Juilliard’s Director of Jazz Studies, Victor Goines, playing clarinet (and holding sax); with faculty members Rodney Whitaker, bass (left); and (seated right) Wess Anderson, saxophones; Terrell Stafford, trumpet; and Lewis Nash, drums. (Photo by Nan Melville)

As the buzz about the new jazz program at Juilliard heats up, people want to know exactly what the program is about and how it is going to affect the Juilliard community. I sat down with the director of the Institute for Jazz Studies, Victor L. Goines, and asked him about those, and some other, issues of interest.

CA: Speaking from the director’s point of view, what do you think the purpose of the program is?

VG: The purpose of this program is to give the students an historical perspective on jazz and assist them in finding his or her personal voice as a performer. There are a lot of very good jazz studies programs around the country today but I feel that very few encourage their students to become individuals and to perform the great works of the jazz masters.

CA: So you think that the way this program is designed is going to allow the musicians to develop individual voices?

VG: That is the goal of the program. We will be encouraging students to do just that, and I think that I have selected some of the most talented and knowledgeable performers and educators in the industry for that purpose. I wanted the students to have the opportunity to study with those who are doing what they themselves would like to do. Our faculty is not just equipped to teach jazz history, but some of them are directly linked to the traditions of the great jazz legends. We have Joe Temperley, who has played with Woody Herman; Kenny Barron, who has played with Stan Getz; Wess Anderson, presently with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra; Lewis Nash, who has played with Clifford Jordan, and others. Our other studio faculty are Wycliffe Gordon, Terell Stafford, Warren Vaché, Rodney Whitaker, Carl Allen, and myself. Our classroom faculty members are David Berger, Loren Schoenberg, Michael LeDonne, Bob Stewart, Derek Gardner, and Scott Reeves. I am proud of assembling such a stellar group of musicians.

For our improvisation class, we have invited jazz greats such as Jimmy Cobb, the drummer who performed with John Coltrane, and tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath, who performed with Dizzy Gillespie. No textbook can match what musicians of this caliber have to offer.

CA: As for the students, what were you looking for in them to bring them into the program?

VG: Obviously, we had to look for people who were technically proficient enough on their instruments to articulate their ideas, but we were also looking for people who were really dedicated to moving forward in the jazz tradition. We are a pre-professional program. We have students who are right on the threshold of moving to the professional ranks but at the same time have various aspects of their musical development that need work.

CA: How do you think the students will benefit from the Institute’s unique collaboration between Juilliard and Jazz at Lincoln Center?

VG: As a result of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s dedication to education and the tremendous success of its Education Department, students will have an opportunity to attend Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra rehearsals, to interact with the members of the orchestra, and they will receive a broad view of the history of the music due to the diverse programming of Jazz at Lincoln Center. In addition, Jazz at Lincoln Center will be booking tours for Juilliard’s Jazz Orchestra and small ensembles in New York City and around the country.

CA: What do you see down the road for the Institute?

VG: There is an extraordinary opportunity for collaboration, like the one between Jazz at Lincoln Center and The Juilliard School, inside the School itself. For instance, the opening jazz concert on October 30 will feature a collaboration between the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra and the Juilliard Orchestra with guest conductor Michael Morgan. Wynton Marsalis and I will be featured as special guests with the Jazz Orchestra. We have collaborations scheduled with Ed Bilous and the Percussion Ensemble on October 9 and with the Drama and the Dance Divisions in the fall and spring respectively. I would like the Jazz Studies Program to tap into the infinite number of possibilities that all divisions of this community have to offer. These collaborations will inform our students of the opportunities that this program can offer the Juilliard community.

CA: For the non-jazz students at Juilliard, will there be any opportunities to learn about jazz?

VG: Yes. Right now there are two courses being offered to non-jazz majors. One course is Jazz Practicum for Pianists and it is being offered in the spring of 2002. The other course is Jazz Practicum for Non-Pianists, also beginning in the spring. But most importantly, with the program located right here in the building, it will give the Juilliard community an opportunity to familiarize itself with this art form. The interaction between students and faculty from all programs allows for all parties to educate and be educated.

CA: Although you are a professional musician who performs all over the world you have deliberately chosen not to take part in certain performance situations in front of the students. Instead, you have elected to choose other musicians to come in, one instance being the improvisation class. Why did you decide to do that?

VG: My reason is that the students can come to me at any time if they are having problems or would just like to talk about the music, so I am available. But our guest clinicians, Sir Roland Hanna, Steve Turre, Bob Hurst, and Jimmy Heath, will bring additional experiences. I guess you can consider me to be an additional artist to teach the improvisation class but not at a regularly scheduled time.

I want the students to get as many different views about improvisation and performing as possible. That means inviting as many different people, all with strong philosophical beliefs about how and why they play, to come into the improvisation classes, observe the students, listen to them play, give them recommendations, and then come back at the end of the semester to give them a follow-up about their progress.

Our improvisation class is quite different from any other that I have seen. Most programs have a single person disseminating information regarding their one philosophy of improvising, but we will have many different artists who will encourage students to search for their individual voices. It is sort of like making gumbo. A gumbo is a combination of things that you have on the table at one given time, put them into a pot, mix it up, and you get something unique. The ingredients may vary and it can taste different but always good. That is what we want to do here at Juilliard; we want to take the different ingredients that the history of jazz has to offer us and put it into one pot, which is The Juilliard School, and then allow everyone to add their own personal ingredients, taste it, and come up with their own unique dish.

Carolyn Appel is an assistant in the Jazz Studies Office. The Juilliard Jazz Orchestra makes its debut on October 30 at 8 p.m. in Alice Tully Hall. A very limited number of free tickets for the Juilliard community will be available beginning October 16 at the Juilliard Box Office.