Jazz Schools a Good or Bad Thing?

[blind-blake]

Perhaps this topic was broached before, but what the heck. I was recently contemplating the fact that there aren't as many unique jazz "stylists" as there used to be. (Are there any today?) I mean, there were so many players in previous decades for whom you only had to hear a few notes and you knew it was them. Coleman Hawkins, Lee Konitz, Johnny Hodges, Jaki Byard, Lennie Tristano, Art Tatum, Gerry Mulligan, Sidney Bechet, Lucky Thompson, Bud Powell, Monk (of course), Errol Garner, Wynton Kelly, Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner, Jackie McLean, Ornette Coleman, Horace Silver, Lou Donaldson, Larry Young, Frank Rosolino, Clifford Brown, Louis Armstrong, Eric Dolphy, Benny Carter, I mean the list is practically endless. Unfortunately, I have to struggle to think of players today who demonstrate the same kind of individuality. Could this be because the majority of professionals these days are graduates of formal jazz schools, where they are taught by the same people using the same curricula and therefore sound the same? Is it simply a lack a creativity? Any thoughts? Thanks.

NOTE: Please forgive me if I have insulted any jazz educators or players out there. I just want to understand the music better.

Edited April 19, 2009 by blind-blake

[Jim Alfredson]

It's a lot more complicated than that. Plenty of "blame" to go around, if that's what you want to do. Lack of a club circuit, lack of mentoring, lack of youth support (in terms of listeners), and lack of support from people who claim to be jazz fans. I was just talking about this with a local DJ last night and he told me that a "young", famous saxophonist told him at one point that he's not competing against Joshua Redman or Brandford Marsalis or his contemporaries. He's competing against a 50 year old Joe Henderson recording.

My concern with jazz education is what are you educating these people for? There's simply not enough work out there. It's not like every city has a big band to earn a living with (like a symphony).

[JSngry]

I used to blame the schools/techers/curriculum/etc, & I still don't hold them above reproach, but I've come to realize that the root of the prolem might weel be the students, who come to school expecting to be taught how to be a jazz musician instead of looking for a chance to become one themselves. When there's beaucoup buckage to be made by teaching standardization, hey, that money will be made. Complain all you want about cooki-cutter sounds and styles - bottom line is that this is what the kids come to schoool wanting to get taught.

Just another sign that the commingling of social world(s) that created the great individuals of jazz no longer exists in any meaningful measure on any particularly unstoppable scale. Once anything reaches the stage where it can be codified and teached en masse, then it's no longer "of the now".

Of course, this is all complicated by recordings, the ability to hear a bunch of things that are, like, 50 years old for the very first time and get the gut feeling that they're all happening RIGHT NOW, which is as it should be, becuase the meat of the music., its spirit, is eternal. But it's also a lie of sorts, becuase no, it's not 50 years ago, and yes, a buttload of stuff has happened since then, so the "now" of 50 yeas ago and the "now" of now can't possible be the same in any way except the abstract.

Edited April 19, 2009 by JSngry

[7/4]

My concern with jazz education is what are you educating these people for? There's simply not enough work out there. It's not like every city has a big band to earn a living with (like a symphony).

Classical musicians (& composers too) have the same problem - lack of jobs.

There was a series of articles in the NY Times a few years ago about how most folks who went to the big music schools in NY didn't even end up working in the business.

Once a musician gets a job in an orchestra or teaching in the school, they hold on to it for life. So there isn't much room for anybody else....

[blind-blake]

It's a lot more complicated than that. Plenty of "blame" to go around, if that's what you want to do. Lack of a club circuit, lack of mentoring, lack of youth support (in terms of listeners), and lack of support from people who claim to be jazz fans. I was just talking about this with a local DJ last night and he told me that a "young", famous saxophonist told him at one point that he's not competing against Joshua Redman or Brandford Marsalis or his contemporaries. He's competing against a 50 year old Joe Henderson recording.

