On and Off the Bandstand

I’ve taught music workshops at countless schools, Orff associations, music education conferences, senior centers, jazz centers, school parent meetings and even in unexpected situations, like at an Apple Computer retreat, a Community food Store, Zen Center, mime school, men’s group retreat, hippie commune, family reunion and yet more. But last week was the first time I’ve taught at a Jazz Festival. The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, to be exact, held at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho.

I always thought I had a potential place in this venue, working not only with young children and families, but also middle school/high school/ college bands, offering a different doorway into the music they’re playing. Put away the music stand and chair, set your instrument off to the side, come into the circle and let’s play some clapping games or ring plays, scat sing using the first sounds of our names in conversation with partners, play some body music, move our bodies and even learn a simple dance— and then go back to your instruments and transpose everything we’ve done and notice how it feels different. The testimony is that indeed it does. And everyone’s had a helluva lot more fun getting there, while also discovering that there’s more work to be done on their rhythmic, vocal and dancing skills!

So it went with a Middle School band I worked with, confirming that indeed I have a place in the ecosystem of jazz education and an important one at that. As well as giving two presentations to some 50 and then 300 elementary kids helping them understand what makes jazz jazz through a demonstration with a house band, two speech/song/clapping games and a chance for 4 kids to improvise on Orff xylophones with the band backing them. I also gave them vital historical and cultural background at a child-friendly level and connected jazz to the promise of the “land of the free and the home of the brave” that exists on the bandstand and needs to move out into our actual culture and political discourse. 

Consider: Freedom is one of the most casually tossed about words with little understanding of what’s required to achieve it. It is not a passive noun, but the most muscularly challenging verb in our language, requiring the full measure of our resolve, discipline, intelligence and determination to achieve even a sliver of its promise. To be free is to have unshackled oneself from one’s own limitations, ignorances, crippling doubts and the sense of unworthiness that comes both from parents, teachers and peers without and our own nagging shadows within. Jazz, with its invitation to rigorous training, deep understanding and intention to break free from the confines of our narrow selves, is the practice of freedom, the voice of freedom proclaimed in an exuberant and masterfully crafted solo. Witness Louis Armstrong’s 1928 groundbreaking work in The West End Blues, his solo soaring over and beyond the confines of measured bars and beats. Witness Charlie Parker, who flew so high and free into the air that he was nicknamed “Bird.”

To step onto the jazz bandstand is to enter the “home of the brave,” where those courageous enough to risk themselves plunge into the unknown of the solo in full view of a listening audience, not knowing precisely which note will come out next and whether it will be true and genuine and worthy of the audience’s listening ear. We have superficial notions of what courage looks like, but the most courageous person is the one has dared to be herself and presented that authentic self without apology in public. Just about the hardest thing a person can do and jazz is one of the finest training grounds for it.

I went on to talk to the kids about how jazz is the way we all should talk to each other, each one with a unique voice and role and point of view which combines with the others to make something yet more beautiful than each voice alone. And how boring it would be if instead of bass, drums, sax and piano we were four pianos all talking the same way. So off the bass goes walking and then I introduce his friend the drum, who walks alongside and offers different things to look at and listen to as they walk. Then the sax comes in with its story, “Hey, want to hear what I did last night?” and off he goes and finally the piano comes in and inserts little comments “Oh, really?” “And then what happened?” “Wow, that’s interesting.” Still later, the bass, drums and piano get to tell their own little stories and at the end, they all join together on one agreed-upon story—ie, the melody of the song. In this case, it was the 12-bar blues tune Now’s the Time. And at the end, I reminded the kids that indeed, now is the time to talk to each other off the bandstand the way we do on the bandstand— inviting, respecting, encouraging and celebrating each unique voice, listening with attention and adjusting to each other (the way we play quitter during the bass solo), responding to each other with little “oh, yeahs!” and “Amen!” and coming together with an agreed-upon song that we all know how to sing. That’s how families should be, how schools should be, how people should work together in Congress. 

So while I value the kind of specific jazz work I can offer to the mostly seated chart-reading bands, this way of talking to the younger kids and families and potential jazz fans feels equally important. Because of my peculiar combination of interests and almost 50 years of practice working with children and beginners of all ages, I believe I have something unique to contribute to Jazz Festivals worldwide. And there are a lot of them.

Any Festival organizers reading this? I’m your guy and I’m available!