Learning Jazz. Jazz Education, History, and Public Pedagogy
by Ken Prouty
Jackson/Mississippi 2023 (University Press of Mississippi)
244 Seiten, 30 US-Dollar
ISBN: 9781496847911
Ken Prouty, a musicologist at Michigan State University, begins his book on jazz education with a reminder of Donald Trump's first presidency, a politician who probably has little understanding or sympathy for this music. Prouty is interested in "jazz education" both in public institutions and informal educational settings that might reach a wider audience. To this end, he looks at some largely forgotten advocates for jazz, at big band programs in the school and university context in the USA, and finally asks about the importance of broader education for jazz, particularly using the example of its portrayal in Hollywood films such as "Whiplash" and "La La Land".
When Paul Whiteman premiered George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" in 1924, the iconic opening with the famous clarinet glissando immediately referred to a "black" approach of playing, as Prouty points out in the beginning of his first chapter, in which he examines early educational publications on jazz. In early trombone schools, he writes, the glissando in particular is often described as essential to the jazz style. Henry Fillmore's 1919 trombone school is a case in point, published when jazz was not even a genre or style. In it, the glissando was treated more as a gimmick to garner admiration and laughter in equal measure. There are trombone schools from this period that virtually equate the glissando with jazz. It was not until the mid-1920s that authors began to think about other aspects of performance. Here Prouty describes a publication by Miff Mole with two-bar breaks in different keys and written-out solo choruses of well-known songs, as well as similar books by Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, among others, and discusses their origins and their usefulness for musicians of the time.
Jazz is about the music of marginalized people, but jazz historiography can also marginalize some of the music's actors itself. Prouty points this out in the second chapter, entitled "We Don't Know What We Don't Know". There are the often ignored female jazz musicians; a complaint by now is now widely recognized. But there are also complaints, he recounts, that jazz historiography has focused so much on African-American musicians that white voices have been neglected. The focus on seemingly marginalized groups can quickly lead to a one-sided assessment of the situation. But who is it that determines the canon of jazz history? Prouty points to the renowned jazz expert Phil Schaap, who was rejected by Columbia University as a lecturer in jazz history in 2001 because he did not have the necessary academic qualifications. Sixty years earlier, Paul Eduard Miller had hardly any sources to refer to for his 1936 jazz book. For him, jazz was a broad musical genre that included Armstrong and Ellington as well as Whiteman, the "Rhapsody in Blue" or the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Miller attempts an initial categorization; for him there are three categories: symphonic jazz, sweet jazz and hot jazz, for which he tries to develop different quality criteria. Another problem of jazz historiography is the cult of genius in jazz, the fascination with the "great men" of this music. However, Prouty reminds us, one must always be aware that no genius was born as such; they have consolidated their undoubted talent through study and practice.
In his third chapter, Prouty looks at jazz programs at US universities. At North Texas State University (which he himself attended as a student in the 1990s), special emphasis was placed on sight-reading skills. Why? Because the professional training had, among other things, the studio musician as a career goal in mind, for example on the West Coast, where a career in one of Hollywood's film orchestras was at least a career option. As a result of this teaching focus, a distinction was often made between reading and improvising musicians, and this distinction had already been a questionable quality feature in jazz early on, because, as Prouty provocatively summarizes: "Does it really matter whether Louis Armstrong or John Coltrane was a good sight-reader?" A second problem of (US-American) jazz education has long been the predominantly white student body. Prouty takes a detour to explain this, discussing the strong influence Stan Kenton had on the curricula at North Texas State University, for example, who recognized colleges as a new market for his music early on. Kenton not only held ultra-conservative views, Prouty writes, he publicly stated that jazz critics seemed to favor black bands and that white jazz musicians were becoming a new minority. Kenton's band was largely white; the North Texas jazz program was largely white, and its director, Leon Breeden, commented on that in 1970 with a reference to structural racism (though it wasn't called that then): "I've had at least a dozen (black students) in the lab band program and none of them had any musical problems at all. They flunked out of school on things like English or math." As the third focus of this chapter, Prouty picks out the trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, on the basis of which he clarifies the topic of virtuosity on the one hand, and on the other hand refers once again to the responsibility that influential musicians like Ferguson have when they shape an entire generation of young musicians.
