support Tutorials CDs PPT mouthpieces

Playing Teaching saxophone: too much jazz of the 50s?

I was going to put this in the current thread Help with the next step please, but this some how grew into something that should have its own thread I think. This is one of those things that crop up from time to time in various discussions
640px-Dexter_Gordon2a.jpg

Dexter Gordon
My take is that it is now inevitable that mainstream or straight ahead jazz of the 40s/50s (golden era?) is often concentrated on by teachers and learners and is for several reasons:

  • It may be fair to say that jazz (and its evolutionary forms) as we know it mostly started out in the US (with roots in the slave plantations and ultimately Africa)
  • It was originally considered as dance music or brothel entertainment (ie way below Classical in terms of "artform").
  • 1940s/50s bebop innovations brought its status up to be considered a more serious art form until eventually it started being taught in colleges. A big reason was that finally America proudly now had its very own type of classical music.
  • Hence its popularity seemed to get rebalanced, ie less as as dance/entertainment music but more as art music
  • The rise in demand for jazz performance education (as possibly more of a peoples’ thing and more accessible than classical) meant that it spread in popularity into secondary education as well as further education.
  • The demand for it may have outstripped the quality professional actual practitioners, many of whom preferred to gig rather than teach anyway. Maybe due to the constraints of academic bureaucracy. Plus it was to a large extent an art that was self taught, learned on the road or passed down orally.
  • So once it's there in academia, the learning process had to be more structured, capable of formal assessment by grades and so a formulaic teaching method came into being. This was a formulaic approach and not only meant it could be assessed, but could be taught by teachers who could learn that formula and just needed to stay one step head of the student.
  • So instead of trying to teach the art (ie inspiration and melodic impro) it was possible to teach the harmony (close to classical anyway) but add the impro element to that by inventing the chord/mode approach which was achieved by a technical analysis of what the masters played, which purely looked at the end result rather than the creative art process of achieving it. (Barry Harris had quite a bit to say about this)
To me the creative method of straight ahead impro involves (1) knowing the individual chord notes, (2) knowing how the chord functions within a key (ie what is the key centre and what degree of the key centre is that chord's root) and (3) understand the relation of that chord within the context of the sequence (what came before and what goes after), and constructing melody around that chord using both (2) and (3).

The chord/mode approach kind of takes a snapshot of the chord and makes assumptions with not necessarily any relevance to the context of (2) and (3).

So as an example we often hear that if there is a G7 you play a mixolydian mode of G. (those are all the notes from C major). That does fill in the chord notes effectively but pays no attention to the context, e.g. what if it's key centre is not C major. If it is resolving in C minor what relevance has the mixolydian got?

On a very basic level I much prefer to think of the chord notes, and think of linking them with other notes from the key centre scale. I'd immediately think "G7 is the V chord of C, therefor my passing notes or suspension are from C major or minor." I'd never think mixolydian in G. With a mixolydian mode G is the "tonic" not the dominant, so confusion there right from the start.

So that is why I don't like that method. It can maybe be equated to "painting by numbers". It can work in that you can play stuff from a scale that will often "fit the chord." Although it is easy to formularise (and so easy to teach in a mathematic kind of way) it has less to do with thinking about the creative quality of the music and understanding tension/release etc.

But the big thing here in this thread is also the fact that to a certain extent the teaching and learning of jazz is focussed a lot on this 60 year old period, as I said the so-called golden age. Is it golden because there is an assumption that earlier forms such as traditional New Orleans, swing or later freeform styles are somehow inferior?

I don't think so. I just think that the early forms are ignored because they are either not "art" or not "cool" (bebop having that hipster image of berets and shades etc). And later forms of "avant grade" are not really possible to formularise as there is little or nothing to grasp in the way of assessable conventional musical elements. Any academic assessment therefore has to rely a lot on subjectivity.

