Conclusion

Although jazz has existed as a form of music for more than 100 years, evolving and adapting to fit the times, one thing about it has remained crucial to its survival: mentorship. As shown in the successful lives of these five musicians, mentorship plays an important role in determining a jazz musician’s career path. Often times, mentors will teach their mentees about the beauty of jazz music and its underlying themes as well as specific chords and scales. These special relationships built jazz into the entertaining, innovative art form it was in the early to mid-20th century. Jazz musicians cared about their music and passed that enthusiasm onto the next generation.

As shown in this project, mentors, more often than not, were close family members; Buster Williams, Allan Vache, and Claude Williams all had mentors who were in their families. The passing of knowledge from one generation to the next facilitated a growth in jazz; however, times have changed as most people now seek institutional music education in the form of jazz/jazz studies degrees from universities. The two musicians Bob Schulz and Germaine Bazzle represent this impersonal form of music education; an alternative to mentorship which has gained traction over the past few decades. Both have received a formal education and have taught jazz classes at schools/universities. Although formal education is a departure from the traditional jazz mentorship, it still provides a method for passing on jazz music to younger generations.

Formal education of jazz at colleges and universities has overtaken mentorship in recent years. Mentorship, however, is not completely dead, as programs around the country have started to encourage potential jazz musicians to learn from a more experienced mentor. In the future, these mentorships may be a key factor in keeping jazz relevant.

We would like to thank the Hamilton College Jazz Archive, Monk Rowe, and Professor Angel Nieves for their contributions to this project. We would also like to thank the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture for providing us with this Scalar platform to display our project