to other kinds of music in 
different places.

I personally feel that teaching of early jazz styles should have 
greater priority in school programs than other musics that haven't made 
it into Academe.

Charlie Suhor