[Dixielandjazz] Jazz goes to College --- High School and CollegeMusic Students

[LARRY'S Signs and Large Format Printing]

Right on Mike

As I have said many times in past posts that students are taught "Jazz" in
college as an academic exercise by people who are not jazzers and the same
goes for high school jazz bands.  While this is not true for all jazz
programs it is true for many.  You can tell by the solos that these guys
play.  That is, often wooden, full of trite licks and go nowhere in other
words they don't swing.  As everyone will point out there are exceptions.
Here in St. Louis, (actually Edwardsville) is Brett Stamps who teaches at
SIUE in the music department and is an excellent Jazz trombonist.  Some fine
players come out of that school.

The problem is that Jazz has to be learned and the great crucible of working
gigs where a newcomer can learn his trade just don't exist as they did in
the pre 60's.  No longer can a 15 or 16 year old get into a jazz club or
work there.  This cuts off the formative years of jazz.  Due to the
pervasiveness of drugs many of the "respectable" venues like churches and
schools quit happening and the ones that do exist hire DJ's that hammer the
kids with ceaseless rock.

I think your suggestion to buy a few CD's is a great one.  Unguided, what is
the student supposed to listen to?  Jazz its self has become so diluted by
different ideas there seems to be no tonal center for the idiom any longer
as there was in the first 50 years.  Rock and roll also has become so
diluted as to defy a definition.  It's hard to keep up with even the names
of the variations.

Unfortunately a lot of the newer tunes just simply are not the kind of tunes
that lend themselves to jazz.  Additionally there seems to be few if any
jazz standards coming out of music in the past bunch of years.

To illustrate:  The tune "Cute" is a Jazz standard.  It has a head,  Jazz
choruses and reprise of the A section.  What makes it a standard is that
every Jazzer knows it and probability can take choruses in any key.  Tunes
like this are typically not happening today.

In defense of the big school band director I have to say that these guys are
up to their ears in alligators.  If they have a football program and
marching band it's almost impossible to be a working musician as well much
less have a jazz program.  If a band director tries and he is married he
won't be long.  The only thing that saved my marriage in that time of my
life was that my wife has always know that music was the way I made my
living and like an over the road truck driver or service wife had to work
around my schedule, ragged as it was.  Many wives can't cope with this
strain.

The next problem is that H.S. music is a numbers game.  So you have 18 piece
big bands with intermittent solos for about three or four of the players.
Even the soloists really don't get that many solos in a session.  Even the
best big band can't teach Jazz very well. (how many solos does the 4th
trombone or Bari sax get?) To learn Jazz you need solos in tune after tune
and night after night.  I think the HS big band has a place but I think that
small combos train musicians better.

My solution is that they hire assistants who do know jazz.  This is actually
really cheap to do.  There is almost always a band leader or jazzer in town
that would come in during afternoons or during band periods to work with the
kids.  Or as in the case of my school, bring in specialists for different
things.  This amount could be easily handled by a band boosters group.  The
band leader might even supply charts from his book.

Keep those lights turning on.
Larry Walton
St. Louis


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Vaxtrpts at aol.com>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 10:43 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Jazz goes to College --- High School and
CollegeMusic Students


> Some of those answers to the jazz test had me laughing out loud, and then
> wanting to cry because of what is happening in jazz education today.
Remember,
> I am in schools across this country almost every week of the school  year.
> One of the first things I do is ask the young musicians (mainly in high
> school jazz bands) to name three people who play their instrument.  In
most
> cases, they can't.  Then I ask them how many listen to ANY kind of jazz on
a
> regular basis.  Usually four or five kids raise their hands, out of a
whole big
> band.
> I blame this on the teachers, who are trying to learn a few tunes to "win
> competitions."  They aren't really "teaching" about jazz music. Now I know
this
> doesn't apply to all music educators.  There are some really great  ones
out
> there!
> However, I see this happening more and more in my travels.
> I ask the teachers to take a little of the money that they fund-raise for
> marching band uniforms and put together a listening library.  Then one of
the
> things the students would need to do is turn in written reports about at
least
> three CD's per semester as part of their grade!
> In every clinic I do for a jazz band, I talk about the origins of jazz and
> how important it is to learn about "OUR" uniquely American art form.
> One of the things that really gets them is when I talk about "Rock Around
> the Clock" really being Joe Avery's Blues.  I then have the drummer play a
> street beat and play it for them.
> Boy, do you see some "lights" go on in the kids eyes...........
> Maybe there is still hope?????????
> Mike Vax
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