Today
- Bill McFarlin, Executive Director, International Association for Jazz Education
The New York Times article entitled Jazz Education is Alive and Well - In the Classroom, Anyway offers an interesting take on how Jazz education has evolved throughout the years. As much of this project suggests, Nate Chinen first details the mentor style of teaching that dominated the early jazz education scene:
“Jazz like any folk music, was imparted from mentor to pupil, or forged through trial and error. For many of those making it, the most valuable lessons came not in the classroom, but on the bandstand. That was true even of artists who received some higher education, like Miles Davis, who matriculated at Juilliard. The music’s instructional methods were rigorous but not yet codified.”
Learning by playing, even in the early days of formal Jazz education, was the standard for most musicians.
Recently, Jazz education has evolved. In Alexander’s (1989) work, they note the need for the availability of more resources for aspiring jazz musicians, and teachers for that matter. Fast forward almost 20 years to 2007, and Chinen notes “today’s aspiring player has a choice of school programs, method and theory books, videos and transcriptions.” At the very least, formal education evolved enough to recognize the importance of these resources in the teaching of jazz to young players. Jamey Abersold, one of the men featured in Alexander’s article, has become a prominent figure in jazz education due to the play along kits that were strongly recommended as teaching tools in 1989. Chinen remarks that his materials have become a staple in jazz training for most young players.
Even at higher levels, Chinen believes professional jazz training is working. A common concern brought about by many old-school jazz artists is that many of the musician coming from certain jazz institutions all sound the same. Recall that Billy Taylor specifically mentioned the lack of individuality was a profound issue in formal jazz education. However, by 2007, Chinen believes “the age of the autodidact is over”. Jazz education today places more of an emphasis on communication, interaction and collectivism, rather than the by-the-book mentality popularized in jazz institutions in the 70s and 80s. Here is one passage that indicates a significant change from the observations about educators made by Billy Taylor:
“At Berklee, in Boston, one recent Friday Mr. Crook led a student ensemble in a classroom session… For the most part his comments had more to do with the collective concentration of the ensemble than the particulars of any single player. Mr. Crook was basically behaving more like a mentor than a professor, filling a niche of jazz instruction once upheld by bandleaders like Art Blakey and Betty Carter. And in that regard, he is not alone. 'The apprenticeship model doesn’t exist in the way that it once did,' said Mr. Pierce of Berklee, a Blakey alumnus. 'So it’s being incubated in institutions.'"
This marks a stark contrast from the observations made by many Jazz musicians, and it would make many of them happy to see the mentor style of education being adapted into the classroom. It would seem that jazz educators started to recognize the shortcomings of the education system, and began incorporating many of the elements that made jazz what it was in its heyday.
Additionally, Jazz formal jazz education is venturing somewhere that mentor style teaching is not. Many young musicians, according to Chinen, are majoring in music business, production or engineering. Mentor style education can not give students a degree, which makes it much harder to succeed in a music industry where financially prosperous careers for players are hard to come by. This signals a significant change in jazz education. While some other problems might persist, the bleak view that many older jazz musicians hold about education systems, with regard to producing talented performers, might begin to shift.