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

[Charles Suhor]

Thanks, Mike. Really concise, and right on target with the concerns 
about contests, over-rehearsing a few tunes, and lack of combo 
opportunities.

Charlie Suhor
On May 23, 2005, at 3:36 AM, Vaxtrpts at aol.com wrote:

> 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.
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