My concern with jazz education is what are you educating these people for? There's simply not enough work out there. It's not like every city has a big band to earn a living with (like a symphony).

I hear what you're saying about jobs. But what about the actual sound or style of individual players? Why are there so few individual sounding jazz musicians? I don't think that has anything to do with mentoring or lack of support.

[Jim Alfredson]

Of course it does. How can you develop a singular style of your own if you have nowhere to play? Or if you have no one to mentor you and point out your flaws? Or if you can't get firsthand knowledge and critique from your peers because there's no scene?

[blind-blake]

I used to blame the schools/techers/curriculum/etc, & I still don't hold them above reproach, but I've come to realize that the root of the prolem might weel be the students, who come to school expecting to be taught how to be a jazz musician instead of looking for a chance to become one themselves. When there's beaucoup buckage to be made by teaching standardization, hey, that money will be made. Complain all you want about cooki-cutter sounds and styles - bottom line is that this is what the kids come to schoool wanting to get taught.

Just another sign that the commingling of social world(s) that created the great individuals of jazz no longer exists in any meaningful measure on any particularly unstoppable scale. Once anything reaches the stage where it can be codified and teached en masse, then it's no longer "of the now".

Of course, this is all complicated by recordings, the ability to hear a bunch of things that are, like, 50 years old for the very first time and get the gut feeling that they're all happening RIGHT NOW, which is as it should be, becuase the meat of the music., its spirit, is eternal. But it's also a lie of sorts, becuase no, it's not 50 years ago, and yes, a buttload of stuff has happened since then, so the "now" of 50 yeas ago and the "now" of now can't possible be the same in any way except the abstract.

I hear what you're saying about the "commingling of social worlds that created the individuals?" But why do you think the kids want to come to school to sound just like everybody else? What's that all about? I wonder if there is some kind of peer pressure at work here. And I wonder how someone like a young Thelonious Monk would have fared at a jazz school today.

[JSngry]

...why do you think the kids want to come to school to sound just like everybody else? What's that all about?

The first word that comes to mind would be "cluelessness". About so many things. That's a little bit harsh, though, so let me take a pass on that one until I can fins a way to say the same ting in a nicer way.

[JSngry]

I wonder how someone like a young Thelonious Monk would have fared at a jazz school today.

not only do I doubt that a young Thelonious Monk would be attending a jazz school today, a part of me is convinced that he would not even be playing what today is called "jazz". He'd probably be doing so Mike Ladd-ish shit, or something like that, Or not. Like I said, it's just a part of me that is convinced of that. But it's a part that I believe more and more as the days go by.

[ejp626]

My concern with jazz education is what are you educating these people for? There's simply not enough work out there. It's not like every city has a big band to earn a living with (like a symphony).

Classical musicians (& composers too) have the same problem - lack of jobs.

There was a series of articles in the NY Times a few years ago about how most folks who went to the big music schools in NY didn't even end up working in the business.

Once a musician gets a job in an orchestra or teaching in the school, they hold on to it for life. So there isn't much room for anybody else....

Could definitely say the same thing about higher education, particularly PhDs in the humanities. Things are slightly better in social sciences, sciences and engineering. But now in English students coming out with a brand new PhD have less than a 50% chance of landing a tenure track position at a 4 year university. It's probably slightly better for history and geography, considerably worse for philosophy and languages. So some schools are belatedly cutting down on the number of grad students they accept, but this is kind of a vicious circle as it really undercuts morale in these departments. Maybe it was unrealistic for academe to escape market pressures, but they have certainly caught up big time. In general, it is becoming clear that if you aren't going to participate in the market economy as a wage slave, you will have less than a 50% chance of pursuing your dreams as a musician, as a historian, as a scholar, and you will be severely punished if you fail.

