By LOREN SCHOENBERG

The past half century has seen jazz morph from a popular dance music treated with disdain by higher education to academia's darling. The art of jazz was learned almost exclusively on the bandstand. This is not to say that jazz musicians were not schooled; just that the actual "doing" was outside of the classroom. Now the inverse is true. There are thousands of jazz students in college who will never make their living playing the music and may never even have careers as performers. They will swarm into jazz education, attend the yearly conventions, and teach.

This amazing state of affairs prompted a panel discussion at Juilliard, organized and moderated by saxophonist, jazz historian, and faculty member Loren Schoenberg, to mark Jazz Appreciation Month. Participating were four people who come to jazz from different angles: Chris Madsen, a recent Juilliard jazz graduate with a budding career as a saxophonist/composer/bandleader; Victor Goines, the artistic director of jazz studies at Juilliard and a featured soloist with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra; Laurie Carter, executive director of jazz studies at Juilliard; and pianist Dick Katz, a mainstay on the New York jazz scene since the 1950s, playing with everyone from Sonny Rollins, Oscar Pettiford, and Lee Konitz to vocalists Carmen McRae and Helen Merrill. Katz is also an educator and writer of note.

Loren Schoenberg (Photo by Ed Berger)

Loren Schoenberg: I'd like to start out by asking kind of a provocative question: What are the best and worst things about jazz education?

Chris Madsen: The best thing is that it brings so many young people into the music. And the worst thing would be that it intellectualizes the learning process too much.

Dick Katz: It's filling a need for something that's disappeared. In my generation, there were many places to go learn how to play on the bandstand, to interact with musicians of all kinds. And now that's gone. So education gives kids an opportunity to have some hands-on experience. But because it's so standardized now all over the country, the individuality that is essential to playing jazz is in danger of getting squashed.

Victor Goines: The great thing is that jazz has finally been recognized as an art form that needs to be addressed seriously. But we still need to take a more proactive approach in terms of outreach, to expose more people to the music.

Laurie Carter (Photo by Nan Melville)

Laurie Carter: The best thing, in my opinion, is that it gives young people who don't necessarily have a lot of positive things to do with their energy these days the opportunity to focus on a music that is important to this country, and to share that with others their age and older. It's become a multigenerational art form. But many jazz programs don't give students the opportunity to regularly play with high level performers, which is how they learn best.

Schoenberg: Here's a hard question: Where do you think jazz would be in the year 2006, if it hadn't been for the huge development in jazz education?

Goines: It would greatly reduce the number of people who would even consider going into it for a living. And the music would be even more marginalized than it is now.

Madsen: Speaking from a personal perspective, I probably would not be a jazz musician if it hadn't been for institutionalized jazz education. In high school, my band director and my other friends who were interested in it piqued my interest. I wouldn't have gotten into it on my own.

Schoenberg: Laurie, what about from the vantage point of someone who comes from the worlds of academics and of law?

Carter: I think that young people wouldn't have a real interest in it—certainly not at the level of enthusiasm that we see today.



Schoenberg: And Victor, from the working musician's standpoint?

Victor Goines (Photo by Peter Schaaf)

Goines: Being from New Orleans, it's a little different for me, because jazz is something that takes place every day in the city. But I think it would still be a small segment, as it is even with jazz education. But it would continue to move along nonetheless, because of the dedication of people like Wynton Marsalis, Terrence Blanchard, Harry Connick Jr., Branford Marsalis … and other great musicians like Mulgrew Miller and Kenny Garrett.

Katz: I don't think you can divorce this music from the larger social context. As I grew up, jazz was a segregated music, played by segregated people. Jazz education has really helped change that a lot—although I'd like to see much more diversity than there is now. And the ugly head of economics always gets in here, with kids who are really gifted not being able to afford to study. Back when I went to Manhattan School of Music—where I met and became friends with John Lewis—we used to have jam sessions in the practice rooms. And they would literally chase us away and say, "Don't play that music in here." And here I am, old enough to see that it's a vital part of the school.