As Down Beat celebrated the North Texas jazz program's 75th anniversary in February 2022, Prouty begins its fourth chapter, saxophonist Tracy McMullan responded with a letter emphasizing the school's "whites-only" tradition and criticizing the entire program for being tailored primarily to white students. Prouty looks at a statistical survey by the US Department of Education, which confirms that African-Americans in particular are underrepresented in jazz education at colleges. He then describes how Wynton Marsalis, the International Association of Jazz Educators and various music publishers set themselves the task of changing this. The latter had numerous arrangements by renowned arrangers in their program, only one was missing: Duke Ellington. This in turn gave Marsalis the idea of organizing a US-wide school band competition called "Essentially Ellington", not the only educational project that Jazz at Lincoln Center was able to take up on its banner, but one that made it clear to an entire country that the aesthetic foundations of this music are rooted in African-American culture.
2014 was a difficult year for jazz, says Prouty in the fifth chapter: according to surveys, jazz was more unpopular than ever before. The music had become too complex, it was said, and the beauty that lies precisely in this complexity simply wasn't getting through to people. And then a satire appeared in the New Yorker that year, purporting to report on none other than Sonny Rollins, who (in that story) could no longer hear his own horn and concluded, "I hate music. I've wasted my life." Outrage from all sides over bad satire; even Rollins spoke out, complaining that the piece insulted the entire genre. How do you improve the image of music, Prouty asks, and his response is: “public pedagogy”, a kind of broad-based music education. It's not that new; Paul Whiteman had already tried something like this in 1924 with his “Experiment in Modern Music”, Dave Brubeck, Billy Taylor and his Jazzmobile program, even Fred Rogers in “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood” had tried to help jazz gain wider acceptance. Such educational models are opposed by the opinion that music should not have to be explained. And this brings Prouty to his main subject of this chapter, the inappropriate crutches used to foist jazz on a wider audience. It is often said that jazz is actually about ... freedom, integration, democracy. There are leadership programs with jazz for people who work in completely different areas; organizational science presents jazz as a model for good teamwork. And there is - we are still in 2014 - Damien Chazelle's film "Whiplash" about a bandleader and teacher who will use any means to ensure that his students' music is technically perfect. Stop, the jazz world cried out, jazz is really about community, and above all it's about music, nothing but music, every second. That's the crux of comparisons or examples: they can quickly get out of hand.
At the very end of his book, Prouty mentions another piece of news from 2014, when Jazz at Lincoln Center secured the domain "jazz.org", another outcry in the jazz world. Now, as has been the case since the beginning of jazz history, it was about who defines what jazz is, who has the authority to interpret it and what power is associated with it. Jazz education, Prouty concludes, also has the task of constantly reflecting on the responsibility that each individual has as an artist, teacher, journalist, towards the music, towards the community, towards society. It's actually a good sign that jazz is still good for controversy, even if only in the small scene of its fans.
Prouty's book provides suggestions, especially for jazz educators who are thinking about their own role in the jazz world. Not the entire jazz world, mind you, because Prouty limits himself to the US reality. The situation would be different in Europe. Some of the topics touched on by Prouty could also be discussed in this country (under slightly different circumstances), while others are only perceived out of the corner of the eye (and as an American problem). Here, issues such as the very different acculturation processes from country to country, the extent to which jazz competes with other, established art forms - including for subsidies -, the representation of marginalized people in a music that also sees itself in part as a socio-political language, etc. could be added. However, there has been nowhere near the depth of reflection on jazz pedagogy or the corresponding basic research in Europe. We are working on this, in Germany for example every two years at the Darmstadt Jazzforum, or at a European level at the Rhythm Changes conferences.
Wolfram Knauer (Juli 2025)