In general, I think a really creative individual starting out now wouldn't choose to become a jazz musician (obviously there are certain exceptions), but it is too much like working in a dead or least frozen language. And certainly part of this is opportunities in other areas. I'm trying to remember if it was Ben Webster or someone else that said when he was starting out, if you were an ambitious Black man there were three avenues to pursue: music, the church and pimping. That's not really the case anymore. The church is probably roughly as lucrative, and drugs have largely but not entirely supplanted pimping. The military, athletics, rap, web design are all far more stable and lucrative careers than being a jazz musician. I imagine that a lot of well-meaning people get into jazz via school, but they simply are not the cream of the crop the way they would have been a couple of generations ago (if jazz curriculum existed in the same way). I'm sure there will be a handful of isolated geniuses that are driven to express themselves in jazz, but for the most part I think they have gone elsewhere.

[.:.impossible]

I was just thinking today about starting a topic for the musicians in the forum...

Some of my favorite memories of elementary and middle school are when working bands would come in and give a "workshop". They would talk about certain compositional devices before and after playing a piece. They would talk about certain improvisational devices before playing an example. They would then improvise freely after introducing all of these different ideas. We would all go nuts. It really was a lot of fun, and an mind-expanding experience.

Actually, this didn't happen. But it does now, in the schools I used to attend. "Difficult" music being presented to fourth graders, seventh graders, you name it... the results are yet to be seen, but the reception has been very positive, both from teachers and students.

[blind-blake]

Of course it does. How can you develop a singular style of your own if you have nowhere to play? Or if you have no one to mentor you and point out your flaws? Or if you can't get firsthand knowledge and critique from your peers because there's no scene?

I see what you mean. Yes, that makes perfect sense. Thanks!!

[blind-blake]

I wonder how someone like a young Thelonious Monk would have fared at a jazz school today.

not only do I doubt that a young Thelonious Monk would be attending a jazz school today, a part of me is convinced that he would not even be playing what today is called "jazz". He'd probably be doing so Mike Ladd-ish shit, or something like that, Or not. Like I said, it's just a part of me that is convinced of that. But it's a part that I believe more and more as the days go by.

Interesting! Yes, I could see Thelonious Monk doing something very different, as well. I'll have to check out this Mike Ladd character!

[papsrus]

Speaking as a listener, the thought occurred to me that maybe there's a more (for lack of a better term) holistic approach to music today. If particular musicians aren't by and large instantly recognizable, certain bands or groups of musicians certainly are, IMO.

I was listening to Ellery Eskelin with Andrea Parkins and Jim Black earlier. While the sound Eskelin gets out of his horn may not be unique, there's no other band that sounds quite like those three, as far as I know. I can think of a dozen other examples off the top of my head.

Vandermark is certainly distinctive. Several of Dave Douglas' bands are instantly recognizable (Tiny Bell Trio, for one). Jarrett is pretty instantly recognizable, I'd say. He's an established musician, but still. Crispell and probably Melford are pretty recognizable. Dave Holland's bands. ... You get the drift.

But with all of these folks -- except for Jarrett and Vandermark maybe, although even with them -- it's not so much a distinctive sound they get out of their instruments that makes them instantly recognizable, but rather the music they create as a whole.

Also, there's a pretty broad palette of styles going on today -- much more so than in any of the pre-'60s eras, I'd guess -- from straight ahead to free to world to funk to big band to folk-influenced, and on and on.

All this is not to say there aren't deficiencies in the music scenes that others have noted. I'm sure there are. But clusters of creative musicians do exist. And it seems to me there's a pretty broad range of music happening these days.

Just thoughts.

[JSngry]

I just want to add that there are a few jazz educators present on this board, and I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I don't mean any disrespect for their efforts. I've had conversations with various jazz-ed faculty members over the years, and I know that the pressures from many sides make teaching jazz anything but the idyllic picnic we'd like to think that it could - or should - be. The demands are that of so many other jobs - keep the customer satisfied, or else.

So I still say that ultimately it comes down to the students. You got too many people wanting to be a "jazz musician" based on what they think a "jazz musician" is, and that's an image built on fantasy, romanticism, and all sorts of various and sundry other bullshits. And if you get the hose out and try and wash away too much bullshit too firmly, well, that's not the object of the university's game. Hell, even back in 71 or 72, Cecil Taylor flunked over half of his jazz history class at UWIS(?) for not really grasping the essence of what he was teaching - and keep in mind, this was just jazz history, not his music or anything else. Cecil Taylor then got flunked by the University and was out of work.

