The innovative and adventurous approach taken by the folks of the Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies strikes again, this time in a live performance on March 25 at 8 p.m. in Paul Hall. The December/January issue of The Juilliard Journal reported on the weekly jazz improvisation class and the Institute’s unique vision of having a new artist come in every week to teach the course, as opposed to the more traditional approach of hiring one professor to conduct the class all semester long.

The students’ positive response to this style of education has prompted another unique project, this time involving the Juilliard Jazz Small Ensembles’ performance in March dedicated to the music of jazz giants drummer Art Blakey and pianist Horace Silver. Instead of depending on pre-existing music (or "charts," as jazz musicians commonly refer to them) to serve the students as their sole guide to learning the music, Victor L. Goines, director of Jazz Studies, has opted for a more active approach to learning. He was determined to have the students be more involved in the educational process. Since most of the jazz students are taking a composition and arranging course, they are becoming well-equipped with the tools needed to transcribe and arrange pieces.

Goines’s idea was to have the students create their own performance repertoire by letting them listen to and transcribe or arrange Blakey and Silver compositions that they will play on the March concert. This process gives them a chance to utilize the skills they have already learned in class and to be creative with their arrangements, allowing the personality of each musician to come through in their work.

Even before finishing their projects, the students are already responding enthusiastically to this new approach and look forward to more opportunities like this one. Trombonist Jennifer Krupa endorses Goines’s idea: "I think it’s a good thing that the students have to participate actively in the process of putting on a performance. It gets the students more involved, more immersed in this style instead of just reading through the music. This way you have to learn it by ear, which is how it should be learned. Everyone has a larger role in the process.

"In learning the music, you need to listen to it and have it internalized," continues Krupa. "If you haven’t gone through that process, you can’t play it with the same closeness and intimacy. You have to be able to both listen to music and perform it, and also read music and perform it, in order to be a well-rounded musician."

Trumpeter Jumaane Smith agrees with his bandmate: "I feel like we have a good opportunity to develop with this music, because we are responsible for transcribing a tune that we will actually be performing. We get closer to the music by transcribing and arranging it ourselves, rather than just reading through a pre-existing chart. It’s good that we have a lot of time before the concert, so we can get it all together."

The musicians who will be honored during the March 25 concert had a musical association together, as well as separate careers that both helped to create and define what is now referred to as the Hard Bop period of the 1950s. Art Blakey was a drummer who performed and recorded with several of the most prominent musicians since the 1940s. He played in the bands of pianist, educator, and composer Mary Lou Williams; famed bandleader, pianist, and composer Fletcher Henderson; and vocalist Billy Eckstine (in whose band Blakey met Beboppers Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk). Blakey formed a combo in 1947 that he called the Jazz Messengers and, in 1953, pianist Horace Silver joined the group.

Silver, whose funky sound can always be heard in his compositions, began working with tenor saxophonists Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, and Lester Young when he came to New York in the early 1950s. Soon after, he began making records under his own name before crossing paths with the flamboyant Blakey. The two led a cooperative band that first recorded as Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers, but later became Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers after Silver left the band to pursue his own projects. Blakey continued his band for over three decades and maintained associations with other prominent musicians along the way.

It is due to the monumental contributions to jazz that these two men are being recognized this month by the Juilliard Jazz Small Ensembles. Come and join the students as they pay tribute to these legends on March 25 at 8 p.m. in Paul Hall. No tickets are required.

Carolyn Appel is an assistant in the Jazz Studies office.