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HOW TOBeat The Combo/

Improvisation Shortageby Dr. William L. Fowler

and Dr. John Kuzmich, Jr.

32 D down beat

"TI here's something about jazz musicthat ignites fantasies which have to do withcreative thinking. And that's what the wholeworld needs today —more creative thinking.And improvisation is the basis of creativethought: it should be compulsory." —StanKenton at the NAJE Convention last Decem-ber.

I n Stan's audience was John Kuzmich,already doing something about creativity inthe jazz program at his school, UniversityCity High School in St. Louis. Less than twoyears ago, John set up a combo/improvisa-tion course, after having perceived that theschooJ's traditional stage band program wasnot serving all the needs of all the jazz-oriented students in his own and neighbor-ing schools.

Since daytime class scheduling mademulti-school participation impossible, andsince no one wished to interfere with thecore traditional music activities, John puthis initial combo/improvisation course intoan evening time slot through the School ofContinuing Education, with the blessing ofhis principal, Earl Seeks, who pointed out,"The jazz curriculum is not solely perform-ance-oriented. It reaches out to the generalstudent body."

Principal Seeks' prognostication provedright. The evening course reached out notonly to University City students, but to manyfrom other high schools, colleges, and theadult community, as well. Program expan-sion quickly followed, an expansion notedby the St. Louis press. And now there are sixcombos, a class in jazz/rock history, an ar-ranging course, and, equally important, per-formance, performance, performance. Andnot only in St. Louis!

This year, for example, University Citystudents put on a combo/improvisationclinic, teaming with Jamey Aebersold, at theAnaheim MENC Biennial Convention, thenfilled six other concert and demonstrationdates, all intermixed with a ten-day culturalexchange program with Southern Californiahigh schools. And John's home school dis-trict classified this tour as a credit-produc-ing official musical field trip.

For those educators who wish to expandtheir own school jazz activities, here is theaccount from Dr. Kuzmich of how he and hisadministrators accomplished their wide-ranging music education goals.

"Justif ication for curriculum change

rested in meeting several student needs:• To teach improvisation to all interested

students, not merely to the elite of thestage band.

• To form small training groups for thosewith no previous jazz experience.

• To train several rhythm sections, andmore thoroughly than is possible in asingle big band format.

• To provide small performance units asvehicles for improvisation, and asconvenient groups in arranging studies.

• To include in a jazz program studentswho could already improvise, but whosereading skills precluded participation in abig band."We felt that our traditional stage band

approach was not meeting these studentneeds as adequately as a combo/im-provisation approach would. Our first cur-riculum change, then, was the institution ofthe combo/improvisation course. Its im-mediate success and the resulting programexpansion generated yet another need —toget the combos, playing music from the ar-ranging students, out into public view. Weput improvisation clinics into local schoolassemblies; we included combos in themonthly chamber music schedule; we evenorganized jam sessions at pizzarias, withhalf the profits going into our band fund. Andwe started our own annual Jazz Week, withits clinics, its symposia, its combo concerts,and its big-band festival, complete with Art-ists-in-Residence.

"To our administrators, Jazz Week is par-ticularly attractive. The general studentbody of the high schools, plus many non-high-schoolers, flock to all the events, andshow special interest in lectures on jazzhistory and black music. And why not? St.Louis produced a big chunk of ragtime, andcontributes mightily to current jazz throughnative sons Grant Green, Oliver Nelson,Lennie Niehaus, Clark Terry, Ernie Wilkinsand the others. And Pee Wee Russell was aSt. Louis man, too.

"Now, as if to underscore the St. Louisjazz heritage, the Board of Education haspassed a proposal for a matching grant injazz and ethnic studies.

"Student Linda Seifeth's observation,There are more and more kids involved inthe jazz program,' promises to become theunderstatement of the year, for the jazzenrollment has already more than doubled,with adult participation skyrocketing, too.And the signs of growth in quality are all

around. High school junior David Schechterconfidently conducted his very first originalwork before a Jazz Week crowd, despite itsbeing in odd meter. And during the first yearof the new program, the University CityWind Ensemble brought home the top awardfrom the Missouri State Concert Band Con-test, thus bearing out Bob Share's recentcontention that The same high school thathas a good jazz program has also a good(total) music program. One is not really thatfar apart from the other.

