School Jazz Research Articles

Director perspectives to equity, access, and inclusion in the school jazz ensemble

Arts and culture are increasingly acknowledged as pillars of society in which all of humanity including people who identify as’ LGBTQIA+ can contribute in 21st century society. United Nations and individual country initiatives continue to promote the notion of inclusive, egalitarian values that promote equal access and opportunity to chosen careers and passions. Jazz as an artform has evolved as a form of cultural expression, entertainment, and political metaphor, subject to societal and populist pressures that have created both a canon and popularized history. Jazz education has moved from largely informal to almost wholly formal and institutionally designed methods of learning and teaching. The jazz ensemble or stage band remains an enduring secondary education experience for most students learning jazz today. This qualitative study of music directors investigates their approaches, perspectives and concerns regarding attitudes and practices in the teaching profession, the promoting of inclusive practices, access, and equity, amidst a pervasive masculinized performance and social structure that marginalizes non-male participation. The study provides implications for how jazz education may continue to evolve in both attitude and enlightened access in the education of jazz learners.

“Perspektif”: Sebuah Komposisi Jazz untuk Band Kombo

Purpose: In this modern jazz composition entitled “Perspektif”, composers were exploiting 3 major aspects of music, which is: rhythm, melody and harmony. The main purpose in this piece is to persuade other composers to not only think creatively but to maximize and research deeply all the basic aspects of music. Research Methods: Modern jazz music can’t be separated from the old school jazz and classical music. The key to be making innovative and creative composition was by learning the music from the previous era. Results and Discussion: By learning the history and research deeply into all the basic aspects of music, the composers can easily come up with something innovative and creative, which in this case is combining jazz music instruments with different kind of sports as non-musical instrument. However, not only it features the sound of the sport but also playing advanced rhythm and filling the space what the music instruments can’t do. Implication: In the process of making this composition from 3 major aspects in music, the composers got enlightened that all of each aspect has many different ways to be looked at or played at. Since the composers named this piece “Perspektif” with a format of 4 pieces jazz combo, 2 guys playing badminton, 1 guy playing basketball and the other 2 doing boxing.

Cory Pesaturo: A Musician on a Mission

Cory Pesaturo: A Musician on a Mission

High School Jazz Band Directors’ Efficacious Sources, Self-Efficacy for Teaching Strategies, and Pedagogical Behaviors

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between high school jazz band directors’ efficacious sources, self-efficacy for teaching strategies, and pedagogical behaviors. Participants ( N = 264) completed the Jazz Band Director Self-Efficacy for Teaching Strategies Scale and responded to items about their formal and informal learning experiences, school characteristics, and demographics. Parental support was the best predictor of participants’ self-efficacy for jazz teaching strategies, followed by undergraduate participation in jazz performance and improvisation courses, school enrollment, and completing a doctorate or master’s degree. Participants with greater scores on self-efficacy for teaching strategies also indicted greater comfort for teaching various styles commonly performed by high school jazz bands and dedicated more class time to teaching improvisation and jazz theory. Jazz directors may improve their self-efficacy for teaching strategies by developing parental trust and engagement with the jazz program and seeking feedback from effective mentors when refining jazz teaching strategies.

Performing humbleness and haughtiness: dramaturgical perspectives of musical humility and pride

ABSTRACTIn this study I conduct a dramaturgical analysis to examine the performance of social identity among the members a competitive high school jazz band located in the western United States. Using dramaturgical theory (Goffman, E. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor Books.), which uses a metaphor with the theatre to interpret human interactions as manufactured social performances, I seek to dissect the underlying motivations concerning the band’s practice of musical humility (Coppola, W. J. 2019. “Musical Humility: An Ethnographic Case Study of A Competitive High School Jazz Band.” Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education 222: 7–26. doi:10.5406/bulcouresmusedu.222.0007). Specifically, I seek to understand the seemingly paradoxical presence of humility during performances and rehearsals alongside transient acts of arrogance as shared during interviews and observed behind-the-scenes. I present my findings through an arts-based storytelling approach divided into three parts: Act I, which explores the onstage symbiosis of the Grant Jazz Band; Act II, which focuses on backstage behaviours occurring during rehearsals and sectionals; and Act III, which examines offstage communications resulting from one-on-one interviews and other interactions occurring off the bandstand.

In Search of Effective Jazz Education: An Analysis and Comparison of Pedagogical Methods Employed by Directors of Successful High School Jazz Ensembles

In Search of Effective Jazz Education: An Analysis and Comparison of Pedagogical Methods Employed by Directors of Successful High School Jazz Ensembles

Musical Humility: An Ethnographic Case Study of a Competitive High School Jazz Band

Abstract For this research, I utilized an ethnographic case study to examine the role of humility within a competitive high school jazz band in the western United States. The current study draws from recent humility research stemming from the field of positive psychology and offers an initial understanding of these perspectives in music education. From this research, a 5-component definition of humility particular to musical participation was established, resulting in an emergent construct presently referred to as musical humility: (a) purposeful musical engagement and collaboration, (b) lack of superiority, (c) acknowledgement of shortcomings and learnability, (d) other-orientedness, and (e) healthy pride. This initial step in musical humility research contributes to the growing ontology of “humilities” currently identified within social psychology, including general humility, intellectual humility, cultural humility, and others. Through this study, I posit that musical experiences rooted in humility enable the enhancement of both musical and social relationships, which serve to cultivate other-oriented and prosocial ways of being both within music participation and society more broadly.