[seeline]

Jim, I wonder if you're being a tad to harsh re. very young people?

I also think that what's being discussed in this thread is true for every single person who's majoring in (or has majored in) the visual and performing arts at university level. The reason I say that is that I've got a BFA that more or less collects dust; have had it for a long time. I *do* wish I'd studied something more "practical" as a minor, but overall, I'm not sorry that I took the arts path.

Also, I think it's important to see this - choosing jazz studies (or whatever) - in the larger context of career change. Most people today don't stay in one career for their entire lives. (Things have changed pretty radically since the 60s and 70s...) I think there are skills - very much including self-discipline - that can be honed in any arts program and applied to other fields of study/careers.

Academia in general (or US academia, at least) is ridiculously intent on overspecialization - and that's likely part of the problem for students and faculty alike. It's affected me in terms of certain career options (more like non-options) pretty directly. I couldn't pursue museum archival work because i didn't have any degree in archival studies - never mind the fact that I already had a *lot* of background and some practical experience in the field. I think this kind of thing happens to too many people, every year - lots of them coming directly from undergrad and grad programs.

Edited April 20, 2009 by seeline

[JSngry]

Jim, I wonder if you're being a tad to harsh re. very young people?

Well, you say "young people" like they're all the same, and no of course they're not. And by "very young" people, I assume you mean anybody old enough to vote, smoke, marry, commit felonies and be tried as an adult, voluntarily serve in the armed forces, in short, make adult decisions based on what they think their needs are at the time, including what kind of a musical path they want to be put on.

And the anecdotal evidence I hear overwhelmingly suggests a scenario where the students come in not wanting to be challenged to find their own voices but to be taught a "style", or a collection of "styles" that will enable them to "be" a "jazz musician.

And if they don't get it, they bitch about it. People get unhappy. Schools need the business and they don't want unhappy customers. So you can figure out what happens from there.

The fact of the matter is simple - really creative people will find a way. For them, school can provide an invaluable workshop. Or it can prove to be a prison of stifling proportions. I've seen it go both ways.

But it's also another fact of the matter that there aren't that many creative people in the world. Never have been, never will be. If you set up a program based on separating the creative from the craftsman, well, let's just hope that by "craftsman", you're referring to Sears products, because otherwise you'll be out of business before sunset.

Let's not forget that a university program is constantly under pressure to prove itself worthy of funding, be it increased, sustained, or just flat out not getting terminated. During the Baby Boom years, programs of all sorts could afford to "challenge", because A) it was expected & B) there was a constant supply of customers. Now, money's tight, bodies are more scarce, so if some hot-shot freshman alto player walks in and learns all the licks and is totally devoid of personality, calling him aside and metaphorically cutting his balls off and telling him to come back when he grows a pair of his own is not something that is going to be institutionally sanctioned, if you know what I mean.

People ask why "jazz education" is training people for gigs that don't exist. Hell, that's a question that's been asked for as long as I can remember, going back to the earliest 1970s. The answer is easy - there is a market. It's a business for the schools, the educators, and god knows, for the authors and publishers of instructional materials. "Real world" only comes into play when it has too, usually when a student starts getting called for gigs and realizes that a whole BIG bunch of what he learned at school ain't got shit to do with playing a nice quiet solo on "Ipanema" in a lounge and then a loud simple one on "Shotgun" a few nights later at a wedding. That's when the young innocent gets dark and thinks that it's a world full of ignorant-ass bullshit & jive, no-hearing motherfuckers. Hell, that should be Introductory Lesson 101, not Post-Grad 704!

