[Dixielandjazz] Jazz is Alive and Well - In the Classroom Anyway

[Steve Barbone]

Larry Walton: larrys.bands at charter.net wrote: (polite snips)

> This is what comes from
> trying to teach jazz in colleges and High schools.  There is a prestigious
> college prep HS here that has an excellent stage band.  Perfect in every way
> except one.  The soloists totally suck.  Their training is rigid and
> textbook like.  There is another school in the same system that had an only
> fair stage band but produced outstanding soloists and professionals.  The
> difference was the teacher in the second school is a jazzer who knows how to
> inspire and lead kids into jazz the first is a textbook teacher.
> 
> I maintain and will continue to maintain that you cannot teach jazz in a
> classroom anymore than you teach any other art.
> 
> There are many colleges turning out teachers who think they can teach jazz
> and you get phony jazz that doesn't go anywhere which is then in turn taught
> to the next group of students and so on.
> 
> It's no wonder that no one knows what jazz is.
> 
> The Jamey Aebersold series gives the students the basic outlines and tools
> then says here try it.  They do not give the student note for note outline
> as to what to do.  With the difficulty of finding good rhythm sections I
> think that the series is a very good thing.

Yep, I agree Larry. I did not learn jazz in high school or college any more
than Kenny Davern did. I did learn "music" by joining the high school, band
and orchestra. Classical & Light Classical.

I learned jazz by listening, humming along, singing, etc., to ALL FORMS of
music. Then concentrating more on listening to jazz, then going around and
sitting in where ever I could until I was able to get paying jazz gigs.
Luckily I lived a block away from Hank D'Amico and he helped with some jazz
basics and introduced me to almost all of the great players on the New York
scene in the '40s & '50s. Other than that, I taught myself to play jazz.

Not that I am any Kenny Davern, far from it, but he taught himself jazz
also. In fact, most of the old timers were really self taught with a little
help from their friends and mentors who were jazz players.

IMO best way to learn jazz is the first listen, and then play it. After
you've become familiar with the elements of "music" on you axe, like all the
scales, chords, triads, turnarounds etc. Difference between me and the kids
who have better technique today is simply 10,000 gigs, an innate sense of
knowing how to swing, and how to generate gigs.

After my 30 year hiatus, I got 10 Aebersold play along's and proceeded to
woodshed. Then I sat in with the kids playing straight ahead and bop at the
local jazz clubs on open mike nights. Then 15 years ago, I formed a band.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone