Feature: Stars Twinkle in MSU's Jazz Program

            MSU’s new jazz studies degree program has unfolded with great panache, led by the many star performers orbiting through its faculty.

            Imagine a film school with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep and Harrison Ford among its faculty.  

            Well, MSU’s new jazz degree program, in full swing now for a couple of years, boasts just that type of flair.  One of MSU’s best kept secrets (until now), the program has been blossoming under the direction many renowned performers among its faculty, stars who have made a flawless transition from the club scene to the Ivory Tower.

            Although jazz studies at MSU began in 1959, it entered a new era in 2001 with an undergraduate degree program, supported unanimously by the School of Music faculty.  Since then, enrollment has nearly doubled to 45 jazz majors this fall, with another 100 students taking jazz classes, joining performance ensembles, and enrolling in private lessons.

            Such rising numbers underscore the emergence of an academic program that stands out from those offered elsewhere.

WHAT’S SO SPECIAL?

            What makes the MSU jazz studies program stand out?  For starters, it makes an effort to incorporate living legends into the faculty.  MSU artists-in-residence have included such names as Branford Marsalis (1998-2000) and Wycliffe Gordon (2000-2002).   Every member of MSU’s jazz faculty has performed extensively with top-notch recording and performing artists and groups such as Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Bennett, Dinah Washington, and Wynton Marsalis, to name a few.  Most faculty members have their own groups and/or perform internationally with others.   Rodney Whitaker, Wess “Warmdaddy” Anderson and Vincent Gardner, for example, are members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.  MSU jazz faculty also perform and tour professionally as "The Professors of Jazz at MSU," one of the most exciting and innovative jazz ensembles in the country.

            Having a such a renowned, world-class faculty has fostered a campus environment conducive to the development of jazz musicians.  The MSU program has made a commitment to an integrated music education program,  performance, mentoring and community outreach.

            The program’s pedagogical approach to teaching jazz and improvisation is steeped in a bebop, swing, soul and blues tradition.  Students are taught the same way legendary jazz musicians learned—to trust their musical instincts.  They are taught to use their ears in learning improvisation while maintaining the traditional standards of music sight-reading, theory and arranging skills.

            “Charles Mingus once said, ‘Jazz is the art of the moment,’ ” recalls Rodney Whitaker, director of the MSU Jazz Studies Program. “The only way young musicians can truly learn about and understand jazz is to have the knowledge and passion passed down from each generation, and to be around people who can play.

            “You would have to go to school in New York City to get a jazz education like this—straight from jazz performers themselves.”

UNIQUE PEDAGOGY

            Students put this unique teaching method to the test through the presentation of numerous student ensemble performances, more than 10 on campus alone each semester. In addition, jazz faculty, students and guest artists collaborate in annual campus presentations of the Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday celebration concert and the ‘Jazz Spectacular’ concert series. Students and faculty also participate in substantive outreach initiatives throughout Michigan, and in an off-campus program that includes bookings for receptions, parties and gigs at local restaurants.

            One component of MSU jazz studies is participation in community residencies throughout Michigan.  Through the Detroit Public School Music Partnership (DPSMP), the jazz area conducts programs, workshops, concerts and master classes with students in Detroit public schools.  Such outreach activities, along with student recruitment efforts, now reach cities throughout Michigan.

            “Almost halfof the current jazz majors were recruited from inner city Detroit,” notes Whitaker.  “This is usually unheard of, except when it comes to sports recruiting.”  

            Students can also attend master classes with many renowned jazz musicians who perform at the Wharton Center for Performing Arts on the MSU campus.  In 2002-03, master classes with Wynton Marsalis, Kenny Baron, and Eric Reed were offered.  When the Wharton Center commissioned Billy Taylor, Vana (Werner Gierig), Kenny Baron and Brazilian jazz composer Elaine Elias for special performances, the School of Music offered master classes with these artists for the benefit of MSU students.

