Jackie McLean as a teacher

[Don]

Are there any good written accounts of his teaching by students? Recordings of lectures? Syllabi?

I've seen 'Jackie McLean on Mars', of course.

[mjzee]

Jackie talks about it a little here: http://bensidran.com/conversation/talking-jazz-jackie-mclean

[clifford_thornton]

Jimmy Greene talked about it quite a bit when I saw him perform a few years ago.

When I interviewed Jackie, I did get a strong "hanging out in the professor's office hours" vibe. Same with Archie Shepp. One can at least get a sense of the style.

 

[Ken Dryden]

I did an interview with Wayne Escoffery for a Hot House article a few years back when he discussed Jackie McLean's teaching. I don't know how much of it made it to print, as they rarely let anything run over 750 words or so.

[Rabshakeh]

There's one video that I've seen on Twitter of him berating a student who was dismissive of Sun Ra (or thought that Sun Ra's dress distracted from the music, or something).  It's out there somewhere. I'll see if I can dig it out later.

[mjazzg]

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

There's one video that I've seen on Twitter of him berating a student who was dismissive of Sun Ra (or thought that Sun Ra's dress distracted from the music, or something).  It's out there somewhere. I'll see if I can dig it out later.

I think that's from the aforementioned 'Jackie McLean on Mars' isn't it?  I've seen the clip more recently than the film and I'm not 100% sure

[sidewinder]

3 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

I think that's from the aforementioned 'Jackie McLean on Mars' isn't it?  I've seen the clip more recently than the film and I'm not 100% sure

I think I saw that film at one of the London Scala cinemas back in the day, in the era when they used to do ‘Jazz Film Seasons’ with 2-3 films in one sitting. Rhapsody Films figured quite strongly. I think it might have been on with that Bill Dixon film.

[Don]

Yes, the Sun Ra scene is from Jackie McLean on Mars.

On 1/21/2021 at 11:54 AM, mjzee said:

Jackie talks about it a little here: http://bensidran.com/conversation/talking-jazz-jackie-mclean

Great interview. Thank you!

[Don]

I've been corresponding with the helpful staff at the University of Hartford library. They don't have class notes and syllabi in their archive, but they do have class descriptions and course catalogues. They also have a few recordings from classes, but these are not available for download.