An Investigation of the Music Literature Being Performed at Jazz Band Music Performance Assessments in Florida

The purpose of this study was to examine the performance trends of middle school, junior/senior high school, and high school ensembles at District Florida Bandmasters Association (FBA) Jazz Band Music Performance Assessments (MPAs) from 2012 to 2017. More specifically, this study investigated the pieces, composers, and arrangers most frequently performed, and how many schools participated. Data were derived from a pool of compositions performed at FBA District Jazz Band MPAs between 2012 and 2017 ( N = 5,664). Of the pieces performed, there were 1,816 different compositions played. The compositions performed featured 619 different composers and 249 different arrangers. Additionally, 47.78% of schools involved in FBA had at least one jazz band perform during the 5-year period analyzed in this study. Overall, findings suggested that secondary school jazz bands in Florida have grown in popularity.

The Pioneering Role of the Sierpinski Gasket

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsTanya KhovanovaTanya Khovanova is a lecturer at MIT. She enjoys math and puzzles, as well as ballroom dancing. Email: tanyakh@yahoo.comEric NieEric Nie is a senior at Westborough High School in Massachusetts. He enjoys math and programming competitions, playing piano in his school jazz band, and playing tennis on his school team. Email: eric.nie.31415@gmail.comAlok PuranikAlok Puranik is a high school senior at Westford Academy in Massachusetts. He enjoys programming and math competitions, as well as playing alto sax in his school jazz band. Email: alokpuranik1@gmail.com

What Research Reveals About School Jazz Education

Though jazz has been a part of many school music programs for more than 40 years, relatively little research on jazz education exists. Despite this scarcity, a comprehensive examination of the extant literature could serve to inform practice and guide future studies. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to analyze and synthesize the extant research on school jazz education. The first section addresses research as it applies to jazz ensembles in general, while the second section addresses the research as it applies to jazz improvisation in particular. The article concludes with implications for music education.

“Play It Again, Billy, but This Time with More Mistakes”

The jazz ensemble represents an important performance opportunity in many school music programs. Due to the cultural history of jazz as an improvisatory art form, school jazz ensemble directors must address methods of teaching improvisation concepts to young students. Progress has been made in the field of prescribed improvisation activities and materials that use scales, arpeggios, and chord changes as bases for learning concepts. However, less effort has been devoted to creative improvisation, such as experimentation, personal discovery, and listening. This article describes benefits of devoting teaching time to such concepts and outlines three easy warm-ups: melodic variation, free improvisation, and limited-note exercises, all of which can be taught to young jazz ensembles along with harmonic and theory-based methods.

Preparing Middle School Music Teachers to Teach Jazz

This mixed-methods study combined qualitative and quantitative data to identify middle school music teachers who perceive themselves as highly effective jazz teachers and to uncover the experiences that have best prepared them to teach middle school jazz. Quantitative data suggested that (a) playing in college jazz ensembles, (b) taking a college jazz pedagogy course, (c) mentorship in jazz, and (d) taking a college improvisation course all significantly correlate with one’s perceived ability to teach middle school jazz. However, both qualitative and quantitative data indicated that listening to jazz and playing as a professional jazz musician are among the most closely associated experiences to perceived ability, suggesting that the college jazz experience, although important, may not be the most important way of preparing future middle school jazz educators.

The five improvisation ‘brains’: A pedagogical model for jazz improvisation at high school and the undergraduate level

The learning of jazz improvisation is often treated as the incorporation of stylistic vocabulary and development of technical dexterity. Although this methodology is effective, considering other aspects of jazz improvisation can make the learning process a more holistic and less technical endeavour. My experience teaching improvisation has led me to formulate a method based on the cognitive process of improvisation conceptualized as a multi-dimensional model consisting of five improvisational cognitive skills: performance of material; creation of material; continuation of ideas; structural awareness of the improvised material; and temporal awareness of the improvised events. This model indicates that, during improvised performance, the player shifts the focus from one cognitive skill to another; this ability to establish links between skills is what I define as improvisational intelligence. The proposed method develops this linking ability through exercises complementary to the more common methods of jazz improvisation. In this article I present the multi-dimensional model for improvisational cognition drawing from the existing literature. After breaking down the five cognitive aspects of the model and explaining how they work together, I provide exercises for each cognitive aspect in isolation and in conjunction. This method can be taught to high school and undergraduate jazz students and, with some modifications, to non-jazz musicians seeking to develop improvisation skills.