            “It’s important to support jazz in this way,” says William Wright, director of the Wharton Center.  “It’s an all-American arts discipline, with a rich heritage and growing audience.”

            The program prepares MSU graduates to enter the international jazz scene to work with repertory jazz ensembles; become recording artists, record producers, and educators; and work with performing arts organizations.

            “My ultimate goal is to develop the jazz program into one of the premiere jazz programs in the world,” says Whitaker.

WHY STUDY JAZZ?

            Jazz is America’s only true musical art form, one of our nation’s two cultural contributions to the world (the other being baseball).

            It is worthy of study from cultural and historical perspectives.  The musical form or genre can trace its roots back to the sultry, back-alley jazz joints of turn-of-the-century New Orleans.  By the advent of Speakeasies in the 1920s, jazz had spread as far as Kansas City, Chicago and New York.  Michigan, especially the Detroit area, produced numerous legendary jazz musicians.  Today, it thrives around the globe from New York to France, Germany and Japan.

            Jazz’s influence is taken from an array of musical genres—notably African rhythms, but also New Orleans ragtime marching bands, up-beat brass bands, slave songs, spirituals, gospel, blues and European marches and melodies. The “Cake Walk,” an African American dance at the turn of the century, was transformed by jazz into the “Lindy Hop.”  But, perhaps because of rock-n-roll’s rise in the 1950s, it never rose to become America’s national dance.

            Although not easily defined, jazz incorporates the elements of improvisation and swing–the drive that makes you want to tap your feet or get up and dance. Through improvisation, the melody is recreated in new, creative ways.  Jazz musicians usually memorize their music, choosing predictable tunes and melodies to create a common language among themselves, while at the same time creating a complex form of sporadic themes and variations. The bass, drums, guitar and piano provide the rhythm and harmony, while the soloist creates improvised variations of the tunes. The format is interchangeable, allowing the soloists plenty of avenues on which to stray, depending on their mood or inspiration of the moment.

            No other musical form allows you to learn so much about the person behind the instrument than jazz. Jazz is very personable and passionate, allowing for such incredible creativity of expression and style. With this comes the ability to form strong connections with its audiences.

            Jazz has been a major component in breaking the racial barrier. Its history is intertwined with the history of the black experience in America. Ironically, this freestyle art form was created by those who were once restrained from the liberties of the so-called ‘land of the free.’

            As Whitaker explains, “Jazz is like a musical democracy; when you get on the bandstand to play, it doesn’t matter what color you are; what matters is if you can play—and anyone can speak that language.”

            James Forger, director of the MSU School of Music, strongly supports MSU’s jazz degree program as many others are now emerging at universities throughout the world.

            "The Jazz Studies Program diversifies the School of Music curriculum, student body and faculty, while attracting talented students who benefit the entire student population," Forger notes. "The quality of any program is based on its faculty, and with the support of the provost, we continue to attract preeminent faculty members who participate in outreach and professional jazz concerts throughout the United States, Asia and Europe.

            “Our next major step will be to fund an ambitious jazz studies endowment, which will assist in our efforts to recruit and retain highly talented and worthy students in the Jazz Studies Program."

THE PROGRAM’S EVOLUTION

            Before 1959, MSU did not have a jazz program, even though it produced  Clare Fischer (see Winter 1988), ’51, M.M. ’55, who rose to international fame as a composer, arranger, conductor, pianist and music educator.  Indeed, jazz was banned from the MSU Music Building at the time, since many believed that a university was not the right environment for it. 

            "We were forbidden to play any jazz in the music building,” recalls Fischer, noting that “jazz police” patrolled the music building and evicted anyone playing jazz.  So he performed jazz concerts elsewhere, such as the MSU Union.

            Fischer said he would often get in trouble for the jazz-like harmonies and chords he chose while composing concert pieces in the Music Building. “We had to play conservatively, but I didn’t always play by the rules,” he says.  “It wasn’t until after I graduated and came back as a guest artist to speak and perform that jazz was finally accepted in the School of Music.”

