The greatest challenge I find in teaching jazz is to get students to understand and accept that they must invent their own pathways towards their personal performance goals. Most students entering our jazz program feel that they are relatively independent thinkers already, yet they usually come in expecting a clear, stepwise, time-tested, and measurable methodology […]
Hank Jones is one of the most ubiquitous personalities in jazz history. His recordings number in the thousands, and range from sides with Hot Lips Page and Lucky Thompson in his early days all the way to contemporaries like Diana Krall and Christian McBride. He’s been on special projects with avant garde artists like Charlie […]
Winnipeg is about to welcome an outstanding jazz musician, gifted educator, and all around great person. Drummer, composer, and bandleader Quincy Davis has been a staple of the New York jazz scene for 10 years, and it is truly exciting to know that his considerable talents on the bandstand and in the classroom will now […]
When I was a student, the middle of August was that curious time of summer when I wasn’t quite ready to head back into the grind but I was starting to crave a little more stimulation. The U of M Summer Jazz Camp is set up exactly to satisfy that desire to take on a […]
Heitha Forsyth started university as a classical French horn player who loved singing in choirs. Then she tripped over jazz and her musical pathway took a dramatic detour. She stepped up to a microphone, and it suited her to a T. She developed a gutsy lower range and an ethereal top range—and she would take […]
The first meetings of the Jazz Educators Network, the new incarnation of the IAJE, took place this May 2010 in St Louis, my hometown. The biggest change is that the JEN gathering is a lot smaller and much more manageable. I could see more of the talks, masterclasses and concerts because there were fewer things […]
Ben Webster’s albums are still among the best in jazz. He was one of jazz’s greatest ballad players, and his well-worn sound on the tenor saxophone only added a sense of melancholy and sorrow to the music he played. Webster learned the violin as a child and in his teens started performing on the piano, […]
There has been a movement in jazz as of late: a younger crowd of jazz musicians are combining jazz with the hip-hop and neo-soul that they grew up listening to. At the forefront of this movement is Robert Glasper, a virtuosic and inventive pianist who has recently released his third album for Blue Note Records. Glasper […]
Recently, I heard a First Nations philosopher muse that his people have a different understanding of time. You understand time as a river that runs past you, he said. For us, the river stands still and we walk up and down the riverbank. It’s an intriguing concept, and it surfaced for me in June when […]