[Dixielandjazz] Teaching Jazz

[Steve barbone]

"Patrick Cooke" <amazingbass at cox.net> wrote (polite snip)

> What is taught (and how it is taught) in schools will, of course, vary
> according to the likes, dislikes, and the performance ability of the
> individual instructors.  And I know that pressure is on the band director to
> produce "a band that can play something"...and soon.
> I don't want to paint all school band directors with a broad brush; I can
> only comment on the ones I have heard, which indeed a small sample of them.
> Band directors tend to teach the same way that they were taught.  It
> seems that the student is taught always with a sheet of music in front of
> him.  This is not the way to learn jazz.  The band will sound good as long
> as they are reading the charts, but when one of them get up to 'improvise' a
> solo, the amatuerism really shows.
> I remember hearing one such student band at a festival, and the band
> director took a trumpet solo....he didn't sound much better than the kids!
> I remember once having dinner with two old high school chums who went
> on to be school band directors.  I mentioned one of our old classmates who
> became quite a good jazz performer, but wasn't much of a section player,
> which was their main bag..  Both of these band director friends could read
> anything, but neither could fake a four bar introduction to Twinkle Twinkle.
> They dismissed the accomplished jazz artist with "Oh, he's 'just' a jazz
> player.  These the mindsets of some of the people 'teaching' jazz.  It seems
> that some of the students eventually wind up being good jazz players in
> spite of their teachers.

Amen Pat.

Of all the art forms, "JAZZ" is both the most difficult to learn and the
most difficult to teach.

There are lots of musicians who also claim to play or teach jazz, but damn
few jazz musicians or teachers, if you get my drift.

"Jazz" musicians/teachers are very different people, masters of their horns
and of the genre. 

Even if they didn't amass huge record collections and spend 20,000 hours
listening to dead guys. :-) VBG.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone