Like Being in Love

“What a day this has been, what a rare mood I’m in, why, it’s almost like being in love…”

 

This the song I listened to driving back from the second day of my Jazz Course. Perfectly appropriate for the occasion. Such a joy to get to teach this class again after a four-year forced respite.

 

The first 5-day Jazz Course I ever taught combining my two loves of Orff and Jazz was in 1988 at Hamlin University in St. Paul, Minnesota. I am thankful to Orff teacher Jane Frazee for inviting me to do so and yet more thankful that she agreed to run the course (at a reduced salary, as appropriate) when I only had six students registered. Off we went into this previously unexplored territory and at the end, they gifted me with a Lake Wobegon T-shirt where they had embroidered, “The First Six.” I took this as a prophetic vision that this was a class that would continue on and make a splash in the world of music education. 

 

Continue it did, every year in San Francisco from 1990 to 2018 and on to other sites as well— Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Montreal, Halifax in Canada, to Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, to Iceland, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Germany, to Australia, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore. The last live Jazz Course— and the most extraordinary of them all— was in New Orleans in 2019. The splash I hoped for is more like a drip in the big picture, but nevertheless, I persist.

 

Then the pandemic, the post-pandemic reluctance to gather in live courses and finally, this live version back in one of my truest homes, the music room of The San Francisco School. Driving there the first day and standing in a circle with the 14 participants, I expected bells to ring and the heavens to open up, but truth be told, driving there felt like a reflex as familiar as putting on an old beloved shirt and though the music room greeted me warmly, it has changed enough that I needed to adjust a bit. That said and done, I loved sitting again in my old pink chair and playing the bass xylophone that is still going strong after 49 years and partly responsible for me landing my job at the school. 

 

For years, I fretted about fitting everything I had to say about this enormous subject, sharing every game, dance, song and instrumental arrangement I thought everyone should know into a mere five or six days. Now I am relaxed picking a few key things, taking time with them, going more deeply into them and feeling comfortable with “leave them wanting more.” And so I happily turn toward Day Three with a solid plan in mind and clear knowledge that each minute of the seven hours will be a delight.

 

And so, the First Six, you were right. The Jazz Course lives on!