Again - there are some great people in the jazz-ed field, and there are some great pockets in some programs where The Ones are allowed to fly, and The Many can just go on ahead and learn their craft for a future of...whatever. But too often I've heard stories of professional survival depending on not rocking the boat and just keeping the customer satisfied, not matter what that entails, so long as it's not total bullshit. And for that, I do in large part blame the students, who far too often and for far too long have been conditioned to think that "success" is a right, not an uncertainty, and that if they ain't learnin', it's becuase you ain't teachin'. Now how are you going to confront an attitude like that with the reality of "first you learn the blues, then you learn rhythm changes, then you forgot all that shit and just PLAY!", as Bird so succinctly put it? Hell, students would rebel, parents would petition the dean (it happens!), all hell would break loose, and the truth would not be allowed to stand!

Jazz Education is not exempt from the softening of the challenges and rigors that result intellectual artistic character that has befallen the rest of our world. The supply rises or lowers itself in order to capture the demand. If the customers start showing up in droves asking to have their asses and souls mercilessly kicked until they find their own voice and the schools refuse, then I will stop blaming the customer first and foremost. Until then, it's a sad state of affairs with enough total blame to go around, but you gotta ask where it all begins. Young people have been brainwashed by the likes of you-know-who and others, but since when were young people so eager and so gullible to accept the status-quo?

What's up with THAT?

Edited April 20, 2009 by JSngry

[seeline]

Well, let me put it another way: Are your goals in life now the same as they were when you were 18? Were you ever extremely idealistic - to the point of being starry-eyed, maybe - about music, or dance, or painting, or...?

My thought on a lot of the issues being discussed in this thread is that they have more to do with the way colleges and universities are structured - and how there's a lot of regimentation to that - than anything else. (Which is one reason that I mentioned the "Let's overspecialize ourselves to death!" mentality that seems to be one of the results...)

What someone who's 16 or 19 thinks about being "an artist" (musician, painter, sculptor, composer, studio musician, novelist, poet, actor/actress, dancer - whatever) probably has very little to do with the harsher realities of all those professions - because the people in question are lacking in life experience. If anything, I think the unwillingness of arts educators to deal with cold, hard realities is one of the single biggest failings that kids who go into the arts encounter. (Again, I feel like I can say this because I was one of them.) There was technique and media and whatever up the wazoo, but *no* help - let alone pedagogy - in dealing with real life. (How to get a job and keep one, what art-related expenses are tax deductible, etc. etc.) There was literally no course that took that stuff into consideration at the liberal arts school I attended. I'll say this for the professional arts programs: they do take on these topics, and help prepare their students for the real world.

Academia is self-perpetuating to a large extent - if only so that the ivory tower types don't have their jobs taken by the kids in their classes. I don't think that's the fault of incoming students. (And yes, I'm cynical about many aspects of the educational system, due to being in close proximity to it for a long time. There's much that's good, but also much that needs to change.)

Edited to add: 7/4 said this many posts back. he's right.

Once a musician gets a job in an orchestra or teaching in the school, they hold on to it for life. So there isn't much room for anybody else....

Edited April 20, 2009 by seeline

[Hot Ptah]

I just want to add that there are a few jazz educators present on this board, and I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I don't mean any disrespect for their efforts. I've had conversations with various jazz-ed faculty members over the years, and I know that the pressures from many sides make teaching jazz anything but the idyllic picnic we'd like to think that it could - or should - be. The demands are that of so many other jobs - keep the customer satisfied, or else.

So I still say that ultimately it comes down to the students. You got too many people wanting to be a "jazz musician" based on what they think a "jazz musician" is, and that's an image built on fantasy, romanticism, and all sorts of various and sundry other bullshits. And if you get the hose out and try and wash away too much bullshit too firmly, well, that's not the object of the university's game. Hell, even back in 71 or 72, Cecil Taylor flunked over half of his jazz history class at UWIS(?) for not really grasping the essence of what he was teaching - and keep in mind, this was just jazz history, not his music or anything else. Cecil Taylor then got flunked by the University and was out of work.

