The TJEN Corner: Continued

Eric Cager, Executive Director of the Music Business Institute, says "This has been a difficult city for educators...we tend to give a lot of lip service in this town."

The Institute doesn't teach, but they run an internship for kids to acquaint them with the business side of life as a musician. They also produce an annual event called the Roots Music Gathering, a seminar covering blues, R&B, jazz, cajun, bluegrass, etc. Trad jazz (e.g. clarinetist Michael White) is included in the mix. The event comprises a series of lectures and demos that expose the participants to the music's players and promoters. Cager would like to build in a bigger performance component, and is thinking of collaborating in that regard with the Palm Court Jazz Cafe. His future plans include doing something with local band directors, and staging a major instrumental competition.

Over at the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park (on whose behalf the Traditional Jazz Curriculum Kit is being developed), I met with Superintendent John Quirk, Rangers Reginald Galley, Bruce Barnes, Matt Hampsey and Dr. Cheryl Ajirotutu, Anthropology Professor (University of Milwaukee) and consultant to the Park for jazz curricula. In addition to its publications, public performances, walking tours, and lecture/demonstrations, the Park has a program called Music of All Ages, which presents Saturday morning brass band workshops for kids using the Treme Brass Band and the Storyville Stompers. This has led to the formation of a Young New Orleans Traditional Brass Band. The Park is also setting up a "distance learning" program with the New Orleans Public Schools.

Also taking the mentoring approach is the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Foundation, an organization whose mission includes "promoting Louisiana's music and culture through numerous...educational...activities." Speaking with Executive Director Don Marshall and Director of Programs/Marketing/Communications Scott Aiges, I learned that they have bought the building next to their headquarters which they plan to convert into an education center for after-school jazz instruction. Heading this initiative will be local trumpeter Shamarr Allen (an alumnus of the Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp), who performs in settings ranging from trad jazz to hip-hop. The Foundation is also planning a New Orleans Music Education Summit for the purpose of developing a master plan for music education in the city.

Another foundation doing good work is the Tipitina's Foundation, started by the famed Tipitina's nightclub. Its mission is to "restore Louisiana's irreplaceable music community and preserve the state's unique musical cultures." The Foundation has donated over $800,000 worth of musical instruments to school music programs; sponsors internships for high school musicians that are designed to improve skills related to performing, recording and producing; has established Music Office Co-Ops that provide office space and equipment for musicians, complete with on-site technical support and volunteer help, and presents a free Sunday Music Workshop Series at the nightclub, in which students play with and learn from top local musicians. In addition, they collaborated with the Jazz and Heritage folks to produce a jazz camp, led by saxophonist Donald Harrison.

Operating on a somewhat smaller scale is the New Orleans Jazz Education Foundation, led by trumpeter/educator Brice Miller. Before being displaced by Katrina, Miller was Coordinator of Music for New Orleans Public Schools. He's now located in Mississippi but comes back to New Orleans regularly.

"To be able to pass on my knowledge in the birthplace of jazz, that's a beautiful thing," says Miller. He told me that at the high school level, few educators in the city are focused on jazz; marching bands are the big thing (year-round). Miller has developed a multidiscipline jazz history/appreciation curriculum and distributed it in the school system, with positive results. He currently conducts a Jazz and Blues in Schools program consisting of performances and lectures, and has also been running a Saturday jazz camp for students at a New Orleans elementary school. "My mission is to spread the music and culture of New Orleans," he says.

The local Musicians' Union has also taken up the mantle. Leslie Cooper is active in the Union's Education Committee, and she filled me in. The Committee, she says, sponsors the Red Hot Brass Band youth group, which she formed and directs. The band's promo flyer says "Young New Orleans musicians who are dedicated to and excited to be carrying on the tradition of New Orleans jazz." Only two months old, comprising five musicians aged 12 to 17, the band plays traditional brass band style, and they're already performing in schools and at nightspots such as Ray's Boom Boom Room (where I just missed hearing them). Leslie's son, Doyle, 15, is the Red Hot Brass Band's trumpeter and has lived in New Orleans since he was a baby. Doyle says, "I was interested in it [trad jazz] since I was little...I like rock and everything, but traditional jazz also strikes me."

Doyle has participated in the Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp, where he says they did "Mack the Knife" as a trad combo. Leslie Cooper has further plans to run a workshop or series for kids called Pass It On, which will bring local professionals to the union hall to perform, talk, and instruct.

The city's infrastructure tries to help these various educational initiatives. Ernest Collins is

Executive Director of Arts and Entertainment for the City of New Orleans, and he tells me his office provides assistance and support to jazz education activities in the community. At the Arts Council of New Orleans, Director of Grants Services Joycelyn Reynolds described for me the financial support that is available to local non-profit organizations in the form of Community Arts grants and Decentralized Arts Funding grants. The City even has an official Cultural Ambassador in the form of trumpeter Irvin Mayfield (an alumnus of UNO). Irvin invited me to his show at Snug Harbor and met with me between sets. He leads the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra Inc., which in addition to being a resident working ensemble (in which Ed Petersen plays), is also a nonprofit with a mission to "celebrate and advance jazz's role in American culture and New Orleans' role in jazz." The NOJO has a New Orleans Jazz Treasures initiative underway to assess the status of the city's jazz archives and identify conservation/replacement needs. Another project is a Saturday morning music school for 8-to-17-year-olds at UNO, a five-year partnership. Irvin is also heavily involved in efforts to establish a National Jazz Center in New Orleans.

Clearly, a great deal of education is going on in this town, and in my few days there I could only scratch the surface. The difference in New Orleans is that traditional jazz is part of the daily life -- to its young people, it's not a separate, unfamiliar genre. My hat is off to the many dedicated folks who are seeing to it that the city's cultural traditions will live on. Their efforts may get a boost from the recently-enacted Louisiana Act 175, which mandates performing arts instruction for all schools, to be fully implemented by 2010.

By the way, I'm pleased to report that the prototype Traditional Jazz Curriculum Kit was warmly welcomed in all quarters, and that everyone I spoke to saw a role for the materials in their programs. One educator called me a "saint"! Whereupon I promptly went "marching in."

February 2008 issue | © 2008 The Mississippi Rag

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