Schoenberg: When jazz education really started, which was down at North Texas in the late 1950s with Leon Breeden and people like that, it had an overwhelmingly white face to it. And it still does, to a certain degree. But some programs, including Juilliard's, are actually very diverse. Why do you think, at most jazz programs, the students and faculties are mostly white?

Dick Katz (Photo by Nancy Miller Elliott)

Carter: Economics and opportunity, I think. It's an issue of access … and not just with jazz, but with music in general.

Schoenberg: Victor, how did jazz education come into your life?

Goines: It came into my life very early on, in junior high school. I had a great junior high school director, Donald Richardson. And then, Ellis Marsalis, who was in charge of the jazz division of New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. I was also involved in summer camps at Loyola University and Northeastern Louisiana University.

Schoenberg: What things did you learn from those early experiences, and what were the most important elements you wanted to include in creating this department here?

Goines: To be involved with people who do what, ultimately, I wanted to do. To have a faculty of people who are out performing—not just their instruments, but the composition/arranging portion of it.

Madsen: But it's important to understand that just because someone's a great performer doesn't mean that their heart is with education. That's not the case with Juilliard, but I do know of other institutions and have had other experiences where it has been. So it's very important to find that balance of someone who's out there doing it, but also has a passion for education and really wants to pass the right things on to their students.

Goines: Adding to what Chris says, just because someone doesn't play on a day-to-day basis doesn't make them anything less than a great teacher. Those people exist, too.

Carter: One of the best examples was right here at Juilliard, Dorothy DeLay. She did not play violin on a daily basis, but she sure was a fine teacher. She set the mark.

Christopher Madsen (Photo by Debbie Rowe)

Katz: What I find very interesting is that some of the giants from the swing era and beyond are totally mystified that you could even teach this music. Someone as erudite and educated as Bill Evans went on record as saying, "I don't think you can teach jazz." He meant you can teach the tools, but there's that area of artistry, which you only get from your individual ability to perceive things like what Lester Young did, with his incredible ear and his ability to compose on the spot. This is quite different from constructing a solo based on some patterns and scales that you learned. When you think of how Benny Carter learned to arrange—he put the parts on the floor. He didn't even know how to make a score; he learned that later.

Schoenberg: So before there were schools, jazz musicians were forced to be autodidacts.

Katz: You learned from your peers; you learned by listening to your idols and copying what you could from them, and forging your own language. There's a vernacular that was common to everybody.

Schoenberg: Chris, you were in the program here, and came from another program before that. And now you're out there trying to do stuff. How much of what Dick is talking about still goes on for young musicians today?

Madsen: I think it's moved away from a lot of that. A lot of it is very verbal and more scholarly. Of course it depends on the musician, but a lot of young people, including myself, understand a concept better if we can have it explained to us and discuss it, in addition to having it demonstrated musically.

Schoenberg: Laurie, how was the program structured? And how do you see it developing?

Carter: The size of the program was determined by several factors. One had to do with the realities of space at Juilliard, the other with Juilliard's philosophy of providing students with performance opportunities. So just as we have the Juilliard Orchestra and the Juilliard Symphony, which provide all of the orchestral students with the opportunity to play on a regular basis, we thought it best to have a big band. That set the tone for the basic foundation of the program. We also started out with three small ensembles, and added a fourth to allow all the horns to play. More students than we have right now would throw that balance off.

Schoenberg: Conservatories have always been known for "the great divide." What makes this program unique, in terms of trying to blend the classical and jazz players?

Goines: President Joseph Polisi believes in complete integration of all the programs. It started out with collaborations between jazz and dance, then, ultimately, with jazz, dance, and drama. But it started at the top, and that's why it's been so successful and there aren't the divisions that you see at so many other institutions.

"Just because you're not playing every night doesn’t mean that your years of study have been wasted. The business of music needs managers, administrators, people who understand how to put the best music forward."

Schoenberg: What could be integrated into the jazz program to prepare students in their 20s for what they're really going to face after graduation?

