Jazz is BAM — Black American Music — and schools/universities have to find a way to deliver jazz education that embraces the phenomenon of jazz in its full entirety. Jazz is a musical and sonic phenomenon and a reflection of American society. If we only lecture students on chord scales then we are leaving out the soul of the music and it’s all just empty knowledge.
I find a book entitled Black Music, White Business: Illuminating the History and Political Economy of Jazz interesting and much of the content enraging. In the book, there is a quote from the great vocalist Abbey Lincoln who stated that her recording of Freedom Now Suite was damaging to her career because record companies were afraid to invest in her because she was an outspoken civil rights advocate.
Given that great jazz musicians put their careers on the line to fight for social justice, the very least academics can do is have a resolute commitment to advocating for diversity. Here are some steps that we can take to promote diversity in an academic setting:
Hire more faculty from under-represented groups
This is an obvious solution. Cluster hires of multiple minority faculty can be advantageous.
Change existing collegiate jazz curriculums*
—Remove non-jazz courses from the curriculum. These include classical piano, Conducting, some History courses, and intensive classical instrument study.
—Stop evaluating instrumental skills by only using classical repertoire and etudes. Plenty of jazz repertoire can be used to demonstrate instrumental skills.
—Do not require jazz musicians to also take classical instrumental lessons. Jazz musicians should not be doing double the work.
—Replace the History of Music Before 1750 with a Jazz History course.
*Much of this has been done in our new WVU Jazz and Commercial Music curriculum.
Provide more support for minority and first-generation college students
—Give more time for advising.
—Provide more assistance with time management.
—Help students connect with a community at the school of like-minded peers.
Evaluate the metrics used when awarding financial rewards (scholarships)
Typically, universities give funding based on two things—the needs of the school and how well a student plays in the audition. (A family friend encouraged me to be a tuba player because they thought I could get a full scholarship because everyone needs tuba players.) We need to instead be thinking about what type of social community we are cultivating at a university. As educators, we need to be evaluating a student’s aptitude rather than their level of achievement. We have to be careful about sending awards to students who already have tremendous advantages.
What can be done to bring more women into jazz?
What can be done to welcome more LGBTQIA students into the jazz community?