Schooling the future: Perceptions of Selected Experts on Jazz Education

Aspects of both the functionalist and interactionist schools in sociology consider formal education as a form of social reproduction. Despite the large number of students that participate in school jazz programs at the secondary level, very little research examines jazz education practices at this level. This paper is a re-interpretation of data collected for the author’s Master’s thesis that examines jazz education practices at the secondary level.
 
 Interviews of selected experts revealed that improvisation is considered fundamental to jazz curricula, and yet it is largely neglected in the performing practices of school jazz ensembles. The kinds of jazz education practices that exist in schools would seem to raise several important questions. With what kind of community of practice are students engaging? What kinds of meanings are students able to construct and negotiate, given the practice of performing commercial, Big Band arrangements? What message is communicated when improvisation is largely or completely neglected in school instruction, in favour of ‘polishing’ the sound of the orchestrated passages? School jazz education practices are examined through the theoretical lens of Lave and Wenger’s ‘situated learning,’ with implications presented for culture and society.

Peer Mentoring in a High School Jazz Ensemble

The use of peer mentoring in a successful high school jazz band was explored during one academic year of instruction using ethnographic techniques. Participants included primary informants (student jazz band members, director, assistant director, adult mentors) and secondary informants (guidance counselor, principal, parents, nonjazz band member students). Data analysis revealed that peer mentoring contributed to the success of a high school jazz band. Five themes emerged: (a) mentoring from the adult perspective, (b) peer mentoring for musicianship, (c) mentoring in rehearsals, (d) mentoring outside jazz band rehearsals, and (e) social mentoring. Suggestions for teacher educators include supporting, developing, and implementing peer mentoring, which can aid directors in instruction and rehearsal efficiency.

Florida, and: The Noonday Witch

FLORIDA / Roger Weingarten I drove the tail end of the hurricane into the outskirts of Orlando. Waves pressed the road from both sides and a woman impaled on a branch of sunlight rode the top of a Volkswagen bus floating on a lake where the pavement curved toward Bill's parents' house. I hadn't slept for two days. Cigarettes and hard-selling radio preachers helped me swerve around an armadillo, kept me awake. When I got there, he threw his suitcase into the boot and said, I can't take it one more minute. When I woke looking up at a gas jockey snapping gum and grinning through the windshield at my rolled and tufted face, Bill was confiding to the animal in the center of the steering wheel that he found his mother masturbating on the toilet, her light blue bath robe folded twice on the floor. Then you, he went on, in your red miracle of a Chevrolet, sailed in on the warm end of the storm. 64 · The Missouri Review And where did that get us? Almost Virginia, replied the attendant, leaning an elbow into the window. That'll be four dollars on the nose. We watched him grab a front bumper and swing into the dark underbelly of the car. He waved a finger knowing we couldn't help but admire his confidence and grace. Bill said when I was drummer for the school jazz band, I could play the solo from "Caravan" until they were climbing the bleachers—style like that doesn't live forever. He opened the door, crossed the road and started hitchhiking back to Florida. I pulled a U-turn in front of a school bus. The driver honked. Bill got in, smiled and said to the rear view mirror, you don't have to do this. But you forgot your suitcase. He didn't laugh at that one. I didn't care, but I wondered what it felt like to have a family so sharp in your gut that it could pin you in the air like a butterfly, pale green and fragile under glass. Roger Weingarten THE MISSOURI REVIEW · 65 THE NOONDAY WITCH / Roger Weingarten But for the pair of white surgical gloves, but for the jacaranda mimosa folia blossom pinned to a shoulder, and a cut-off pool cue brandished by an extremely small, tightly wound creature in a wet suit, fins, with a cleft chin squeezed like toes into a stocking, the fourteenyear -old daughter of the sexually assaulted, roadside tavern owner's widow insisted she knew the familiar sway of this would-be rapist crawling over sawdust after she drew a pistol from her waistband, a bead, and fired a round into the half fish, half human staggering toward the suburbs, where he snatched an octogenarian exstate congresswoman out of her second-floor verandah, who pulled her licensed handgun from an umbrella and fired, forced to chauffeur this would-be mugger to any outskirt sanctuary. Alerted by a neighborly ham radio aficionado, who happened to be hosing off under a shrub, a crew of drivers leaped from a wrecker. Sirens and blue lights died around the dry-rotting mausoleum of the once-great estate of a retired pornographer who gave himself the airs of a country squire. The cops hushed, waiting for a teetering, bronze torso over the door to fall upon the alleged 66 · The Missouri Review kidnapper, who bolted through a hole in a sarcophagus with hostage, laying rubber into a highspeed chase over washboard roads and nauseating switchbacks, rolling over in reverse into a forest that never slept. The escapee at daylight, breaking in his sidekick, attempted a B & E under a sod roof, where an American Legionnaire, firing a thirty-ought six and a hot coffee can of grease, apprehended the culprit. Successfully suing everybody, the octogenarian stepped out of retirement into a landslide, while the Legionnaire, awarded a plaque "for exceptional and meritorious conduct," opened a restaurant frequented by the Jacaranda Mimosa Folia Bandit after a quick release from a private asylum completely cured. Roger Weingarten THE MISSOURI REVIEW · 67 ...