Jazz Education

Abstract

Abstract Jazz education is concerned specifically with learning to play jazz and with teaching students and others to be jazz musicians. This essay looks at the gradual emergence of jazz education as its own discipline and discusses common issues faced by jazz students and educators, including repertoire, learning style, ethnicity, and what jazz education is trying to achieve. It argues that jazz has many facets, some of which seem to appear more often in education than others. And it suggests that jazz education has a crucial role to play in the future of the jazz tradition. A comprehensive history of jazz education around the world has yet to be written, and what follows cannot be more than a thumbnail sketch. Material is scarce, and we rely, particularly for the early years, on personal accounts and oral histories stored in jazz archives, such as the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers, the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane, and the archive at Darmstadt, in Germany. Early players came from a wide range of musical backgrounds and trainings. Two patterns of learning jazz remain constant throughout the first half of the century. Some musicians had fewer lessons and learned more by experience, while others went through a formal training more influenced by classical music.