In academia that is getting more and more important as students and parents can get litigious and complain about the grades. With more conventional teaching you can justify a high mark by the fact that there are fewer wrong notes (that weren't in the prescribed mode) but how do you do that with avant garde... what makes on piece of freeform objectively "better" than another?
 
the sociological reality of the times also has something to do with the fact that contemporary players and students, and the current version of the genre itself... is 'missing' something at a core level.
I'm sure the 'missing' stuff is alive and kicking elsewhere! It's never been in the academy nor the parlor! The world has many moving parts.
 
I know I'll take some flak for this:
I'm not sure whether that means you like that Ipanema video or, like me, find a lot of it wrong. Or else maybe you were expecting some Thomas flak?
 
Last edited:
A brief google search using the terms: University Jazz Studies turned up scores of schools in the U.S. with jazz studies/jazz performance programs. This web page contains more detail than most. University of Northern Iowa

My question would be what needs to be added to or changed in this curriculum to make it better? In my experience the jazz programs at various colleges and universities vary in effectiveness depending upon the qualifications and experience of the faculty. What the schools I have looked at on line seem to have in common is they offer courses that provide the basic tools and performance experiences needed to give students a solid foundation upon which to build their teaching and/or performing careers. Those students who are exceptionally creative, gifted and talented will take their careers to a higher level using those attributes that cannot be taught.
 
Last edited:
I'm not sure whether that means you like that Ipanema video or, like me, find a lot of it wrong. Or else maybe you were expecting some Thomas flak?
It's not just wrong, it's absurd in many areas, like some of the statements that people in the fawellas sing in a specific key, yet I can't even tell how many times I have heard these fallacies mindlessly regurgitated. Videos like this are nothing but a disservice by deliberately making up outlandish nonsense claims as click bait and when enough people talk about it/repeat the claims, they eventually become some mythical lore.

And no, I wasn't expecting Thomas flak but Adam Neely has self proclaimed himself to demi-god status, which is a shame because he is actually a good musician. And many people I know take everything he says at face value.
 
My question would be what needs to be added to or changed in this curriculum to make it better?
That was my question also :confused2:

I looked at my local university. It has three streams; classic, classic with church, jazz. The curriculum are very similar, with the obvious substitutions. I've seen the jazz output perform around town - jazz fest etc. not much American Songbook tunes but clearly a continuation of the tradition. Seems ok thus far. What should be improved? Well, I know they do ethnomusicology but a world music theory and performance stream maybe?
 
Last edited:
In 30+ years of teaching I don't think I've come across any young person who wants to play that "old man's music". A few adults have, but not that many.
By old man's music do you mean (all styles of) jazz or something else?
 
Last edited:
By old man's music do you mean (all styles of) jazz or something else?
Jazz as commonly understood, ie. from 1960 back. If I was still teaching I might expect to get asked about more modern styles such as jamming along to dance tracks, Ibiza style.
 
I have believed for a long time that any intellectualising of folk genres in any art form ends up as a " Disneyfication" IE a facade and artificial construct.
therefore I also believe that the American system in particular is alone in seeingJazz as their very own Precious that requires to be celebrated and conserved for posterity.Or at least the bits of it they choose.

In the UK there are plenty colleges/Unis offering courses in aspects of popular music
 
Yes, you can teach the framework, you can provide a "fail safe scaffold" and overanalyze everything to the point of absurdity without even touching the core issue behind the music...

Here is one of my favorite examples - I know I'll take some flak for this:
You will take NO flak from me....this guy and his vids are the PUREST example of Jazz academia run entirely amok.
The sad part is, so many young players think the world of this guy, failing to recognize completely the incredible conceit and lack of honor for what came well before him. Click bait is what this is, an egoistic 'business model' masquerading as some sort of 'analysis'....
 
I'm sure the 'missing' stuff is alive and kicking elsewhere! It's never been in the academy nor the parlor! The world has many moving parts.
Yes, it's elsewhere...just no longer in Jazz....it moved on from Jazz long ago and it's fair to posit that the academicization of it is one of a number of reasons why...
 