Madsen: It's difficult to understand how to put that kind of preparation in an institution. From the day I decided to become serious about music, in high school, people were telling me how hard it would be. When you're young, you think, "Well, I'll rise above that, because I'm dedicated." I'm not sure that there really is a way to adequately prepare students, unless you just send 'em out there.

Goines: We talk about the business of music, the whole faculty. We're fortunate to have some great business heads on our faculty. But it's just as important for students to not let economics be the determination of success in the art form. If you want to make billions of dollars, jazz is not where you should be at. We all know that. But you have to be aggressive enough to go out there and compete with the best of the best, because there aren't that many gigs out there today.

Carter: We've done so much work with students on their career development. But our curriculum, up until this year, was so incredibly dense that they really didn't have time to deal with that. We do have the "Business of Jazz" course, and of course the faculty talks with students. But just because you're not playing every night doesn't mean that your years of study have been wasted. The business of music needs managers, administrators, people who understand how to put the best music forward. That doesn't preclude you from playing, but everyone has to do their part. That part might not be the part you thought you'd play, but it's still important.

Schoenberg: What does Juilliard do in the way of collaborations with other jazz education entities?

Carter: We just performed at Princeton University in April. We tour colleges and universities around the country, to introduce not only our program, but the music, to their students. We actually do that overseas as well, in Costa Rica and Japan. Just recently, we got together with the executive directors of jazz programs at Manhattan School of Music, the New School, New York University, and William Patterson University, and decided to start working together. During Jazz Appreciation Month, we are each going to perform at WBGO, showcasing our students and talking about our programs. And, of course, we have an official collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Goines: We first collaborated with them to put together an artist diploma program in 2001. Many things have come out of it: Jazz in the Schools is one program that we do jointly, and the Upstarts program on Monday nights at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, a great opportunity for our students to be heard by the general public. Also, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra rehearsals have served as an opportunity for students not just to observe, but to get hands-on experience by coming in to sub when members are absent.

Schoenberg: What are the challenges for jazz education, as we go into the 21st century and look toward the future? How do we stay vital and relevant?

Goines: Well, we have to find more venues for our students to perform after graduation. Prepare them for life after education, so they can continue to be active and grow as individuals.

Katz: I have an observation to make: There's almost a new genre that's developed in the last few years. I went to hear a concert with Fred Hersch and Brad Mehldau, two pianists. It was like improvising in contemporary classical style mixed with jazz. There was no swing, as we would define it. Performers coming up are conversant in both idioms. Jazz education could bring in more classical players, and have more interaction between classical and jazz in musical situations.

Goines: We actually encourage that. This year, for instance, in our final concert for the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, one of the classical students is writing a piece for the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra.

Schoenberg: Are there any other issues that you'd like to discuss?

Carter: I think classical programs will always exist, because there is a great deal of money being poured into those programs. There is not the same kind of money being poured into jazz education. People are more interested in seeing jazz performed, so they will give to a presenting venue faster than they will give to an education program, not understanding that if they don't give to education, there won't be anyone to put on those stages.

Goines: Audience development is really important. Classical musicians begin their studies, in some cases, as early as 2 or 3. In America, the average student doesn't get into jazz till 13, 14, or 15. We need to figure out a way to educate our audiences at an earlier age, get them a much better start in the music, so that it becomes part of their day-to-day activities.

Schoenberg: How do you get to the 5- and 10-year-olds?

Goines: The Juilliard Jazz Orchestra just left Appleton, Wis., where we did an educational event for 1,000 students. A large percentage of them had to do reports before they came to the concert, so they could be informed. So it allowed us to meet them in the middle.

Carter: We're sending a group to a primary school of about 300 kids that we visited last year; the students were so excited that we're going back. And we'll be having a free family concert in Aiken, S.C. Young people really are sponges; if you introduce them to this music, they will grow up wanting to hear it. My son gets on an airplane now and puts earphones in and listens to jazz. That's exciting.

Katz: When Roy Eldridge couldn't play anymore, he would go around to schools, and he would sing to the kids, and they got exposed to jazz, and they loved it. You're absolutely right, that's really an essential thing to do.