The incident of Cecil Taylor flunking out his jazz history class at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, has become so legendary that I have not been able to find anyone who knows positively what happened there. I have read and heard several different versions. The version in print in the UW student newspaper for years was that he required all of the non-music majors to compose a worthy jazz composition, which they could not do, so they all got Fs. I have also heard one or more variations on the idea that he flunked out the class for not attending a Miles Davis concert on campus, or for not turning in their ticket stubs for the concert. I have read that some of the students actually attended the concert but had not kept their ticket stubs and still got Fs. The flunking incident has developed into a Rashomon situation.

I spent a day with a well known music professor from Madison about five years ago. He teaches a class in big band music, in addition to his performance classes. He was the guest speaker at our Kansas City alumni club annual dinner. I took him to the jazz sites in Kansas City (such as the Reno Club, now a surface parking lot), to the jazz museum at 18th and Vine, and to the best used record stores, which he really enjoyed. I asked him about Cecil Taylor. He said that he had been in the room when Cecil Taylor was fired. He said that it happened because Cecil was very abrupt, dismissive, positively rude to the Chairman of the Music Department. He said that the Chairman, in front of all of the tenured music faculty, asked Cecil about flunking his class, not in a challenging way, but to get more information about it, because the faculty did not know why Cecil had flunked them. (My guest said that he still does not know). With all of the rest of the tenured faculty looking on, Cecil told the Chairman to shut up, basically. Cecil refused to discuss it, when asked to do so by the Chairman of the Department. My guest repeated what Cecil's tone of voice and facial expressions were during this meeting. So Cecil was fired for that. My guest said that it was really a shame, because if Cecil had just answered the questions with a moderate degree of civility, just about any explanation would have been accepted.

[seeline]

Ptah - very interesting.

A lot of people who pursue M.A.s and Ph.Ds in visual arts and music do so with the express purpose of teaching. An M.A. in studio art isn't really necessary unless you intend to teach at the university level - which is how the people who do so get the financial stability to be able to work on their own stuff. (As you can imagine, there's very little turnover in those jobs!)

That said, I encountered many profs. who weren't really qualified to teach - they had no real background in/understanding of practical issues re. the transmission of information, how to give an informal lecture, and even - in some cases - how to carry on a conversation with a student and how to provide constructive criticism. What I'm trying to say is that a lot of people whose personalities and skills are ill-suited for teaching end up in teaching positions. And often, students suffer because of this.

So the stories you've just related about Cecil sound very believable to me - not because they're about Cecil, but because I've met academics who were every bit as arbitrary, difficult, demanding and abrupt as the Cecil of these stories. Even if the details aren't 100% true, the rest sounds all too real. (I hope it's not, but...)

Edited April 20, 2009 by seeline

[Hot Ptah]

Ptah - very interesting.

A lot of people who pursue M.A.s and Ph.Ds in visual arts and music do so with the express purpose of teaching. An M.A. in studio art isn't really necessary unless you intend to teach at the university level - which is how the people who do so get the financial stability to be able to work on their own stuff. (As you can imagine, there's very little turnover in those jobs!)

That said, I encountered many profs. who weren't really qualified to teach - they had no real background in/understanding of practical issues re. the transmission of information, how to give an informal lecture, and even - in some cases - how to carry on a conversation with a student and how to provide constructive criticism. What I'm trying to say is that a lot of people whose personalities and skills are ill-suited for teaching end up in teaching positions. And often, students suffer because of this.

So the stories you've just related about Cecil sound very believable to me - not because they're about Cecil, but because I've met academics who were every bit as arbitrary, difficult, demanding and abrupt as the Cecil of these stories. Even if the details aren't 100% true, the rest sounds all too real. (I hope it's not, but...)

That description of the ill qualified university teacher is not confined to those who teach music, or the arts!

[seeline]

Oh, absolutely! But I do think that some pretty outrageous behavior was tolerated - or maybe I should say "overlooked" - in my undergrad art department. There were (as in lots of other fields) a bunch of tenured profs who really shouldn't have been teaching. (In one case, the person was clearly very disturbed and hell-bent on tearing students down, emotionally and verbally. Two other profs used to get into public fistfights with each other. Some were alcoholics and/or drug abusers. They were scary.)

