[Dixielandjazz] Long but interesting I hope - state of jazz in education

[Vaxtrpts at aol.com]

This is a report that I gave a few years ago to a meeting of the American  
Federation of Jazz Societies..........
 
 

REPORT  TO THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF JAZZ SOCIETIES 

The  State of Jazz Education in the United States  
There  are approximately 30,000 jazz ensembles educational institutions 
today.  Most are big bands of some sort or  other.  This has mainly to do with  the 
fact that classroom size is of utmost importance to administrators and  
school boards.  Believe it or not,  in this era of “downsizing classrooms,” these 
people in power still refuse to  admit that classes such as music, art and 
drama, can and should exist whether  they make up “full sized” classroom loads 
or not.  In many school systems, even a 20 piece  jazz band is considered too 
small a class.  This of course, doesn’t bode well for anything to do with 
combos or  traditional jazz groups.  Many times  music educators create smaller 
ensembles from the big band as extra circular  activities.  These sometimes meet  
after school or in the evenings.  At  least this is a start in the right 
direction.  After all, the essence of jazz music is  creativity and improvisation. 
 These  attributes are best learned in a smaller environment than a big band  
rehearsal. 
In  many areas, because of the number of classes that students are required 
to  complete to enter college, jazz bands must meet during an “A” period.  
This is an extra period that can start  as early as 6:45 AM.  It is the only  way 
for the music teacher to be able to have the students in both concert band  
(where the numbers DO please the administrators) and jazz  band. 
The  jazz idiom per se, is not really taught in many high schools.  The class 
is run much like a concert  band rehearsal, where the teacher imparts 
knowledge by “rote.”  The music is rehearsed over and over  until most of the notes 
are right.  The real concepts of jazz performance and feeling aren’t addressed 
nearly  enough.  The main goal seems to be  to “learn the notes” and not 
worry too much about stylistic concept and  improvisatory skills.  The other  
problem stems from the “win, beat and get trophies” syndrome.  It seems that 
since many of the  administrators are ex-coaches, they do not understand the 
aesthetics of a  wonderful performance.  They must  see trophies to feel that the 
band is doing well.  The band director and the parents club  then get caught 
up in this mentality and the joy of performance and creativity  goes out the 
window.  The band will  literally learn 4 tunes for a whole semester and will 
perfect them (again by  “rote”), until they can go to contest and win a trophy. 
 Students from these types of programs  usually have no real grounding in 
music theory, nor can they sight  read. 
If  I were a high school band director, I would make sure that my students 
were  LISTENING to all forms of jazz.  Listening is still the key to 
understanding most musical styles.  When I do clinics all over the country,  I always ask 
the students who they like to listen to.  Many times, they don’t listen to  
anybody, and cannot even name three important musicians on their own  
instrument.  This is something that  really needs to be changed in our educational 
system. 
Now  to the positive side!  We are giving  jazz exposure to many young people 
in our schools.  As music educators, many of us hope that  we not only turn 
out some fine new jazz musicians to carry on the tradition of  the music 
through performance and recording, but we hope that we are also  turning out much 
bigger numbers of “trained listeners” who will become the fans  of the future.  
If young people are  exposed to creative music, they can become the adults 
who will buy recordings,  attend concerts, frequent local jazz nightclubs and 
support the jazz  societies. 
It  is a proven fact over the past century and a half that student who are in 
music,  do better with school work, leadership roles, community affairs, and 
will be  more successful in whatever their chosen profession turns out to be.  
I like to think of music as a great  teacher of deductive reasoning, which is 
just another way of saying “common  sense.”  
Jazz  education in our 2 and 4-year colleges and universities is doing very 
well.  There are many programs that actually  allow a student to major in jazz 
studies.  (Usually with an emphasis on then becoming a music teacher.)  There 
are many college and university  bands where the level of jazz performance is 
on a par with many professional  bands.  The small group situation is  much 
better than in the high schools and many institutions of higher learning  have 
multiple combo classes, where the students can actually study different  
stylistic approaches, from traditional jazz to bebop and beyond.  Most colleges that 
have a true jazz  program also make available a variety of theory and 
improvisation classes, as  well as jazz and American music history classes.  Today’s 
colleges and universities are  really “hotbeds” of jazz performance, study, 
and  intellectualism.