Historically, Jazz has its racial origins in the black community in New Orleans. The history of inclusion that Jazz fostered brought people together to enjoy this “self-taught” genre. It has an african american identity because it was a genre that signified black unity since they were not allowed to participate in other genres of music. Jazz education is culturally of African American descent used to not receive widespread acceptance.

As history evolved, so did the dialogue on race. Jazz became more accessible to the masses and as a result, the genre became more diversified. Many universities with a music department have a place for Jazz. It went from being a community activity to a shared identity.

Now, we would expect Jazz and its students to have a very diverse look. However, upon further research we realized that this ideal hasn’t been reached.  We blindly thought jazz education and modern resources for jazz education would spread interest and reach new demographics However, it is ironic that now Jazz is predominantly white males in universities when the inclusion of African American people was one of the genre’s founding messages. We talked to the director of the Frost School of Music at UMiami, Shelton Berg, and he informed us that the Jazz department at both U Miami and his previous school, USC were not diverse in gender nor race. There is one female Jazz major and “a few black students in the program”. Clearly, the battle for racial equality is still ongoing.