            Despite such opposition, Fischer went on to enormous professional success as arranger, conductor, pianist, jazz educator, and international performer.  He arranged the critically acclaimed A Portrait of Duke Ellington for Dizzy Gillespie. Classical concert artist Richard Stoltzman commissioned Fischer to write The Duke, Swee’pea and Me and Sonatine for Clarinet and Piano. He has written for a slew of renowned artists, including Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan and Rufus, The Jacksons, Michael Jackson, Prince, Paul McCartney, Robert Palmer, and Spike Lee just to name a few. He has won two Grammy Awards, one for his albums “Salsa Picante plus 2 + 2” and the other for “Free Fall.” He has recorded more than 45 albums as leader and has arranged, composed and/or played on another 100 plus albums for other recording artists. 

            In 1985, Fischer received the Distinguished Alumni Award from MSU, and in December 1999, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts Degree from MSU in recognition of his “creativity and excellence as a jazz composer, arranger and performer…”

            Another School of Music “Distinguished Alumnus,” William Brohn (see Fall 1993), ’55, renowned for his many Broadway orchestrations, took delight in performing another form of condemned music at the time—pop music, which had a peripheral connection to jazz.  Brohn, who studied music theory in the 1950s, performed with dance bands outside the School of Music.  Later in his career, he used elements of jazz and pop music to orchestrate some of his Broadway musicals—including West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Crazy For You, Secret Garden, Showboat, Miss Saigon, Oliver, and Ragtime, for which he won a Tony Award.  In the 1960s, he orchestrated four movies—Endless Love, Blue Thunder, War Games, andWhose Life Is It, Anyway?  He received a Grammy nomination for orchestrating Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures.

            The jazz ban finally ended in 1957, when a music fraternity performed the first jazz concert ever in the School of Music auditorium. This was when Owen Reed, professor of composition and an advocate of jazz, became interim director of the School of Music.  Reed was Fischer’s professor and was a longtime member of MSU’s Geriatric Six Plus One band, which entertains tailgaters at Spartan Stadium with their Dixieland sound.

            The jazz program officially began in 1959, but the course titles were disguised to avoid offending anyone.  Gradually jazz gained more recognition and acceptance within the School of Music.  In the 1970s, Ron Newman taught the first improvisation classes in the program and became the first full-time director of jazz studies from 1980-95.  As director, he put the elements in place for a degree program.  Andrew Speight, who took over as director in 1996, laid the foundation for the Detroit Public School Music Partnership and brought in the first prominent artists to the faculty—Branford Marsalis and Wycliffe Gordon.

           Jill McMillan is the information officer for the MSU School of Music.

RODNEY WHITAKER, DIRECTOR

            Rodney Whitaker is a leading performer and teacher of jazz double bass.  He has been featured on hundreds of compact disc recordings and was voted one of the 300 most influential musicians of all time.  He performed with the Terence Blanchard Quintet and toured with the Roy Hargrove Quintet.  He can be heard in the film scores for Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever and Malcolm X. Whitaker composed the film score for China, a Jeff Wray film released on PBS in Fall 2002.

             “This is what we do as jazz musicians—we search for and identify those among us who possess the talent, nurture that talent, and pass down the knowledge,” says Whitaker. “My way of giving back is through teaching.”

            "Whitaker’s connections to the Detroit jazz scene have opened the door to many opportunities for the University and the Jazz Studies Program," says Wendy K. Wilkins, dean of the College of Arts & Letters.  “It is most appropriate that America's premiere land grant university become the home of the country's premiere jazz program."

• One opportunity to hear MSU’s jazz faculty perform is with the College of Arts & Letters’ annual “Chicago Jazz Train” trip in April.  For more information, call 517-353-4725.
• If you wish to help the MSU Jazz Studies Endowment, send your donations to:  College of Arts & Letters, Office of Development, 101 Linton Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI  48824-1044.  Make check payable to MSU and include “Jazz Studies endownment.”  For more info, call 517-353-4725.