"At our school jazz students join classicalensembles to gain technical and readingskills, while non-jazz students join combosto learn relaxation and improvisation.

"Meanwhile, we are giving all our studentsthe opportunity to be creative —our combo/improvisation course and its arranging/com-position counterpart, together with constantperformances, guarantee that opportunity.

"Okay, Stan?"

By all quantitativt! criteria, the high school jazzband movement now appears to he a solid suc-(jusiii. Enrollment figures annually riao by iiie thou-sands; jazz festivals proliferate; teaching jobspecifications mulude stage band expertise whileMasters' and Ph.U.'s theses concerning the highschool stayc bsmd regularly appear 1rom institu-tions of higher Htjy cation. But a iJanow lurks in thistype of bandwsifjon success—the danger of toomuch structurti, So liO* can this now-importantsegment of music wikieytion retain vitality? Highschool educators rniflbt.ai.it! courses in theory andarranging. Yes, but this ijiwticniar curriculum ex-pansion would merely shore up the big band'con-cepi, with its emphasis on the section. One mightsay that further progress In high school jazz shouldnow eome from more attention to the individualperiormer. That means small performance units,with the reauliiriB concentrated musical respon-sibilitifis for (ivory member. Perhaps John Kuzmichand his cooperative associates right now arepioneering a high school combo curriculum just asvalid as Gene Hall's pioneering of the educationalbig band at North Texas State a quarter centuryago.

Six Blues-RootsPianists: A ThoroughGuide to Early BluesPiano Styles with Instruction,Historical Notes, Discography, andComplete Music Transcriptions ofBoogie-woogie, Barrelhouse, andRagtime Solos, by Eric Kriss. OakPublications: New York, 1973. 104pp., $3.95.

While this book's scope may not be as all-inclusive as its subtitle suggests, Six Blues-Roots Pianists nonetheless presents an in-formative and accurate collection of 17early blues piano (and sometimes vocal)transcriptions by six masters of this form:Jimmy Yancey, Champion Jack Dupree, Lit-tle Brother Montgomery, Speckled Red(Rufus Ferryman), Roosevelt Sykes, andOtis Spann. The solos range in difficultyfrom the relatively uncomplicated Yancey'sBugle Call to the moderately challengingTremblin' Blues by Little Brother Montgom-ery. Along the way, the reader is treated tosuch other blues classics as Cow CowBlues and Trouble In Mind.

The catchall adjective "blues-roots" en-

compasses such divergent early pianostyles as Dupree's, on the gospelish MercyOn Me; Montgomery's ragtime mannerismson Tremblin' Blues; and the rollicking eight-to-the-bar feeling of Speckled Red's DirtyDozens. The majority of the tunes, though,share several distinct features: theirmelodies are derived largely from the bluesscale; their harmonic form is some version ofthe traditional eight- or twelve-bar blues;their left hand patterns are usually based onrepetitive boogie bass figures; and theirmelodic rhythms are complex, involving in-tricate triplet, quintuplet and septuple!figures which are perhaps more easily feltthan counted. As Kriss (who is a db recordreviewer) implies, "blues-roots" piano is byno means premeditated academic music (asmuch of ragtime was); its canon consists ofvisceral, earthy pieces performed by self

taught musicians who relied more on intui-tion and inspiration than on formal training.Thus, given the limitations of conventionalnotation, listening to the recordings of thesetunes is essential to grasp their idiomaticflavor. Most of the recordings Kriss citesare currently available.

Kriss' anthology has several additionalfeatures worth mentioning. The author pro-vides detailed, colorful biographies of thesesix blues artists, an annotated bibliographyof books and magazines dealing with bluesand early jazz, a full piano discography, anda useful list of addresses of record com-panies specializing in blues records. Thus,Six Blues-Roots Pianists, like any seriouswork, is valuable not only for the informationit itself contains, but also for the leads itprovides to other detailed sources of infor-mation on its topic. —Jon balleras

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