[Dixielandjazz] IAJE - TJEN - Some thoughts.

[hsalotti at aol.com]

 I agree with Steve's comments.
 
 I would like to comment on some relevant observations. Most public schools music teachers have a limited background in jazz. If they have any experience it is probably from playing in a big band at some point in their music career. In most high school big bands you might find only one or two members of each section that have the ability to improve and play by ear. (there are many players who can play over chord changes but can't play melodies by ear.) Most players first learned to read and play concert band music in public school and then were taught by their high school band director how to read the swing rhythms. The shame is that many of these students were taught by rote and not exposed to recording of bands like Basie, Ellington and Goodman. This resulted in hundreds of high school bands where you had over sixteen students in each band and maybe only four students in the group could improvise over a simple blues or rhythm changes. Very few of the improvisers were ever taught how to play an actual melody. Many band directors started playing rock based charts so the students wouldn't have to learn to swing.(many of the open solo sections are based on one to two modal scales, not any real chord progression.) You can find big band arrangements now that are written quite skillfully for junior high bands where the range and ability level of the individual parts are appropriate to the grade level. These charts require no improvising or a solo is written out.
 
 The problem as it relates to OKOM is that:
 1.Most directors teach jazz from a reading music approach. Trad is based on improvisation and playing by ear.
 2. Directors are expected to include large groups of students in their ensembles. Trad bands contain six or seven players at most.
 3.Directors have a limited amount of rehearsal time for their jazz program, mostly one day after school or one night a week. It is easier and quicker to teach a group of fifteen students to read an easy arrangement of Watermelon Man than it is to teach six students The Original Dixieland One Step by ear. God forbid your trumpet player is sick on the night of the concert.
 4. The priorities of most school boards and parents are marching band, concert band and large amounts of students in the program.
    If your want directors to start introducing trad jazz into their programs they need:
 1.Arrangements that include more than just one trumpet, clarinet and trombone. An arrangement could be based on the street bands of New Orleans such as the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. The best setting for these arrangements is for a smaller section of the marching band to play them in the stands at the football games. Riff based arrangements that contain two or three trumpets parts,clarinet,alto,tenor,and bari sax (bari could be used as a bass instrument ie. Adrian Rollini) trombone, tuba and snare, cymbals and bass drum. Since the music would be used as part of the marching band program, directors could justify using more rehearsal time to teach this style of music. Songs with simple three chord progressions could be used at first (yes, I mean The Saints Go Marching In) to teach basic improvisation by altering the melody(all instruments should learn to play the melody). A simple riff by alternating horn sections could supply the background for the soloist. This ensemble could be brought inside after football session and developed into a great group. Possibly even broken into smaller groups based on ability level.
 
 If you really want to do something to help this music survive, sit down and write a simple arrangement and GIVE it to the high school band director in your home town.
 If you give the directors the tools to teach this music we have a chance of preserving this style of jazz into the future and not only for our own lifetime. Harry Salotti
 
 -----Original Message-----
 From: barbonestreet at earthlink.net
 To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
 Sent: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:26 PM
 Subject: [Dixielandjazz] IAJE - TJEN - Some thoughts.
 
  Just got home from jamming with some guys who are IAJE members and teachers
at local High Schools. We were jamming straight ahead and bop but I got a
chance to ask them about the lack of trad teaching, relating a story about a
high school concert Barbone Street did a year ago.

The concert was at a local High School which has a killer jazz band and a
strong jazz teaching program. They brought Maynard in two weeks before our
concert and all the young musos and music teachers went to hear him.

Our concert, sponsored by an arts foundation followed. Prior to it I called
the music dept head and discussed our band, pointing out that in their
youth, our guys had played with Billie Holiday, Clifford Brown, Lester
Young, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, Kai & JJ, Max Roach, Buddy Rich
etc., etc., etc. I asked if he would bring his jazz students to this FREE
concert.(Maynard charged about $25) "Sure" he said, "you guys have a good
rep and we'd love to talk about the guys you all played with". I put flyers
up on the bulletin boards.

Concert comes, no music students. Audience was about 750 from the
neighborhood and included about 250 HS students, but none from the music
program and no music teachers.

Students who did the sound were blown away by our band. WOW, they said,
Awesome etc. Other students were blown away, some dancing free style in
aisles. Rest of audience also loved it.

I asked these teachers tonight, why they thought that no music students and
no music teachers showed up.

Basically, they thought it fairly simple. The Teachers did not know beans
about OKOM, can't play it and therefore didn't want to get involved with it.
They are hip to Maynard and/or Kenton and comfortable with what they do so
why in hell should they have to work hard to learn Trad?

Now that made me think back to my day gig days part of which were spent as a
director of a major trade association in the automotive field.

Eureka!!! The light went on. The major purpose of a trade association is to
further the careers of their members, to provide services to members, and to
make sure that the association stays in business since the members supply
the money. (Not too different from any political process.)

IAJE will not care about trad jazz, because their members in large part do
not care about trad jazz. It therefore is not in IAJE's best interest to do
a damn thing about getting trad jazz into High Schools. In fact, it
threatens their power base and so they'll give it lip service, but nothing
will happen. UNLESS TJEN AND WE MAKE IT HAPPEN.

So, if folks want to get Trad into schools, the best bets are TJEN which is
trying to drag IAJE kicking and screaming into trad, or to support Wynton
Marsalis who's Jazz At Lincoln Center has a program for schools that
includes a pretty fair amount of trad.

Be that as it may, the problem is not that we don't teach musos Trad. Heck
we have more than enough young trad musos coming out of various jazz camps
all over the USA. We don't need more trad musos.

WHAT WE NEED IS MORE TRAD AUDIENCE FOR TRAD GIGS. MORE YOUNG AUDIENCE. But
then, we've all heard that song before and ignored it. Just keeps bringing
me back to the Branford Marsalis quote:

³Jazz Musicians are always talking about, ŒWhy isn¹t jazz popular.¹ But jazz
musicians today are completely devoid of charisma. People never really liked
the music in the first place. So now you have musicians who are proficient
at playing instruments, and people sit there, and it¹s just boring to them ‹
because they¹re trying to see something, or feel it.²

Maybe he's right. It's not the music, it's the musicians. Perhaps it never
was the music, but the overall charisma, sex, booze and dirty dancing.

Please don't shoot the messenger. And don't tell me it can't be done,
because I'm doing it. A large portion of my gigs are for young audiences who
love OKOM when they hear it played with verve, and with a band that gets
down with them.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone







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