Edited April 22, 2009 by seeline

[A Lark Ascending]

Can't speak for the States, but when I hit the UK jazz festivals its usually the new, 20-something musicians that make my ears perk up. They strike me as just as inventive as the youngsters I was hearing thirty years ago.

It's also worth remembering that the great individualists of the past that we can admire on CD are the wheat; the chaff got blown away long ago. Can create the illusion that it was all wheat. I bet there were plenty of big bands stuffed to the gills with identikit players. In fact I suspect most big bands wanted that. I take the point that the playing/social conditions were such to provide a much more intense live training.

I'd echo the earlier point about limited employability being not just a music thing. Most people studying history or philosophy don't expect to make their living that way. In a totally utilitarian curriculum these subjects would all be pruned and replaced with ones of proven economic benefit. I'd like to think that having young people educated in music, history, philosophy etc and then becoming lawyers or accountants would have an overall enriching effect on society and rather than narrowing into pure, hard practicality. Just as long as music students are aware that after three years learning an instrument they might have to look for a different career path. They'll still have a set of skills that will enrich their lives and stand the chance of bringing pleasure to others in a social situation.

Probably works better in a music like folk music. The opportunities for amateur jazz musicians to play together must be limited, except where you get these very outward looking collectives. In folk music the 'everybody-all-join-in' type session is much more common. Go to a folk festival and alongside the professional paying gigs you'll find pubs full of session players, often of great skill. Some never pay any attention to the commercial events.

[Hot Ptah]

Can't speak for the States, but when I hit the UK jazz festivals its usually the new, 20-something musicians that make my ears perk up. They strike me as just as inventive as the youngsters I was hearing thirty years ago.

It's also worth remembering that the great individualists of the past that we can admire on CD are the wheat; the chaff got blown away long ago. Can create the illusion that it was all wheat. I bet there were plenty of big bands stuffed to the gills with identikit players. In fact I suspect most big bands wanted that. I take the point that the playing/social conditions were such to provide a much more intense live training.

I'd echo the earlier point about limited employability being not just a music thing. Most people studying history or philosophy don't expect to make their living that way. In a totally utilitarian curriculum these subjects would all be pruned and replaced with ones of proven economic benefit. I'd like to think that having young people educated in music, history, philosophy etc and then becoming lawyers or accountants would have an overall enriching effect on society and rather than narrowing into pure, hard practicality. Just as long as music students are aware that after three years learning an instrument they might have to look for a different career path. They'll still have a set of skills that will enrich their lives and stand the chance of bringing pleasure to others in a social situation.

Probably works better in a music like folk music. The opportunities for amateur jazz musicians to play together must be limited, except where you get these very outward looking collectives. In folk music the 'everybody-all-join-in' type session is much more common. Go to a folk festival and alongside the professional paying gigs you'll find pubs full of session players, often of great skill. Some never pay any attention to the commercial events.

Bev, I don't know about accountants, but the law schools in the United States have for decades been a refuge for college graduates with degrees in the humanities and arts, who did not know what to do next, and wanted a paying job when they were all done. Whether those people have an overall enriching effect on society when they come out of law school, I am not sure.

[Joe G]

Thank you Bev; all points I was wanting to make.

I was just talking with a friend of mine who is an excellent and multi-faceted drummer. He went to school here at Michigan State as a jazz performance major; afterwards, he went for a degree in speech pathology, the field in which he now works. He told me that he felt he had made back everything he had put into his jazz schooling and then some.

I'm a part-time instructor of jazz guitar at MSU now, and I try to impart to my students that music school is just a short stretch of road in what will hopefully be a long and varied musical life. I take pleasure in learning new music, materials, approaches, etc., and hopefully I impart that curiosity to my students. It's then up to them to decide what to do with what they learned.