Schools of cool: jazz performance education providing a different kind of gig - Cover Story

Black Issues in Higher Education, Jan 22, 1998 by Ronald Roach

The Music Makers' Teachers

"Teaching is my way of giving back. That's what it is all about," says Chico Hamilton, a jazz faculty member at the New School for Social Research. "In the beginning I got help from other musicians. I'm just doing what they did for me."

Hamilton, a veteran jazz drummer and band leader who teaches courses in improvisation and rhythm, has been at the New School since its jazz program began. He says collegiate jazz programs are critical for exposing young musicians to formats such as the big band, which now constitute a tiny niche in the professional music community.

"The era of the big band is over," Hamilton says. "Schools are almost all that we have left."

The gradual absorption of jazz by the academy over the past fifty years has attracted hundreds of jazz musicians, like Hamilton, who have become teachers. Ironically many of them did not have the opportunity to develop their craft in any kind of academic setting. A number of prominent musicians from the forties and fifties turned to higher education as a venue to impart their skills. Some are still active as faculty members or guest instructors.

Composer and saxophonist Jimmy Heath is another prominent jazz veteran who joined the university teaching ranks while in the latter stages of a long, distinguished career. He has played with greats Such as Dazzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, and has composed dozens of works

"It was important to reach to continue the music that I love," Heath says. "I wanted to help young people continue the tradition."

After a decade of teaching, Heath retired from the faculty at Queens College in New York City. In early January, Queens College -- along with the help of entertainment luminaries such as Bill Cosby -- paid a special musical tribute to Heath at New York City's Lincoln Center.

"I think it's positive," that colleges and universities got into the business of teaching Jazz, says Heath, who also notes with pride. "I have had students who are now professionals and are making a living from their music."

Cecil Bridgewater, a veteran jazz trumpeter and faculty member at the New School for Social Research, says that colleges and universities have been eager to recruit experienced musicians who may not have graduate degrees into jazz faculty positions. Jazz program administrators appreciate that many veteran musicians were active in or close to the creation of jazz styles such as bebop in the 1940s, according to Bridgewater.

Improvising the Curriculum

When jazz education began making its way onto higher education campuses, a number of musicians expressed doubts that the music could be taught in an academic setting. The problem, as they saw it, was improvisation -- a key part of jazz performance. Skeptics believed that improvisation was a skill attainable only by rigorous practice with working musicians. The college campus, they said, would provide little of the intense practice and performance environments needed for shaping young musicians into skilled improvisors.