In 30+ years of teaching I don't think I've come across any young person who wants to play that "old man's music". A few adults have, but not that many.
The 'main route' to it here in the US has/had been quite simple:

~ a grade-school kid (or their family) wants to learn an instrument.
~ they join school band
~ some of them aren't lit up by JP Sousa or Classical or Marching
~ the typical remaining school context available for an instrumentalist is Jazz Band/Stage band.
~ 75% of school Jazz band players aren't particularly lit up by Jazz, either...they're listening to other contemporary genres; but it's hip enough to stay in the band until graduation.
~ the remaining 25% of those players actually 'get into' Jazz to a point, as a result. Maybe half of them continue to play to some degree after graduating HS.

The numbers may vary depending on the region, but by my observation it goes something like this.

A kid NEVER involved in a school Jazz/Stage band ? I agree...not likely to have been inspired to play Jazz on the instrument they wish to pick up.
 
In Utah there are several excellent high school jazz ensembles---some far better than my college band in the '60's. I know that many of the students in those bands who are college bound try out for one of the university jazz groups at the school they wish to attend, including the award winning BYU Synthesis directed by Ray Smith. The best of the best audition for the Crescent band directed by Caleb Chapman. These students experience includes performing straight ahead jazz as well as other popular genres.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7xt942uHsk&ab_channel=CalebChapman


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCxXZKSLHnE&ab_channel=JazzatLincolnCenter%27sJAZZACADEMY
 
Last week our Big Band had a gig in the Canteen in Bristol.
It’s a fairly trendy place, full of under-30’s.
They loved it - lots of dancing.
So I don’t accept that people nowadays don’t want to listen to 50’s dance-band jazz.
 
Last week our Big Band had a gig in the Canteen in Bristol.
It’s a fairly trendy place, full of under-30’s.
They loved it - lots of dancing.
So I don’t accept that people nowadays don’t want to listen to 50’s dance-band jazz.
To be fair there is a huge difference between music that's made for dancing (much of the big band repertoire) and straight ahead jazz that's a combo centered around individuals taking solos. The later is almost never dance music. Pete was very specific in this thread being about teaching "straight ahead jazz".

You can disagree if you wish, but maybe you should also consider Pete's background, experience and knowledge of music. Look around this site. It's his baby, yet the majority of players here are pretty well stuck just playing "standards". I can't speak for Pete, but to my mind this is mainly the result of the last 40 years of academic teaching of jazz. It has IMHO limited many player's possibilities.

Think about how much Pete has had to consider in that the majority here are mostly "standards" players. It's very brave of him to stand up and make the statements he's making.

Nobody is promoting taking anything away from you or anyone else who is playing the music they have come to love. Far from it! This is about keeping possibilities open so that new players aren't funneled into just one genre. It's about a more open type of teaching.

If you feel threatened by this then you should be asking yourself why.
 
Think about how much Pete has had to consider in that the majority here are mostly "standards" players. It's very brave of him to stand up and make the statements he's making.
Although I wasn’t saying there is anything at all wrong with it. It was mostly about trying to explain its dominance in (non classical) performance music education. I do think however things are gradually broadening out.
 
Really? How do you know? If there was a poll I must have missed it.
I think a poll may be interesting. Perhaps Wade was basing it on the perceived ratio of saxophone sound clips we get posted. I'm not sure about a majority, but there may be a significant large number.

However if there does appear a bias then as I mentioned in another thread it could be due to the fact that (1) jazz tunes make more sense as instrumentals than do tunes/songs of many other genres (2) there are more jazz backing available thanks originally to that nice Mr Aebersold ;).

So it could be both because of personal preference or/and the availability of resources (backing tracks) to use.

Of course thanks to Wade we have a huge “library” here of other genre backing tracks, sadly not used enough IMO:

 
Last edited:

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom